Does anyone know of a way to implement permissions within a SharePoint list so that items are only visible to the person who created it (or potentially who the list item is "assigned to", as in like a Task) and also their manager (and their managers and so on). So any person can see all items that are either their own or belong to a subordinate?
I hope that makes sense? Any realistic way of doing this?
I'm using SharePoint Server 2010.
Thanks, James.
List Item level permissions could do the trick, but when to set it? You could use a Workflow or an EventReceiver, but what happens when users get a promotion/demotion and they get a new manager?
I suggest using a TimerJob instead, which processes each item the list at a regular interval and sets the permissions by traversing the manager hierarchy from the Assigned To user up to the root by reading their User Profiles as Lori suggests.
You could throw an EventReceiver into the mix to temporarily set permissions on creation of the item just for the individual it was assigned to, so you don't expose the item to the whole organisation while we're waiting for the TimerJob to kick in.
Do consider scalability when you go down this route!
Possibly an easier way than the above would be to do it in an SPItemEventReceiver attached to the list that you want this to happen on. Then using Lori's method you could look up to User Profile Service (or use System.DirectoryServices) to look up the user's manager.
You could use a workflow to set permissions after an item is created. However, you'd have to figure out some way of looking up the user's supervisor and their supervisor and so on. This can be done using a connection to the User Profile Service. But you would need multiple connections. I haven't done that within a workflow, only within a form, but it might be a good place to start.
Here are some ideas... not a complete solution.
For a specific list - used by a team - it is possible OOTB to have
List -> Settings -> Advanced settings
+
Give Team Manager - Manage List permission => they can view / edit all items
+
Give the Manager of the Team Manager - Manage List permission (on that list)
This is how to set permission to individual list item on SharePoint 2013
Select individual list item. Click "Share With" button on "ITEMS" ribbon menu. Click Advanced and assign a user or group.
Hope this helps!
You will need to render the list using either a custom web part or something like a Content Query web part or XsltListViewer, configured to show only the items with appropriate ownership. I think you could also use a search web part to achieve this.
