Limited Access Example - A Members Organisation -Jul 2023

Introduction

In a membership organisation or similar each member may require to keep details of some Downloads confidential. That is in some situations it required to limit access of some Downloads as private to individual members. Also there may be a requirement where a 'supervisor' needs to also add some downloads for a group of members.
This achievable with a combination of Permissions and View Access Levels.
In this example we have used 3 members called MemberA, MemberB and MemberC with a 'supervisor' called MonitorABC. That is A, B and C  denote which member.
Once the basic structures are set up then it is straightforward to add additional members.
See also Controlled Access to Categories and Downloads (opens in a new tab) for other examples.

Basic Setup

There are five parts which need to be setup:
1. User Groups
2. View Access Levels
3. Users
4. Categories
5. Menu Items

User Groups

Personally I find it helpfull to add the trailing '-UG' to each User Group.

In this example they are called memberA-UG, memberB-UG and memberC-UG.  Also create a User Group for the Supervisor which is called here as monitorABC-UG.  The first step is to create a User Group for each member, even if we have not yet added the member as a user. 
So goto the Joomla Control Panel and click on V4 button users, then cliclk on V4 button groups. This opens up the list of User Groups. Click on the V4 button newwhich opens the User Group Details Form. Fill in the details
V4 form user group detailsAnd then use the V4 button save close.

In all cases the parent User Group is Registered
user groups02

View Access Levels

Create the access levels,which are called here memberAview, memberBview and memberCview. And assign the appropriate User Groups.  Also create a view for the Monitor, which is called monitorView in this example.

To create te access level go toV4 button users and click on V4 button access levels and use the V4 button new button. This opens up the Access Level creation form. On the V4 tab level details tab specify the Level Title.
Next select the V4 tab groups with viewing access tab.

The Access levels each have their 'member UG' and also monitorABC as illustrated opposite.
.


.

V4 access level form01viewing levels02V4 user group members

User Groups Settings

We also need to set the jDownloads UG's to have the appropriate settings - do not forget to set the ranking level to say 131, 132 and so on. See User Groups Overview for more information (opens in a separate tab).
On the Joomla control panel select V4 button components then click on V4 button jdownloads then on V4 button user groups settings. This opens up a view of all the User Groups. So click on one of the member groups such as 'memberA-UG' and set the Ranking to say 131 as indicated below.
V4 user group set rankingNext look at tabs V4 tab group settings, V4 tab group creation editting settings and V4 tab group limits in turn and select the appropriate settings. Usually it is onlly the V4 tab group creation editting settings that needs modifying.

Note that the 'monitorABC-UG' has a higher Ranking. This is because the 'monitor' user will belong to all the user groups.  The User Group settings for the Monitor are generaly  more extensive.
V4 user group rankings

Users

Having setup the User Groups and the Access Levels, it is convenient to now create the users.

It is simpler to do this at this juncture as we have already created the user group to which the user will be assigned and so avoids having to go back to the User Management.

The final setup for the Users is shown opposite.
members02

Categories

Each Member is given a top level Category, called in this example as 'memberAcat' and so on.

As noted later it is these top level categories where we will setup the permissions.

Then create appropriate subcategories, which includes the members name or similar 'ID' for various 'topics' and 'reports'.

Note the setting of the view Access Levels.
categories setup02

Permissions




At this stage we need to decide which permission to give each member and those for the 'monitor' user Group.

We only need to set the permission in the Top level Categories as they will cascade down to the the sub categoies and then to the Downloads.

permissions membera01


We also need to set the Permisions for the 'monitor' in each top level category.
permissions monitorABC 01

Menu Items

Each member should have a Single Category menu item that will list their top level category.

They must be set set with the relevant view access level.

Also there could be a List My Downloads menu item that has a Registered view access level.

For this menu item to work then every Download needs to have the 'creator' set as noted below.

menu settings01

Download creator

When the 'monitor' is creating a Download for a member ensure that in the V4 tab publishing options tab that the 'Created by' pulldown is used to select the relevant member as the creator.

If it is the relevant member who is creating the Download then jDownloads automatically sets this option appropriately.

Examples


The List My Downloads view shown is dependant on who is logged in.

View shown opposite is when MemberA is logged in.
pull down list01

This is the view when using the menu item 'memberAcategory' is used.
Member category view01

ColinM April 2022 Modified July 2023

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