How to Migrate SharePoint Permissions Easily?

Read time 6 minutes

Before starting the migration, you should understand the basic concept of SharePoint Online permissions.

• Permissions – Permissions grant users specific rights related to actions. SharePoint administrators assign these permissions at either the site or site content levels. If a user possesses the permission to view a file, their capability is restricted solely to viewing the file, with no ability to create or edit it.
• Fine-grained permissions – When the administrator grants permissions at a highly detailed level to a securable object within the context of fine-grained permissions, such as assigning a permission to an individual file within a vast library, list, or site, it provides the user with extensive control over SharePoint data, enabling enhanced customization capabilities.
• Permission level – Permission levels encompass the assortment of permissions allocated to users for various operational tasks. An illustrative instance of a permission level is the “Read Permission,” which encompasses numerous privileges, such as the ability to open a file, peruse its contents, view its pages, and access different versions of the file. All of these privileges are essential for gaining access to the file.
• SharePoint group – A SharePoint Group streamlines the process of granting permissions to an entire group, as opposed to manually assigning permissions to individual users. Each SharePoint Group inherently includes at least one default permission level for roles such as owners, visitors, members, and so forth, enhancing efficiency in managing access rights.
• User – A user is a single SharePoint account of a person. It is better to assign Permission to the user through groups as it becomes difficult to monitor each user.
• Securable object – A securable entity encompasses items such as files, documents, folders, lists, libraries, sites, and more, all subject to permission settings. Administrators have the capability to allocate permissions at the item, folder, or site level, offering a range of controls.

Getting complete information about these SharePoint Online permissions and then planning your migration method is beneficial.

Read Also: Learn How to Customize Permissions in SharePoint?

1. Default Permissions Levels – Default Permissions levels are various permissions which authorize a user to perform multiple actions on the objects. Here is a brief list of default permissions levels –
   

   Permission Level	Permission Included	Description
   View Only	View Items, View Versions, View Pages, Browse User Information	User can view application pages and related items.
   Limited Access	View Application pages, Browse User information, User Remote Interface	User can access the shared resource
   Read	View Items, Open Items, View Versions, View pages	User can view pages, list items, and download documents
   Contribute	Add Items, Edit Items, Delete Items, Edit Personal User Information, Add Personal Web parts, Remove Personal Web parts, Update personal web parts	User can edit user information, delete version in lists and libraries.
   Edit	Manage Lists, Contribute Permissions	User can manage lists.
   Design	Add and Customize pages, Apply Style, Edit permissions	User can Add, View, Update, Delete, Approve, and Customize items or pages
   Full Control	All Permissions	User has full control

   Note:A user has the ability to tailor permission settings for the initial five levels. If you wish to modify permission levels for Limited Access and Full Control, you can render specific permissions inaccessible for an entire web application.

2. User permissions

   User permissions are further categorized into 3 categories – list permissions, site permissions, and personal permissions.

   1. List permissions

   Some of the prominent list permissions are:

   Permission	Permissions Included	Description
   Manage Lists	Edit, Design, Manage Hierarchy	User can create and delete lists, add or remove columns or views of a list
   Override List Behaviors	Design, Full Control	User can check a document for another user and can read/edit their terms
   Add Items	Edit, Design, Full Control	User can add items lists, and add documents to libraries
   Delete Versions	Contribute Edit, Design, Full Control	User can delete previous versions of list items or documents
   Create Alerts	Read, Edit, Design, Full Control	User can create alerts
   View Application Pages	Full Control	User can view application pages and enumerate lists

   2. Site Permissions

   Site Permissions are applied to site items. Some important permissions of them are the following:

   Permission	Permissions Included	Description
   Create Subsites	Full Control	User can create subsites, meeting workspace site, and document workspace site.
   Manage Web Site	Full Control	User can perform complete administrative tasks for the site
   Add and Customize Pages	Design, Full Control	User can add, modify, or delete HTML pages or the site
   Manage Alerts	Full Control	User can manage alerts for all users of the website
   Open	All	User can open a website, list, or folder to access site items
   View Pages	Read, Contribute, Edit, Design, Full Control	User can view pages in a website

   3. Personal Permissions

   Personal permissions are attached to single objects and items in the SharePoint.

   Permission	Permissions Included	Description
   Manage Personal Views	Contribute, Edit, Full Control	User can create, change, and delete personal views of lists
   Add/Remove Personal Web Parts	Contribute, Edit, Full Control	User can add/remove personal web parts on a web part page
   Update Personal Web Parts	Contribute, Edit, Full Control	User can update Web Parts

How to migrate SharePoint Permissions

Once you have acquired a comprehensive understanding of the diverse permissions available in SharePoint Online, the process of migrating these permissions becomes straightforward. However, owing to the absence of a well-defined manual procedure for permission migration, the aid of a specialized tool becomes necessary. This tool streamlines the intricacies associated with managing permission migration, enabling the direct transfer of permissions and their associated data.

1. Using Kernel Migrator for Sharepoint, you can migrate complete sites, lists, and libraries from SharePoint 2010 to 2013, SharePoint 2010 to 2016, and SharePoint 2013 to 2016. After selecting the migration, you can check the Migrate Permissions option.


Note: If you have checked the Migrate Permissions, then you can also check the second option of Remap Users/Groups. It will help you to map SharePoint accounts.

2. Click Add New Mapping button and add Source User Name and Destination User Name in the respective boxes. Then click OK.
3. Finally, you can see that the source and the destination are selected to migrate the permissions directly.

Conclusion

If you choose not to transfer SharePoint Online permissions alongside the data, you’ll have to allocate fresh permissions post-migration, a task demanding substantial time and effort from SharePoint administrators. To circumvent this scenario, consider utilizing the Kernel SharePoint Migrator. This versatile SharePoint migration tool facilitates both platform upgrades and downgrades and enables seamless data migration from the Windows file system to SharePoint, as well as from the public folder to SharePoint, and from the file system to Google Drive/OneDrive for business.