Permissions - enabling limited selective access

[jonibuttke]

We are trying to integrate our LMS with myBB.

In general, we want to prevent most user groups from most forums and only selectively give them access to specific forums.

As each student enrolls in a class we add him to a class-specific group. We want each student to see only those forums that are related to the classes he has actually been enrolled in. That is, we don't even want him to have to navigate thru the other class forums.

Each teacher will be added to other Teacher level class-specific group and an ALL Teachers group so they can access forums specific to the classes they are teaching as well as some common teacher forums.

So on an ongoing basis we are creating several new users, new user groups, and new forums.

Thru the myBB interface I can see how, at a moment in time, I can go in and SET PERMISSIONS "OFF" for all usergroups but the desired one(s), but it seems that this is not enough. That later new usergroups will be added that have their (undesirable) default access to that forum.

I am sorry that I do not even know how to describe the problem.

I think I am looking for the "one big switch" that will keep all the non-core usergroups OUT of every forum until I specificly set their permissions on.

OR any other approach we can do programmatically and definitively.

Thanks for your help.
Joni Buttke

[Alex Smith]

I would say the best of doing this is a group for every class. I mean that's the only way i can think of doing it of the top of my head anyway. Just make each class have a forum group. Then add the students that enroll in that class have one of their secondary groups be that class's group.

I hope you understood that last part .

[jonibuttke]

NetSage,
Thanks.
I'll explain what I have been doing in the interface (which we will replicate in the integration code once we are sure we have a working approach)

I create Class X Forums A,B,C, for example

I create a Students: Class X usergroup for each new Class.

I add Students enrolled in Class X to the above usergroup by linking the User to the appropriate Additional Usergroup in the User Profile.

What I am not clear about is when I go into the Forum Permissions for Class X Forum A I see all my other Usergroups there with their default permissions. Do I have to turn them all "OFF" so they do not have access to that forum?

If yes, what happens over time when new Usergroups are added for other Classes? Won't they be added to the Forums Permission listing of the prior forums? (It seems like that is what happens.) Would they then need to be turned "OFF" also?

If so, it seems like I will forever be trying to play catch up.

Joni

[drevatt]

Just to elaborate on what we observe, even a new group which only has the permission to view the bulletin board (and nothing else) is able to see forums that have already been created. It appears as if by having that permission, it also enables you to by default view any new forum as well - not just view the BB.

The sequence goes something like this:

1. Create Group 1 and Forum 1 - enabling Group 1 access
2. Create Group 2 and Forum 2 - enabling Group 2 access & disallow Group 1
3. Create Group 3 and Forum 3 - enabling Group 3 access

Unless you specifically disallow Groups 2 and 3 to view Forum 1, they can see it - as the View Bulletin Board permission defaults to allowing view access unless specifically disallowed via the forum_permissions table. So you can see that this would not scale well at all.

[Alex Smith]

Yes, for every new group you will have to set the permissions however you can base the permissions off an already created group making it so you only have to remove their permissions from one classes forums and add them to the new forum.

I know it sounds like a lot of work but the permission matrix is pretty simple. But, like I said this is the only way I can think of doing it with the default mybb. So I would recommend creating all the groups first. So when you create the forums you can set the permissions right away for all of them .

[jonibuttke]

NetSage, et al,
Hello again.

I come from a people that has a "hope that does not disappoint", so I am still "hopin'" to find an easier way around this!

Sorry to belabor this, but I wondered if setting a custom Forum Permission "can view forum" ON would "override" a Usergroup permission for "can view board" that was OFF.

Unfortunately, it does not seem like it does , but since we will exclusively register and log non-administrator users programmatically, something like that would be great.

Then I could create Usergroups as needed with the "view board" OFF and just enable the viewing at the forum level.

I have not said this explicitly, but we have a fairly deep structure (multiple levels of categories and forums). Users may be enrolled in more than one class at a time, and we want them to be able to go back to forums for classes they were previously enrolled in also. But, if we can help it, we do not want to clutter their view with a lot of unrelated categories or forums. Instead we just want em to see their stuff.

If any of this makes you think of any new options for us, please advise.

Thanks!
Joni