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Using Security Filters in NAV/Business Central to Limit Access

May 9th, 2019 Kapil Puvar Dynamics NAV, Tips & Tricks

I want to restrict what my user can see in a listing page, or I want to restrict the user from accessing some type of documents, is it possible? This is the first and foremost question I have received from my NAV/BC clients over my career. The answer I give is ‘Yes, You Can!’. Limitation can be set by setting Security Filters in NAV/Business Central on the Permission Page.
Let’s emphasize and learn this function by taking one case of my client.

Client’s Case

“They have three different units in Bangalore, Ahmedabad, and Delhi and unit wise different users are there. In current systems, if their Ahmedabad user is making Purchase Order, then all unit’s PO user can see and execute.
User should not access or see another unit’s PO. The same way they want to restrict other documents to restrict if particular documents are not of their units.”
For this requirement generally, consultants are doing user setup-based development. But if the client’s company is organized and if they have an ERP manager who is controlling permission then we can give this standard functionality to them.

How to do?

Make unit wise different permission set.
First – Purchase Bangalore
Second – Purchase Ahmedabad
Third – Purchase Delhi

Now go in the “Permissions” by selecting the permission set.

Now select an advance filter and just filter on “Object ID” or “Object Name”.
In our case, we want to filter Purchase Order so select “Purchase Header” Object name.
And click on “Security Filter”

Now select the field by which you want to filter the documents and enter a value in Field Filter.
Since Shortcut dimension 1 is my Unit code I will select it and in filed filter enter “Ahmedabad” as this permission set is for Purchase Ahmedabad.

Security filter is applied now.
Now you can assign this permission set to users or user group.
After that Ahmedabad use can see only those Purchase Order in which unit is “Ahmedabad”

As this was just a user case, we can still limit the access of the users as per the requirement and need of the client. The following can be the use case scenarios:

1. Export Sales Person can see only export documents
2. Restrict the users to view the employee type vendors or their associated documents. When Purchasing is made in NAV and employee are listed as a vendor in NAV.
3. A specific group of users has access to only mechanical purchase items or consumable items.

Conclusion:
Advice is to make a copy of the permission set before applying the restrictions to the users. This step is essential because there is the possibility that all users with this permission will be stuck with this restriction.
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