There are a few different ways of setting permissions on an actual list within Sharepoint and on the items within it. The list permissions can be inherited from the site or they can be stand alone permissions. You can do the same thing with each item within the list – either inherit from the list settings or set the permissions by hand. Setting permissions by hand is something that I can’t even think of a situation in which it would be a good idea.
There is, however, a third option. On most Sharepoint lists, you can set the item-level permissions. These are special permissions found under the list settings and advanced, allowing for users to only be able to read their own items or only edit their own items. These settings are applicable to all items within the list – and you don’t have to do it by hand!
Item-level permissions are incredibly useful. Think of, for example, a guest book. A user has to have rights to create an item and potentially to edit their own item… but you certainly don’t want them editing other peoples’ items. The item-level permissions are great for this.
However. And this is a big however. The possibility for item-level permissions is always available in the object model of the library – which means it’s always there. However, as explained on PointBridge Blogs, Microsoft has chosen to hide the UI option for document libraries and issues lists. Nobody seems to know why it is, but the fact is: you cannot set item-level permissions on document libraries or issue lists from the UI.
The author of the blog has written a tool that can be run on the actual server to change the permissions via a command line script. I didn’t actually test it, though there appear to be good
There’s a second however, too. These permissions are cool and useful. But. They are not true permissions. It’s more of a pseudo view which simply changes things for certain users. You can get around it by using Explorer view, for example. Let me reiterate that: even if a user has no rights to read other peoples’ documents via item-level permissions, if they open the list in Explorer view, they will be able to read all documents that they have normal rights (read: list level rights) to. This is something that you definitely want to keep in mind.
It’s interesting and useful functionality. Just keep in mind that it’s not all smooth sailing with item-level permissions.
