Item level security on a SharePoint list. What’s the behavior in a Canvas App?

The following question was posted last week on LinkedIn:

Is it possible to authorise by item-level security in the SharePoint list?
Each row contains three or four email ids in different columns (Text type). Only the people of those email ids should be able to edit or view the record when they come to SharePoint list view or through Power App GUI.

Indeed, Item level security on a Sharepoint list is possible and used in most of those examples:

• HR Form
• Holiday request
• Helpdesk ticket system

Let us see how we can become this and the impact of displaying the SharePoint list data on a Canvas app.

How to enable item-level security on a SharePoint list?

Create a new or use an existing list on the SharePoint site. Open the list settings and select advanced settings. It allows us to manage the item-level permission of the SharePoint list.

Let us highlight the different possible settings:

• Read Access
  • Read all items
    Alex and Cindy can read each other items in the SharePoint list. 
  • Read items that were created by the user.
    Alex can not read items of Cindy and the other way around. They can only see their own created objects. 
• Create and Edit Access
  • Create and Edit AccessCreate and Edit all items
    Alex and Cindy can create and update each other items in the SharePoint list.
  • Create and Edit items that were created by the user.
    Alex can not edit the items of Cindy and the other way around. They can only see, create and edit their own created objects. 
  • None
    Neither Alex and Cindy can create and edit items in the SharePoint list. 

Overview of how to enable item-level security on a SharePoint list?

Open the SharePoint list settings and select “Advanced settings”.

Set the item-level permissions as shown below:

The result is that a user can only read, create and edit his items in the SharePoint list. Checking items create by user Belinda.

The owner or person with permissions “Override List Behaviors – Discard or check in a document which is checked out to another user, and change or override settings which allow users to read/edit only their items” can see all the items created into the SharePoint list.

What is the behaviour in the Canvas App?
The Sharepoint connection will use the credentials of the user account opening the app. It means that the SharePoint permissions will be depending on the user permissions on the SharePoint list. If we take the user Belinda, she will only see her items.

The second part of the question is: Each row contains three or four email ids in different columns (Text type). Only those email ids should be able to edit or view the record when they come to SharePoint list view or through Power App GUI.

We can not use views created in a SharePoint list in a canvas app. A possible solution is to build a look a like “view” – dropdown that filters the items in the table within the canvas app. A good video about this topic has created by Reza Dorrani (@rezadorrani)

I hope this helps!