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I have two questions on the Box waterfall permissions set-up:

  1. Users with limited access should still be able to see the tree structure

If I create a folder with subfolders, and only allow certain user categories access to certain subfolders, then these user categories will see the subfolder on their all files page (but not the main folder). I would like however that the tree structure “upstream” is visible to everyone.

For example: Main folder “HR”, with subfolder 1 “payroll” and subfolder 2 “firm activities”. Everyone will have access to subfolder 2 “firm activities”, but only the group management will also have access to subfolder 1 “payroll”. In this example, I would like everyone to be able to see that “firm activities” is a subfolder to “HR”, but not that there exists a subfolder 1 “payroll”. Is this possible? 

  1. Restrict content creation 

I would like users to be able to create new folders as of a certain level in the tree structure. For example, users cannot create new folders in main folders and subfolders (first two levels), but only as of the third level. Is this possible?

@Karel Delvoo  thanks for the question, there are a couple of threads on this on http://support.box.com, do you want to try there?  Also here an article on waterfall permissions

Dear Thomas, 

No, I did not find the answer to my questions in these threads, nor in the article on waterfall permissions. From these threads and article, I take it that what I am asking for is not possible.

For #2, yes.  Create two groups - lets call them Editor Group and Viewer Group.  Put the same people in each group.  Then give Viewer group access to the root level.  Then go into your Groups area and add the Editor group to the third level folder using the Groups panel.  This will give them editor rights from Level 3 downward and supersede the Viewer rights without amending their viewer rights at Levels 1 and 2.

 

For #1, this is not a native possibility.  However, again we have a workaround using Bookmark links to accomplish the “visual” element of this.  So if I create a folder called HR and then give everyone view access they would see all of the “bookmark” folder aliases beneath it.  So visually it would look like you want.  Those bookmark aliases, however, would exist in a separate HR directory where permissions would be applied accordingly.  So when I logged into my All Files I would see HR (cool) and then open HR and see Payroll (cool) and then when I opened payroll it would bounce me to the restricted area assuming I had permissions.  We do this a lot when we want people to see the entire structure but only be able to access specific areas.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also add that we use Lucidchart to do this a lot too.  Lucidchart (and I think most cloud canvas tools do this) allow you to create beautiful icon hierarchy structures and then publish them as a web page.  it ALSO allows you to create invisible hyperlink layers atop any object so you can create a beautiful visual map in Lucidchart with your icons to represent your folder hierarchy, place invisible hyperlinks to the actual folders on top of each folder icon, publish the lucidchart and then people can use that to navigate.  Of course, once they are in Box they will lose the Lucidchart visuals but it does let them see a big mapping of the entirety of what you want them to see.  Just visual tricks but wanted to mention that too.

 

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