Permissions Issue after Transition to Next Gen Documents
CompletedHey,
We recently transitioned to next gen documents for our monthly reporting. We have many users that collaborate monthly to populate the narrative sections of our MD&A. Each user has viewer access to the whole document, and then Editor access to their specific sections that they need to update. This month, all of these users had issues when logging in and accessing their sections.
When they go to their section, they see this blue banner saying "View Only. To request edit access, please contact the document owner(s)"
Everyone's now messaging me about this as they assume their editor access has been changed to Viewer. When I go into the permissions, however, I see that they have editor access and there's a little asterisk saying that "Section permissions differ from CompoundDocument"...
I'm assuming it means there's a difference between their permissions for the whole document compared to that specific section. This is what I want though, they should only have access to edit their section.
When I ask if they can edit, they try and sure enough are able to edit their section despite the banner at the top saying they can't.
Seems to be a glitch here - is there something that I need to do in the Permissions, or is it something that you're working to fix in the back end?
Thanks,
Dan
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Official comment
Hi all!
Wanted to let you know some good news. A recent release to the Workiva platform included a fix to address this issue. Now, end users will only see the banner on sections they truly do not have edit access to. For any section they have Editor or higher, the previously mentioned blue banner will not show.
Please let us know if you continue to have any issues, or you or your team members have additional feedback. Thanks for your patience throughout out process. Cheers!
I ran into this same problem and had to send an email. That banner is not accurate. Just to be sure I went back in and double checked all the permissions in the narratives. I admit it is confusing to them. I've had to communicate the problem several times to users and I've also reported an issue to Workiva.
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I haven't used next gen documents much yet, but I had maybe a similar problem with spreadsheets. On a document level permission do they have view only? They might need editor access on a document level, then specific access on each section. The question is whether or not the document level or the section level permissions take precedence. I think it's the section level that overrides the document. So if they had editor for the document but view only for the section, they can't edit that section. Does that make sense?
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I think you're right, the section level permissions takes precedence. I've set it up so that users have View Only access to the whole document, and then Editor access to only their sections that they update monthly.
The error is likely coming up because the section permissions is different than the document permissions but this is how it should work right?
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This is in a spreadsheet permissions, but maybe a similar properties. In this case I want accounting to be able to edit the sign-off tab, view only the dates tab and not see the rest of the tabs. I had to set the document level (first row) to edit, so they could edit the one tab that I want them to.
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Howdy all!
Good catch here. I can confirm that you are correct, it would be sufficient for your users to have Viewer access at the top level, but then have Editor rights or No Access in particular sections. In that case, that error message does seem to be incorrect and particularly confusing, so thank for reporting Donna White. I'll follow up with them on this to see where we are at on progress.
Nice work there @..., and great example!
Let me know if there are any questions or you need anything else. Cheers!0
Hey,
Just following up on this issue as I'm getting the same questions from month end contributors. It doesn't appear that this has been fixed yet.
Thanks,
Dan
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Hi Dan,
Thanks for the follow-up. Indeed, as of yet this is not fixed. I've brought this up to our Product Team to have another look at it. I made sure too to connect your ticket request with the team as well. I'll let you know when I have some more news to share, or have any questions. Thanks for your patience and chat with you soon. Best!
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Have there been any updates yet, we are experiencing the same issue and it is causing a lot of extra emails and questions from people linking they don't have access.
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Hi Nicole,
I don't have any new updates except that it continues to be investigated by our Product Team. As you might have also seen, I've connected your request for this with the team and shared your input regarding your fellow users' experiences as well. We'll keep you updated on this post, or here: https://support.workiva.com/hc/en-us/requests. Thanks again and chat soon.
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Hi Mike,
Just wanted to jump on here to reiterate the need for this fix. We have received lots of questions from users confused by the banner saying they have view only access when they actually have editor access.
Thanks for keeping us updated on the progress.
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Hi Danielle Smith!
I've got you connected to this request on our end and you can use the same link to follow along here: https://support.workiva.com/hc/en-us/requests.
A bit of an update on progress here. Based on all your excellent feedback, our Product Team has prioritized this and we anticipate having this remedied with in the next month. Thanks again all for your input and patience throughout. I'll let you know just as soon as its fully resolved. Cheers!
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