Joomla · Joomla Setup

Joomla 1.6 – Grant Admin Access to Article Manager for Certain Users

A big change in Joomla 1.6 from Joomla 1.5 is the ability to manage permissions to all objects in your Joomla 1.6.  With a combination of User Groups and Access Control Lists (ACL) you will be able to manage permissions to Components, modules, articles, login, viewing, editing, modifying or anything.  Basically any function can be regulated with an ACL and user groups.    You, as an Administrator is automatically assigned to the “Super Users” group which has access to create, edit, modify, view, delete everything on the website.    If you have users logging into your website, it’s important to understand the ACL concept because granting the wrong access to a group can be detrimental to your website.  So having said that Joomla 1.6 already has user groups and ACL frameworks built in with the standard read, write, delete and login permissions.  If you want to create your own user group with permissions it can be a little tricky but doable.  Hey, if you don’t try how will you learn right?

So if you have a blog on your Joomla 1.6 website and you have a group of friends or “Bloggers” to add blog posts to your website you want them to be able to log in to your site and add documents.  You don’t want to them to have access to any other part of your website though, so how will you go about doing that?  Below I will tell you how to grant administrator access to the Article Manager only for your “Bloggers”.

There are 5 things you have to do:

After you login to your Joomla 1.6 Administrator backend.

1.  Create a new User Group

  • Click on ‘Users’, ‘Groups’, ‘Add New Group’
  • Set Group Title = “Bloggers”
  • Set Group Parent = “Public”

2.  Assign Users to the Group – “Bloggers”

  • Click on ‘Users’, ‘User Manager
  • Click on the user you want to add to the group
  • Scroll down to the section “Assign User Groups”
  • Use the checkbox to select “Bloggers”.
  • Save.
  • Repeat the above steps for other users you want to assign to this group.

3.  Change Viewing Access Level

  • Click on ‘Users’, ‘Access Levels’
  • Click on ‘Special’
  • Use the checkbox to select “Bloggers” group

4.  Grant Admin Login.

  • Click on ‘Site’, ‘Global Configuration’
  • Go to the ‘Permissions’ tab
  • Use the twistie blue arrow to show all the permission settings for the “Bloggers” group
  • Set Admin Login = “Allowed”

5.  Grant Admin Access to Article Manager for the Group.

  • Click on ‘Content’, ‘Article Manager’,  Click on the ‘Options’ button on the right
  • Change to the ‘Permissions’ tab
  • Use the twistie arrow to see all the actions under the “Bloggers” group
  • Set Create = “Allowed”
  • Set Delete = “Allowed”
  • Set Edit = “Allowed”
  • Set Edit State = “Allowed”

After you save all those options Blogger users should have administrator access to the article manager.   You can even go down to a more granular level and control the ACL for the “Bloggers” group to only access a certain article category.    Give it a try and let me know if you have any questions.

13 thoughts on “Joomla 1.6 – Grant Admin Access to Article Manager for Certain Users

  1. Hi, thanks for your post. I now have a group “Bloggers”. Only how do I now restrict them to only 1 category? Can that be done?

    1. Hi Sander,
      Yes, you can restrict them to only 1 category. I don’t have access to my computer right now, but I will definitely help you when I’m back from my trip next week.
      Sorry for the wait… In the meantime you can take a look at the category manager and go into the selected category. At the bottom there should be a list of groups with their permissions and access levels. You can play around with the settings there until I get back and give you more detailed steps on how to do it.
      Thanks for your patience,
      Elaine

  2. Thanks, and have a good trip.

    What I did is the following. Your step 5: I did not change those settings, I only changed Admin to Allowed. And then in Category Manager changed all permissions for Blogger to Allowed. It does work, kind of. When I do NOT change to Allowed in Category Manager and I log in as a user from Blogger, I do get to see all the articles. Only they can’t be selected or do anything with it. So that is OK, but it would be nicer if those articles are just not shown in the admin.
    My goal is to have 10 blogger groups and 10 categories and each blogger group can only do stuff in 1 category (their own category).

    Looking forward to your solution.

  3. Hi
    Thanks for posting this information, i too am facing the same issue. I need to allow each group of users to only create articles and delete articles in their own categories. Could you please post here the solution you mentioned?
    I have about the same amount of groups and categories, 10.

  4. This is great info to share! I am in the same situatoin as others who have read this thread. Has anyone come up with a solution? We’ve managed to get the permissions for our categories and front-end editors working, but they can only edit articles when they are displayed individually on a page. Displaying content in a Joomla category blog layout doesn’t seem to pick up on the ACL’s and does not provide the edit option. Only when we choose to display a single article on a page do we get the edit option/icon in the upper right of the page.

  5. I am in the same boat. I am putting together a Cub Scout site and I’d like to give access to the Den Leaders to post content but I don’t want them to have access to make changes anywhere else but to the category they are assigned. I am looking forward to reading your solution.

  6. Hello,
    Thanks for the information. I am also looking for the same solution as Sander and Carla. Looking forward for a reply from you.

  7. First off, great article. Was hoping it would have the solution that everybody else is looking for as well, but it was quite useful as in any case.

    I am creating an online shop site and want to have all the franchises be able to log in and post their specials, events and blog posts on their own pages and obviously they must only be able to aceess their categories (events, specials and blog) in the article subbmission form.

    Cant wait to see what the solution that you come up with.
    The only way I can think of doing it (in my case) is if you would create a new group for each franchise and then you can allow author access to a category for that group and deny author access to all the other groups to the category. Then can do the same for all the other categories / groups.

    It possibly might work as well, as you can then create users in each group so all the owners / managers for each franchise could log in and edit articles submit articles only in certain categories.

    I will try it and let everyone know if it works. Only problem I see is if you have so many groups to create.
    Also if someone else has tried it, let us know if it works.

    regards
    Will

  8. I can’t get this to work. When I login to the backend it shows nothing but site and help on the top left.

    Tried it twice with no luck. Any ideas.

    Thanks

  9. Is there easy solution to create articles in category which the users are assigned ? (many users, many groups, many categories)

    Now I have to create group assigned user to group. Create category, allow chosen group to write/edit in category and what is laborious I have to block every another group to write/edit.

    I am looking for easy native solution.

  10. Hi all,

    Supposing that a super user needs to creat sub admin users, is it possible to assign them the ability to create other users, but with restricted roles?

    Means the normal users should be able to create users, but not super users. Joomla allows us (as super admins) to grant the ability to create users or not, but i haven’t found a way to restrict the kind (group) of users that a normal user can create!

    I have noticed on the following Demo that the block: Assigned User Groups is totally removed! was this made hardcoded or there is an easy way to do it?

    Thanks in advance!

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