How To Set The Permission Level To Restrict Users From Modifying The List Views In SharePoint Online

Introduction

SharePoint deals lot with permission and roles. We have the option to split the roles of users for different actions. Likewise, we can also restrict users from modifying the existing view or restrict them from creating a new view, but the same user will still have permission to add/edit/delete items in the list.

SharePoint Contribute Permission

A user with Contribute permission level on a list will have the ability to add/edit/delete items in a list or library. This also gives the user to create/edit a new SharePoint view either as a Public/Private.

Let’s see how to restrict users from manipulating list views by adjusting the permission levels.

Step 1

Go to the Site Settings page of a site. Replace your tenant and site info and use the below URL to go to the site settings:

https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/dev/_layouts/15/settings.aspx

Step 2

In the Site Settings page under “Users and Permissions” section go to “Site Permissions” like below.

How To Set The Permission Level To Restrict Users From Modifying The List Views In SharePoint Online

Step 3

It will take you a page where all the permissions granted for the site through site group or to individual user for the site is listed. Click on the “Permission Levels” in the SharePoint Ribbon in the top, as shown in the below screenshot:

Step 4

Here, you can see all the permission levels exist in the site like Edit, Contribute, Full Control. If you want to modify any of the existing Permission level and remove the permission to modify views, click on the permission you wish to change. If you want to create a new permission level, go to Step 6

Step 5

Scroll to the bottom of the page where you can see a section called “Personal Permissions”. Uncheck the checkbox for “Manage Personal Views” and click the Submit button.

Step 6

If you want to create a new permission level from step 4, click “Add a Permission Level” at the top.

Step 7

Fill the fields Name and Description which makes it easier to use this new permission level. Here, you can find all the permissions that can be given, for our case we just need permission to add/edit/delete list items and restrict the view-related permissions.

Step 8

Under “List Permissions” tick the checkbox for the below options:

Add Items - Add items to lists and add documents to document libraries.
Edit Items - Edit items in lists, edit documents in document libraries and customize Web Part Pages in document libraries.
Delete Items - Delete items from a list and documents from a document library.
View Items - View items in lists and documents in document libraries.
Open Items - View the source of documents with server-side file handlers.

Step 9

Under “Site Permissions” tick the checkbox for the below options, this helps to open lists/libraries.

View Pages - View pages in a Web site.
Open - Allows users to open a Web site, list, or folder in order to access items inside that container.

Step 10

Here is another important step: make sure you deselect the checkbox for “Manage Personal Views” under “Personal Permissions”.

We are all set now, click the “Submit” button at the bottom

Step 11

In SharePoint, if the user is assigned multiple permission levels, the user will get the top permission levels with the highest privileges. So, go to the Permission settings of the list/library, break the permission, and remove all the existing permissions.

Step 12

Now, click the “Grant Permissions” and in the upcoming popup select the Users/SharePoint Group. Then click “Show Options” and in the dropdown “Select a Permission level” and choose the new permission that we created.

That’s it, we are done. Now the selected users will have permission to add/edit/delete items with restricted view permission.

Conclusion

I hope this article helps you to get understand list level permission to restrict users from modifying the views. If you have any questions/issues about this article, please let me know in the comments.