Media Management: Permissions Inheritance Breakdown

Folder Inheritance Video Tutorial

User Permissions Inheritance Video Tutorial 

How does a folder inheritance break?

The permissions inheritance from one folder to its subfolders are broken when additional users and/or groups are added to the subfolders and/or files of a parent folder (which we call "broken inheritance").  Therefore, if you customized permissions on the subfolder or file levels and later make changes to the parent folder permissions, please make sure you check the subfolders and files as well.  

If you did not do any permissions customization on a sub-folder or file level, the permissions will trickle down to every sub-folder and file from the parent folder.

How do I know if the folder inheritance is broken?

There are two ways to tell if the folder inheritance is broken.

1. First, if you make changes to the User Access submenu for a parent folder which has files and/or subfolders within it, the prompt below will appear asking if you would like to apply the change to all of the contained content or omit those items with unique permissions. Keep in mind this prompt will only appear if the subfolders and/or files have permissions unique to that of the parent folder. This reduces the risk of admins making changes higher up in the hierarchy and accidentally affecting sensitive items downstream.
2. Secondly, if you add the Inheritance column from the column sector in the Media Management screen, an indicator will appear for the files and/or folders that have a broken inheritance.

What do we recommend to help remedy this? 

1. Create a group for each group of users you plan to give access to each folder. For example, you may create a group for each show and even each season within each show. You should create an all access group for your network executives and add that group to the parent folder.
2. Once your groups are created, add the groups to the root folder for either a show or department BEFORE creating and assigning permissions to its subfolders. This will ensure these groups will have access to all subfolders created within that root folder and you can update those groups at any time without affecting the initial folder inheritance.