If your team uses Agiloft to manage contracts, support, or business processes, you already know user permissions can get messy—fast. One wrong permission and suddenly someone has access to way more (or less) than they should. This guide is for admins, IT, or anyone tasked with wrangling permissions in large Agiloft deployments. I'll tell you what actually works, what just causes headaches, and how to keep things under control without making it your full-time job.
Start With a Permission Philosophy—Not Just Rules
Before you touch a single setting, step back. Agiloft's permission system is powerful but also easy to overcomplicate. Decide up front: What's your default approach?
- Principle of Least Privilege: Give users only what they need, no more.
- Role-Based Access: Group users by what they do, not who they are.
- Keep It Maintainable: If you need a flowchart to explain your setup, it's time to simplify.
Think of permissions as guardrails, not handcuffs. If your team can't get their work done, you'll spend all day fielding access requests.
Step 1: Map Out Your Team Structure and Use Cases
Don’t skip this. Guessing who needs what access is how you end up with “superuser sprawl.”
- List your main user groups. (Sales, Legal, Support, etc.)
- Write down what each group actually does in Agiloft. For example, “Legal creates and edits contracts, but doesn’t need to see customer support tickets.”
- Identify any exceptions. There’s always someone who needs to see a bit more or less. Keep a list, but don’t build your whole system around outliers.
Pro Tip: If you inherit a tangle of old permissions, start fresh where you can. Piecemeal fixes never end.
Step 2: Use Agiloft’s Roles—Don’t Get Cute With Groups
Agiloft uses “roles” as the backbone for permissions. Use them. Don’t try to manage everything with individual user settings or ad-hoc groups—it’s a recipe for chaos.
- Create roles that match your mapped user groups. If you’ve got five main job types, you want five roles.
- Name roles clearly. “Legal Reviewer” is better than “Role2.”
- Avoid duplicating roles with tiny differences. If two roles are 90% the same, consider merging and using exceptions.
What doesn’t work: Creating a custom role for every minor exception. This turns updates into a nightmare. Stick to broad roles and handle exceptions with record-level permissions or temporary overrides.
Step 3: Set Role Permissions—Less Is More
Now get into the Agiloft admin panel and start setting permissions for each role.
- Start restrictive. It’s easier to add permissions later than to take them away.
- Be granular, but not obsessive. For most teams, “read,” “edit,” and “delete” are enough. Don’t waste hours micromanaging field-by-field unless you have real compliance reasons.
- Use Agiloft’s permission matrix. It’s not pretty, but it’s essential for visualizing who can do what.
What to ignore: Don’t bother with advanced workflow permissions unless you’re sure you need them. Keep things simple until you hit a real limitation.
Step 4: Handle Exceptions With Record-Level Permissions
Every big team has edge cases—a manager who needs access to two departments, or a contractor who should only see certain records.
- Use teams or record-level rules for these. Agiloft lets you control access down to individual records or fields if you must.
- Document each exception. Otherwise, you’ll forget why Bob in Marketing can see Legal’s contracts six months from now.
- Review exceptions regularly. Temporary access has a way of becoming permanent by accident.
Pro Tip: Limit the number of exceptions. The more you have, the more likely you are to miss something critical during an audit or staff change.
Step 5: Automate Where You Can—But Trust, Then Verify
Agiloft supports user sync with LDAP, SAML, and other directory services. Use this if you’ve got a large, shifting team.
- Set up directory sync for user onboarding/offboarding. This cuts down on manual errors.
- Automate role assignment based on job title or department, if possible. But don’t assume HR data is always up to date. People change roles, but org charts don’t always keep up.
- Schedule regular permission reviews. Even the best automation drifts over time.
What doesn’t work: Blindly trusting automation. Always spot-check new users and run audits after big org changes.
Step 6: Document Everything—And Make It Accessible
Write down your permission strategy, roles, exceptions, and any automation rules. Store this in a place your team can actually find (not buried in someone’s email).
- Use a simple doc or wiki page. No need for fancy diagrams unless you love them.
- Update docs after every major change.
- Show new admins where the doc lives.
Pro Tip: Good documentation saves you from repeating yourself (and from “permission amnesia” when something breaks).
Step 7: Test Permissions Like a Skeptic
Don’t assume you got it right the first time. Agiloft’s permission previews are useful, but nothing beats logging in as a regular user and trying to break things.
- Have someone outside IT do a dry run. Can they see what they shouldn’t? Are they blocked from what they need?
- Check both the web and mobile apps. Permissions don’t always behave identically.
- Test after every big update. Permissions can reset or glitch in upgrades.
What to ignore: Don’t waste time testing every single corner case unless you’re in a regulated industry. Focus on the critical workflows.
Step 8: Train Your Users (a Little)
Most permission messes happen because users don’t know what to expect.
- Tell users what they can and can’t access, and why.
- Explain how to request more access—and what NOT to do. (Like sharing passwords. Yes, it still happens.)
- Make it easy to report permission problems. If users hit a wall, you want to know fast.
Step 9: Audit and Prune Regularly
Set a recurring calendar reminder—quarterly is a good start—to review your permission setup.
- Remove access for departed users immediately. This is basic security hygiene.
- Check for “role creep”—users quietly gaining more access over time.
- Review exceptions and kill off any that are no longer needed.
Pro Tip: If you’re dreading your next audit, your setup is too complex.
What Works, What Doesn’t, and What to Ignore
What Works
- Role-based setup with minimal exceptions
- Automation for user management, with spot checks
- Good documentation and regular reviews
What Doesn’t
- Individual user permissions as the norm (impossible to scale)
- Overly granular permissions for every field or workflow
- Letting exceptions pile up until you lose track
What to Ignore
- Advanced permission features you don’t understand (If you need them, you’ll know)
- Custom scripts for basic onboarding/offboarding (Let directory sync do the work)
- Trying to be perfect—good enough is good enough
Keep It Simple, and Iterate
Managing permissions in Agiloft isn’t glamorous, but it’s critical. Start simple. Stick to roles, document your setup, and don’t be afraid to revisit your choices as your team grows or changes. Complexity is the enemy. The best systems are the ones you barely notice—because they just work.