This topic is designed for you if you use a site, but you are not responsible for managing other people’s permissions to the site.
In this article
What do I have to have to get started?
Before you can view or work in a site, two things have to occur:
- You have to have a user account.
- Your user account has to be granted permissions (sometimes also named rights, or access) for you to work with the site.
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How do I get a user account?
Generally, an administrator in your organization creates a user account for you. Your user account will probably use the same logon information see comment that is, username and password—that the network account uses. If you work in a large organization, it might take some time for your account to be distributed throughout the company network. This means that you might be unable to use some sites at first.
Often you will learn that you have a working user account on a site when you get an e-mail to welcome you to a new site.
When you click the link and go to the site, you can see your account name in the upper-right corner of the screen. For example, here is what a Contoso employee named Molly sees when she visits her team site:
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What is a security group?
After creating your user account, the administrator might assign your account to one or many security groups. A security group is a group of people, usually based on the roles they play in the organization. Typically, all the people in a group have to perform the same kinds of tasks on a site.
For example, people who do similar jobs might all belong to the same group.
For example, everyone in the Human Resources group of the Contoso Company might be in a security group named Contoso HR. Everyone who was a member of the Contoso HR group would have permission to see and work with sensitive information that people in other groups at Contoso could not see.
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What are permissions?
Permissions determine what you can do and see on a Web site.
Whoever manages access to your site assigns permission levels to groups of people or to individual people.
Permission levels determine which sites, subsites, or pieces of content that you have access to. In addition, permission levels might determine what kinds of tasks that you can perform on the sites.
For example, you might have permission to read and review content on a site, or, if your job requires it, you might have permission to check out a document.
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Why don’t I see the same thing someone else sees?
Sometimes your permission levels determine which commands or options that you see on your site. If you do not have the permissions to perform certain tasks, you do not have to have the tools associated with that task. So, the site might remove or disable those options. (Disabled options are unavailable.)
Tip You can request more permissions, or permissions to a specific site, by clicking your account name in the upper-right corner of the screen and clicking Request Access on the dropdown menu.
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