Edit Permission Inheritance Confluence app

Edit Permission Inheritance Confluence app

This is the documentation for the Server and Data Center version. In case you are using the cloud version please have a look here.

Scope

This Wiki page is the primary user documentation for the Edit Permission Inheritance app for Confluence. The app allows to inherit the edit permissions defined on a page down to all of its child pages.

The app does not introduce an additional permission level. It basically copies the edit permissions to all child pages and takes care of added pages.

General stuff

Compatibility

The app is compatible with Confluence Server 6.0.1 upwards.

How to get it?

Please refer to the Marketplace listing.

Legal stuff

How to use the app

Defining your first edit permission inheritance

You just have to follow those steps:

Navigate to the parent which shall be the starting point of your "edit permission inheritance".
Open the "Restrictions" dialog by clicking on the lock-symbol.
Define the edit permission as needed.
Turn on "Edit permission inheritance" at the bottom of the dialog.
Select additional options if needed (for details refer to the next section).
Click "Apply".

The edit permission inheritance options

Option	Behavior
None	When you hit the apply button all child pages get the same edit permissions defined in the dialog. Additional edit permissions* are kept. Users can create child pages as usual.
Remove additional edit permissions during inheritance	Same as "None" but additional edit permissions(1) on child pages are removed. Example: You defined an edit permission inheritance on page 1. All childs including 1.1 get the same edit permissions - let’s say for users A and B. Some day a user with the corresponding permissions adds an edit permission for C on 1.1. Now users A, B and C can edit page 1.1. Later a user adds an edit permission for user D to page 1 which starts another inheritance run. In case “Remove additional edit permissions during inheritance” is NOT selected page 1.1 can then be edited by A,B, C and D. In case the option is set the edit permission for C on 1.1 is removed during the inheritance.
Don't allow to add pages if no edit permissions	Same as "None" but users can't create pages unless they have an edit permission on the parent page.
Always grant an edit permission to the creator of the page	Same as "None" but the creator of a page will always get an additional edit permission.
Only apply edit permission changes not the whole set	Same as "None" but only the edit permission changes done here are inherited not the whole set. This might be useful in case you changed the permissions of child pages. Example: You defined an edit permission inheritance on page 1. All childs including 1.1 get the same edit permissions - let’s say for users A and B. Some day a user with the corresponding permissions removes the edit permission for B on 1.1. Later a user adds an edit permission for user C to page 1 which starts another inheritance run. In case “Only apply edit permission changes not the whole set” is NOT selected page 1.1 can then be edited by A,B and C - user B is added again. In case the option is set the only C (as this is the only change) is added to the child pages. 1.1 can therefore be edited by A and C but not B.

(1) "additional edit permission" means an explicitly defined edit permission here.

Understanding the way the app works

What the app does:

When you click "Apply" in the "Restrictions" dialog and you have defined an "edit permission Inheritance" the app adopts all edit permission on child pages. The options selected modify the way the app does this.
When pages are added to the branch covered by an "edit permission inheritance" their edit permission set is modified to match the inheritance. Please note that the app does not lock out the creator this new page from his/her own page unless "Don't allow to add pages if no edit permissions" is set. The creator of the added page gets an additional edit permission.
When pages are moved into a branch covered by an "edit permission inheritance" their edit permission set is modified to match the inheritance.
The app uses the closest active "edit permission inheritance". This allows you to define additional "edit permission inheritances" below other ones.

What the app does not:

The app does not hinder you from changing the edit permission on child pages. However when you re-apply the "edit permission inheritance" your changes might be lost depending on the selected options.

Some use cases

Use case	How to achieve it
I want to inherit an edit permission for the whole space.	Navigate to the space's homepage and apply the "edit permission inheritance" there. Remark: this only works in case all pages are a child of the home page.
I have defined a space wide inheritance but I want to exclude a branch.	Navigate to the parent page of the branch you want to exclude and apply the modified "edit permission inheritance" here. Also an empty set of edit permissions (everybody can edit) can be inherited.
I want to remove edit permissions from a whole branch so that everybody can edit.	Navigate to the parent page of the branch. Set the page to "no limitations", activate "edit permission inheritance" and click "Apply". After that you may remove the "edit permission inheritance" again by switching the toggle.

We will amend this list continuously.

Trouble-shooting

Frequent support cases

Issue	Explanation
The inherited permissions are not shown right away.	The application of inherited permissions starts with a delay. Additionally for a big set of child pages it takes a while to apply the edit permissions (e.g. 15 seconds for 1000 pages)
The edit permission set is different from what I defined on the parent page.	The app does not hinder users with the appropriate permission to define edit permissions on each page individually. The app only changes the edit permission set of child pages during initial application and any subsequent change on the parent page (the page holding the "edit permission inheritance").
How to migrate from Server / Data Center to Cloud?	Please follow the migration guide.

Known limitation

The app has the following known limitations:

You can't define an "edit permission inheritance" on a draft page.
Edit permission inheritance only work for pages not blogposts.
The app has the ability to block page creations on certain branches depending on the selected options. However users may circumvent this by creating the page somewhere else and moving it in. However they might loose the permission to edit them there.
If you change edit permissions of a page holding an "edit inheritance permission" outside the UI (e.g. by using a REST call) the changes will not inherit to the child pages. We will provide a convenient REST endpoint for triggering an update in a future version.

Getting support

Please use out ticketing system to create a support request regardless whether you found a bug or have a feature request. Existing bugs or feature requests are here.