Document Level Security in SharePoint for Contributor-level Users

Most organizations need to be able to restrict access to individual documents, so that they are only visible to a limited number of users. Organizations looking to use Microsoft SharePoint 2007 to manage their documents are pleased to hear that SharePoint 2007 supports document-level security within its document libraries and folders, but frustrated when they realise that out-of-the-box SharePoint only makes document-level security available to users with Design or Administrator roles.

WISDOM Enhanced Document Level Security from MacroView provides a good way of overcoming this limitation in standard SharePoint 2007. WISDOM Enhanced Document Level Security is a SharePoint add-on that enables Contributor-level users to restrict access to individual documents within a document library.

With WISDOM Enhanced Document Level Security, setting document-level security is a simple matter of clicking a Yes/No metadata column as the document is being saved. WISDOM will also check if another custom metadata column called ‘Author’ is present in the destination document library and will ensure that the current user and any nominated Author have full control over the saved document. The only other users able to see and access the document will be SharePoint Administrators. This approach is very convenient in situations where a Secretary, Assistant or other user is saving the document on behalf of a senior member of staff.

WISDOM Enhanced Document Level Security installs as a MOSS Feature, which can be activated on individual SharePoint Sites. Once activated, this feature automatically adds a ‘Secure Document’ Yes/No metadata column to all document libraries within the site. As a result WISDOM Enhanced Document Level Security is easy to deploy, as well as easy to use.

WISDOM Enhanced Document Level Security is part of MacroView’s WISDOM DMF Professional Series, which also provides a range of other functionality that extends SharePoint so that matches the capability of traditional DM systems. This includes an intuitive tree-view display of the SharePoint environment, drag-and-drop to upload and move files, unique document numbering, client-matter centric operation and excellent support for profiling (metadata capture).