Recently there are many discussions among our existing clients and partners about possibility extending granularity of the permission in Document’s folder within Claromentis.

This is our current standard permission where having “Edit” rights to a folder means you simply have rights to add and edit both documents and sub folders.

Some of our clients think that current “edit” permission is not flexible enough, they would like to split simple “edit” into sub-folders and documents.

After digging into our enhancement request database, I discovered that this is just one of the many request around the same subject.
Some says that having permission to view content of the folder should be different from permission to view folder’s properties and audit of the folder (usage statistics).

Others want to have flexibility where not all users with edit permission can run workflow on the same folder.

For a second I thought, “Hey this is getting ridiculous!”  Let’s mock-it up and see what happen if we accommodate all of them:

Can you see something is definitely not right, usability has been compromised to accommodate more granular permission, causing complexity to perform simple task which in most cases we just want simple “Edit”.

This issue raise a philosophical question, “Are we all so stupid so everything has to be over protective?” What’s wrong with a low-tech solution called “discipline”.

My niece is going to celebrate her 1 years old birthday next week. She starts cruising, walking short distances from object to object, she falls often and has many bumps and bruises, but she learns very quickly.

Aren’t we always told that allowing one or two bumps is a good thing?

Solutions Design, document management, fun, humor, intranet software discussions, user interface