Selective Access - Anaplan Technical Documentation

Selective Access enables workspace administrators to restrict access to lists and list items on a user-by-user basis.

Enable Selective Access

You can select the Selective Access checkbox for a list in General Lists to enable Selective Access.

A model open to General Lists displays three lists: Regions, Countries, and Employees. In the column for Selective Access, the checkbox for Regions is selected and displays a checkmark

When you enable Selective Access for a list:

A Read column and a Write column display in the Users tab of the Users pane.
A Read column and a Write column display in the Grid View of the list.

Read access enables users to view, but not amend, the list or list item data.

Write access enables users to both view and amend the list or list item data.

Once you enable Selective Access, workspace administrators can still open the list to view and amend list items, but other users cannot read or write to the list until you assign them read or write access.

If you enable Selective Access for a child list, you automatically enable Selective Access for all the parent lists of the list.

If you enable Selective Access for a parent list, this does not automatically enable Selective Access for its child lists. However, the child lists inherit the access settings from the parent list. You must enable Selective Access for the child list if you want more granular control of access to the child list. For example, if you want to assign write access to an item on the child list when the user only has read access to the parent.

To control access to cell data in modules and dashboard grids, use Dynamic Cell Access.

Note: Whether Selective Access is preserved in model-to-model imports depends on your access rights in both the source and target model and your status as a workspace administrator.

Assign and remove Selective Access

Once you enable Selective Access for a list, you can assign Selective Access for list items to individual users.

In Users, Read and Write columns display for the lists to which you've enabled selective access. You can then select list items in the columns to assign access to users.

In Grid View for the list, Read and Write columns display against rows for the list items, and you can select users to have access to each list item.

When you assign Selective Access to a child list, or its list items, you do not automatically assign access to the parent list.

When you assign Selective Access to a parent list, this grants access to any child lists. If a user's access to a child list is equal to or less than their access to the parent list, their access no longer displays in the child list's Read and Write columns. This is because the access you grant to the parent list includes access to the child list.

However, if the child list has greater access than the parent list, this access still displays against the child list or list item. That is, if the user has write access to the child list, and you assign the user read access to the parent list, any write access assigned to the child list still displays.

Example

Say you have an Employees list with a parent list, Countries. In the Users pane, you assign a user, Patrice Planner, write access to one employee on the child list, Kiran Contributor, and read access to a different employee, Sylvia Sales.

	First name	Last Name	Model Role	Countries Write	Countries Read	Employees Write	Employees Read
patrice.planner@fjordworkspace.com	Patrice	Planner	Workforce Planner			Kiran Contributor	Sylvia Sales

Then give Patrice read access to the country list where both employees work. Select the country, France, in the Countries Read column. Sylvia Sales no longer displays in the Employees Read column, as the read permission for the parent list includes access to this list item. Kiran Contributor still displays in the Employees Write column, as the write access to this list item is greater than the read access to France.

	First name	Last Name	Model Role	Countries Write	Countries Read	Employees Write	Employees Read
patrice.planner@fjordworkspace.com	Patrice	Planner	Workforce Planner		France	Kiran Contributor

Any module that includes the Employees list as a dimension now displays France for Patrice as a summary, and the individual employees continue to display as list items.

Note: If you remove access to a parent, you also remove any access the user had to child lists that is equal to or less than the access to the parent. In this example, you remove access to read data for Sylvia Sales when you remove access to France, but write access to Kiran Contributor remains.

These rules also apply for other levels in a parent hierarchy. For example, you can grant access to Regions when Regions is the parent to Countries. If Countries is the parent to Employees, you also grant access to all items on the Employees list.

Selective Access for list orphans

When you create a list without a parent hierarchy, we call the list items on that list orphans.

You can enable Selective Access for a user to a parent list and then deselect it as the parent for a child list. When you do this, list items of the child list become orphans and you lose any access settings from the parent. This can happen as the result of an import process as well as manually deselecting the parent.

To preserve the Selective Access for list items, assign access to each orphan separately. Alternatively, import a parent to the list and apply the access to the parent.