SharePoint permission list - contribute minus ability to edit home page

Question

Need: SharePoint permission list - contribute minus the ability to edit page contents (insert/delete new webparts). Also users in this group should be able to add/delete/update documents, create folders, add calender events.

What I have tried so far :

Copied contribute and created a custom permission level (custom sales)

List Permissions (checked items)

• Manage lists
• Add Items
• Edit Items
• View Items
• Create Alerts

Site Permissions ( checked items)

• View Pages
• Open

Personal Permissions nothing is checked

Still, users in this groups can edit the landing page on the Sales sub-site

So

• Contoso site collection ( contoso visitors -- restricted read)
• Sales Site ( contoso visitors , Sales_custom contribute)

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Put the home page into a document library, break permission inheritance for just that page and set it to read only for members who otherwise have contribute on the rest of the site.

Answer 2

I ran into similar issues in that when a user has Contribute permissions at a site level, it gives them all sorts of power in some of the oddest places. For me the fix was simple... At the top site level, edit the permissions for each group (not the owner) to remove the Contribute level (thus making them read only to the entire site).

Then you go into each list that you want them to be able to add\edit and turn off Inher. and add back the "Contribute" level just for that list.

This worked great in SP 2010 however in 2013 it does create a bug in a BLOG post where even though the user can edit a post.. the edit menu does not show.

Answer 3

What am I doing wrong?

You're using the wrong approach. Instead of creating a new permission level for the whole site, what you're actually trying to accomplish (preventing people from editing specific content) should be accomplished by customizing that content's permission settings.

You don't need to create a whole new library, nor create and set a new home page, as teylyn's answer suggests. (While that approach may also work, it's a much more complicated solution than you need.)

Just go to your existing home page, then in the ribbon's Page menu, in the Manage group, click Page Permissions. On the Page Permissions page, click Stop Inheriting Permissions. Then, for each group that has Contribute permissions at the site level (and that you don't want to be able to edit the home page), check the box next to that group and Edit Permissions† as needed.

Or, if you actually want to prevent editing on all pages (the question title implies only home page), instead of using the Page Permissions button in the Manage group, use the Library Permissions button in the Page Library group.

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†Or Remove Permissions, if all members of that group already have Read permissions through membership in another group, e.g., if an "Everyone" group has Read access to the site collection, you can remove the "Contoso Visitors" Contribute permission from the page and leave the "Everyone" Read permission in place.