What are user permissions?

Permissions determine what a user is authorized to do with the data and the geodatabase. Permissions should be assigned based on the type of work the person does within the organization. Is the user involved with administration of the geodatabase? Does the user need to edit or create data? Would the user only need to query the data?

Users or groups of users are given permissions that affect what they can do in the geodatabase. Some users can only connect to the geodatabase. These are read-only users. Other users can connect to the geodatabase and create datasets. Others can connect to the database and edit datasets but not create or delete them. Some can perform administrative tasks, such as creating backup files or performing a compress operation.

User permissions are set at different levels: the database, geodatabase versions, and datasets in the database.

• Database permissions

  These permissions determine what a user or group of users can do in or to the geodatabase; for example, whether users can create new datasets or administer the geodatabase.

• Geodatabase version permissions

  Permissions can also be set to control user access to a geodatabase version. This is a special type of database permission that is not set through the DBMS. Instead, when a new geodatabase version is created, the creator of the version decides what type of access other users will have to the version. If the version is created as Public, all users can access and modify it. If it is created as a Private version, only the creator of the version can access it. If the version is Protected, other users can view the version but only the creator can modify it.See Creating versions and setting permissions in the "Data management workflows, transactions, and versioning" section of the help for more information on setting permissions to geodatabase versions.

• Dataset permissions

  Dataset permissions determine what a user can do with a particular dataset—can the user edit the dataset or only select data from it? Permission to work with specific datasets is controlled by the user who owns the data (the one who created or imported the data to the geodatabase). Users are granted either read-only (SELECT) permission or read/write (UPDATE, INSERT, and DELETE) permissions. These dataset permissions determine whether or not a user is an editor; if a user has no UPDATE, INSERT, or DELETE permissions on any datasets, he is not an editor. See Granting and revoking privileges on datasets for instructions on setting permissions on datasets.