If you’re a user with admin or owner access to a SharePoint site. I’m guessing you’re all too familiar with an inbox full of these emails:

Some user, probably the same one from last Tuesday, is requesting access to a site or a page again that they’re CERTAIN they should have access to. And just to be sure you get the email, they probably hit that little send button five or six times for good measure. When really, they shouldn’t have access, just like you told them last Tuesday. And you’ll say to them today.

If your SharePoint site is a little slippery with permission group management, these emails are probably going out to more than just you. Anyone who gets the email can click accept and grant the user access to that page. That page they shouldn’t have access to, but man, do they want access to it. But it goes further than that. They’re not just granting access to a page from that email; they’re adding the user to a permission group. This could bleed into other areas of your site that they shouldn’t be in.

Persistent Users

Now imagine a world where you don’t have to deal with this. Not only with the repetitive requests from persistent users who want access and want it now. But also the possible security risks from these permission request SharePoint Pages:

On the flip side of this, you can also keep your inheriting permissions. Create a permission group just designed to deny access. Set up your Group Redirect WebPart to let in everyone BUT that specific group.

CLICK HERE TO SEE A VIDEO OF GROUP REDIRECT IN ACTION

Group Redirect runs based on the use of logic and conditions. To set up the rules, there is a choice between “IS” or “NOT.” Select the SharePoint Group you want the condition to apply to and enter the URL of the page you’ve created for them to land on as they’re redirected. You also have the capability to stack conditions with the “AND/OR” operators after you select the SharePoint group. The Group Redirect WebPart is designed to value the rules in the order that they appear. Should there be people in multiple groups, and the rules conflict with each other, it will value the first rule for their handling.

What comes next after setup?

So, you’ve purchased Group Redirect, and you’ve got your pages all set up with your Rules and Criteria. Here comes the user from last Tuesday and yesterday. They are checking on their access to that page they really want access to…but wait. What’s this? They’re instead being redirected to another page set up and established at your discretion. This page either informs them of their error or takes them where they actually need to be instead of where they seem to think they need to be. And there you have it; your dream is a reality. No more permission request spam and no more security risk from those permission request emails.

Another valuable use case for the Bamboo Solutions Group Redirect webpart is if you have created a new page for an old area. A lot of users operate based on bookmarks on their desktop, in their browser, or even have them as their home pages in a browser. We can send out all the new links we want as admins. We post them in big, bold letters on the old page with arrows and graphics pointing to the new link. Inevitably those “where is my stuff” emails still keep coming. With group redirect, you can keep the old page up for a grace period and use the Group Redirect webpart to redirect people to the new location. This will effectively prevent a bottleneck of people waiting for responses in order to do their work.

In summation

Group Redirect WebPart by Bamboo Solutions is a product deployed on a page-by-page basis that controls which permission groups can access each page. Group Redirect can help to reduce the amount of junk permission request emails that come into your inbox. It can also reduce security vulnerabilities that can be made to exist through slippage of permission group management. Group Redirect can also serve as a soft transition from an old page to a new page to help mitigate growing pains as company changes are being made.