How to Create Project Based Permissions in Tableau

As an administrator, you may need to organize a collection of workbooks and specify which users can access these workbooks and to what extent. To organize your workbooks, you can create projects, which are collections of related workbooks. Then you can set permissions on each project to give the same access level to all workbooks in the project.

Note: This topic applies to 8.x versions Tableau Server. For details on how to create project-based permissions in later versions of Tableau Server, see Create Project-Based Permissions.

Prepare for creating project-based permissions

Before you begin the process of creating projects and project-based permissions, Tableau recommends that you outline or document all of the projects and permission levels that you want users to have in each project prior to implementation in Tableau Server. This exercise will help you organize the various permissions you want to implement and may help you identify any user or permission gaps in your solution.
You should also be familiar with the following topics in the Tableau Server Help:

Create projects and user groups

Step 1

Sign in to Tableau Server with your administrator username and password.

Step 2

Select the Admin tab, and on the Admin page select Projects.
For Tableau Server 7.0 and earlier, under Administration, select Projects.

Step 3

Click Add (7.0 and earlier Add Project) and create a new project.

Step 4

On the Admin tab, select Groups (7.0 and earlier, under Administration, select Groups).

Step 5

Click New (7.0 and earlier, click Add New Group in the bottom-left corner).
Here you can create groups that correspond to each project and access level. For example, for a project that allows users only to access the views, you might use a name similar to Project1_Viewer. For a project that allows interaction with the views, Project1_Interactor.

Step 6

On the Admin tab, select Users (7.0 and earlier, under Administration, select Users).

Step 7

Select one or more users from the list, click the Group + link located above the list, and then select a group you created earlier to add the users.
Repeat this step to add users to other groups.

Assign permissions at the project level

After you set up your projects and user groups, you can start assigning permissions. Repeat these steps for each project.

Step 1

On the Admin tab, select Projects (7.0 and earlier, under Administration, select Projects).

Step 2

Select the project and then click the Permissions link.

Step 3

Click the Edit link for the group on which you want to set permissions.

Step 4

In Add / Edit Permissions window, confirm that the group you want is selected on the left.
In the Role drop-down list, select the default access level you want to assign to the group, and click Submit. Alternatively, you can customize permissions on individual tasks. For information about each role, see Set Permissions for a Project.
Note: If workbooks have been published to a particular project already, click the Assign Permissions to Contents link to apply the new permissions to the existing published content. However, use this setting with caution if you have set explicit permissions at the workbook or view level. For more information, see the topic Who Can Edit and Save Views.

Step 5

Select the Check user permissions drop-down list to verify sample users for each project have the desired permissions.
Now when you publish workbooks to the project, the permissions will be reflected accordingly.
Alternate Search Terms:projects, security, workbook permissions, group permissions, special permissions