Enable access for end users (Windows SharePoint Services)

Applies To: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Topic Last Modified: 2009-07-24

In this article:

• Add site collection administrators

• Add site owners or other users

After you create your site collection and populate it with content, you are ready to grant access to end users. This article helps you configure administrative and user permissions for a site collection. Note that you can also configure permissions for the following securable objects within a site collection: site, list, library, folder, document, or item. For more information about assigning permissions for different securable objects within a site collection, see Plan site security (Windows SharePoint Services).

In most cases, these actions are not performed by farm administrators, but are performed by site collection administrators or site owners. Moreover, these steps are performed in the site collection itself, not in Central Administration. (However, you can add site collection administrators by using Central Administration and by using the Site Settings page in the site collection.) Nonetheless, this information is presented in the Deployment Guide because it is truly the final stage of deployment — the stage when the site collection is made available for end users.

This article does not cover how to enable anonymous access. When you create a Web application, you decide whether to allow anonymous access for site collections on that Web application. For more information about anonymous access, see the following resources:

• Plan environment-specific security (Windows SharePoint Services)

• Plan authentication settings for Web applications (Windows SharePoint Services)

• Choose which security groups to use (Windows SharePoint Services)

• "Enable anonymous access" in the Central Administration Help system.

Add site collection administrators

When you created the site collection, you were required to supply the user name for at least one site collection administrator. If the user name you supplied was not that for the actual administrator for the site collection — for example, if you did not know who was going to be actual administrator and you used your own user name — or if you need to change or add a user name for a site collection administrator, you can do so by using the following procedure.

Add a site collection administrator

1. In Central Administration, on the top link bar, click Application Management.

2. On the Application Management page, in the SharePoint Site Management section, click Site collection administrators.

3. If the selected site is not the site for which you want to manage administrators, on the Site Collection Administrators page, on the Site Collection menu in the Site Collection section, click Change Site Collection.

   • In the Select Site Collection dialog box, select the site for which you want to manage administrators.

   • Click OK.

4. In either the Primary site collection administrator box or the Secondary site collection administrator box, enter the user name of the user to whom you want to assign that role.

5. Click OK.

Add site owners or other users

If you have not yet set up any groups for this site or site collection, you must set up groups before you can add any users to groups. (You can also add users individually, without setting up groups, but if you want to manage users efficiently, we recommend that you use groups.) To specify which group to assign to site visitors, site members, site owners, or other groups, use the following procedure. This procedure helps you set up the default groups, but you can also create additional groups.

Set up Members, Visitors, and Owners groups for a site

1. On the site home page, on the Site Actions menu, click Site Settings.

2. On the Site Settings page, click People And Groups.

3. On the People and Groups page, on the Quick Launch, click Groups.

4. On the People and Groups: All Groups page, on the Settings menu, click Set Up Groups.

5. On the Set Up Groups for this Site page, select a group for each set of users that you want to change. Alternatively, select Create a new group to assign a custom group to a set of users.

After you have configured groups for the site, you can add users and grant them permissions by using the following procedure.

Add users to groups

1. On the site home page, on the Site Actions menu, click Site Settings.

2. On the Site Settings page, click People And Groups.

3. On the People and Groups page, on the Quick Launch, click Groups.

4. Click the name of the group to which you want to add users.

5. On the People and Groups: Group name page, on the New menu, click Add Users.

6. On the Add Users page, type the account names that you want to add, or browse to find users from Active Directory directory service.

7. In the Give Permission section, be sure that Add users to a SharePoint group is selected and that the correct group is displayed.

   Note

   In rare cases, you might want to give individual permissions to a user by clicking Give users permission directly. However, assigning individual permissions to many users can quickly become difficult and time-consuming to manage. We recommend that you use groups as much as possible to efficiently manage site access.

8. Click OK.

For more information about managing users and groups, see "Manage SharePoint groups" in the Help system for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

Download this book

This topic is included in the following downloadable book for easier reading and printing:

• Deployment for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 technology

See the full list of available books at Downloadable books for Windows SharePoint Services.