Configure Permissions

Prerequisites

Access to the data model YAML file for your project
Administration > Nextedy Powersheet > Data Models permissions to edit configurations
Basic familiarity with the data model entity type structure

Set Property-Level Permissions

Property-level permissions control whether individual fields on an entity type are visible or editable. Configure the readable and updatable flags on each property in your data model.

Step 1: Open Your Data Model

Navigate to Administration > Nextedy Powersheet > Data Models and open the YAML file for your project.

Step 2: Add Permission Flags to Properties

For each property where you want to restrict access, add readable and updatable flags:

domainModelTypes:
  UserNeed:
    polarionType: user_need
    properties:
      title:
        readable: true
        updatable: true
      description:
        readable: true
        updatable: true
      severity:
        readable: true
        updatable: false
      internalNotes:
        readable: false
        updatable: false

Flag	Type	Default	Effect
`readable`	`boolean`	`true`	When `false`, the property is excluded from the data payload entirely — it is not loaded or transmitted to the client
`updatable`	`boolean`	`true`	When `false`, the property appears in the sheet but cannot be modified by users

Setting readable: false does more than hide the column in the UI. The property is excluded from the data payload at the server level — it is never loaded or sent to the client. This provides data-level security, not just visual hiding.

Step 3: Save and Reload

Save the data model file. Users need to reload any open Powersheet pages to pick up the updated permission settings.

Configure Administration Access

Powersheet separates administration permissions into two scopes: document configuration and data model configuration. Each scope has independent read and write flags.

Permission	Controls
`document.admin.read`	View the sheet configuration YAML
`document.admin.write`	Modify the sheet configuration YAML
`model.admin.read`	View the data model configuration YAML
`model.admin.write`	Modify the data model configuration YAML

A user with document.admin.read but without document.admin.write can view the sheet configuration YAML but cannot save changes. The same applies independently to data model configuration.

Grant model.admin.read broadly so engineers can inspect the data model for reference, but restrict model.admin.write to administrators who understand the impact of model changes on existing data.

Enable Sheet-Level Read-Only Mode

The entire sheet can be set to read-only using the isReadOnly property in the sheet configuration. This prevents all editing regardless of individual property permissions.

Step 1: Open Your Sheet Configuration

Navigate to Administration > Nextedy Powersheet > Sheet Configurations and open the YAML file assigned to your document.

Step 2: Set the Read-Only Flag

Add isReadOnly: true at the root level of your configuration:

isReadOnly: true
columns:
  title:
    title: Title
    hasFocus: true
  severity:
    title: Severity

The sheet enters read-only mode if any of these conditions is true:

The sheet configuration has isReadOnly: true
The user has the readOnly permission flag set to true
The user is viewing a historical revision or baseline

You do not need to set all three — any single condition is sufficient.

Restrict Individual Columns

Beyond property-level permissions in the data model, you can also enforce read-only on specific columns in the sheet configuration using the isReadOnly column property:

columns:
  title:
    title: Title
    hasFocus: true
  severity:
    title: Severity
    isReadOnly: true
  chapter.title:
    title: Chapter Title
    isReadOnly: true

This is useful when a property should be editable in one sheet configuration but read-only in another. The data model updatable flag applies globally across all sheets, while the column-level isReadOnly applies only to the specific sheet configuration.

Approach	Scope	Defined In
`updatable: false` on property	All sheets using this data model	Data model YAML
`isReadOnly: true` on column	Single sheet configuration	Sheet configuration YAML
`isReadOnly: true` at root	Entire sheet	Sheet configuration YAML
`readOnly` user flag	Per user	Server-managed permissions

Relationships in the data model define navigation properties using direct and back directions. Each direction can carry its own permission settings, independent of the target entity type:

relationships:
  - from: UserNeed
    to: SystemRequirement
    cardinality: many-to-many
    storage: linkedWorkItems
    linkRole: decomposes
    direct:
      name: systemRequirements
    back:
      name: userNeeds

The direct navigation property (from source to target) and back navigation property (from target to source) can each have permission settings that control whether users can traverse and modify the relationship from that direction.

Navigation property permissions are under active development. The exact flags and their behavior may change. Test permission settings in a non-production project before deploying.

Combine Permission Layers

A practical configuration combines multiple permission layers. Here is a complete example that restricts a SystemRequirement entity so that severity is visible but not editable, and internalNotes is completely hidden:

domainModelTypes:
  UserNeed:
    polarionType: user_need
    properties:
      title:
        readable: true
        updatable: true
      description:
        readable: true
        updatable: true
      severity:
        readable: true
        updatable: true

  SystemRequirement:
    polarionType: sys_req
    properties:
      title:
        readable: true
        updatable: true
      description:
        readable: true
        updatable: true
      severity:
        readable: true
        updatable: false
      internalNotes:
        readable: false
        updatable: false

relationships:
  - from: SystemRequirement
    to: UserNeed
    cardinality: many-to-many
    storage: linkedWorkItems
    linkRole: decomposes
    direct:
      name: userNeeds
    back:
      name: systemRequirements

In the sheet configuration for a review-oriented view, you might further lock down columns:

isReadOnly: false
columns:
  title:
    title: Title
    hasFocus: true
  description:
    title: Description
  severity:
    title: Severity
    isReadOnly: true
  userNeeds.userNeed:
    title: Linked User Needs
    isReadOnly: true

In this setup:

title and description are fully editable
severity is visible but cannot be changed (enforced by both updatable: false in the model and isReadOnly: true in the sheet)
internalNotes never appears because readable: false prevents it from being loaded
The linked user needs column is displayed but cannot be modified in this particular sheet view

Verify Your Configuration

After saving your data model and sheet configuration changes:

Open the Powersheet page as a regular user (not an administrator)
Verify that columns with updatable: false appear greyed out and reject edits
Verify that properties with readable: false do not appear in the sheet at all
If isReadOnly: true is set on the sheet, confirm that no cells are editable
Check that administration panels respect the document.admin and model.admin permission flags

You should now see restricted properties rendered as non-editable cells and hidden properties completely absent from the sheet view.

Prerequisites

Set Property-Level Permissions

Step 1: Open Your Data Model

Step 2: Add Permission Flags to Properties

Step 3: Save and Reload

Configure Administration Access

Enable Sheet-Level Read-Only Mode

Step 1: Open Your Sheet Configuration

Step 2: Set the Read-Only Flag

Restrict Individual Columns

Configure Navigation Property Permissions

Combine Permission Layers

Verify Your Configuration

See Also

​Prerequisites

​Set Property-Level Permissions

​Step 1: Open Your Data Model

​Step 2: Add Permission Flags to Properties

​Step 3: Save and Reload

​Configure Administration Access

​Enable Sheet-Level Read-Only Mode

​Step 1: Open Your Sheet Configuration

​Step 2: Set the Read-Only Flag

​Restrict Individual Columns

​Configure Navigation Property Permissions

​Combine Permission Layers

​Verify Your Configuration

​See Also

Prerequisites

Set Property-Level Permissions

Step 1: Open Your Data Model

Step 2: Add Permission Flags to Properties

Step 3: Save and Reload

Configure Administration Access

Enable Sheet-Level Read-Only Mode

Step 1: Open Your Sheet Configuration

Step 2: Set the Read-Only Flag

Restrict Individual Columns

Configure Navigation Property Permissions

Combine Permission Layers

Verify Your Configuration

See Also