Squadron is a Free Administrative Tool for SharePoint. You can download it from:
http://www.sharepointcto.com/Squadron/Default.aspx
What is inside the Permissions Add-in?
Permission Add-in helps with the following tasks:
- Find permissions at the site, list, or item level
- Distinguish between Unique & Inherited permissions
- Save Reports
- Provides wizards to Find, Copy, Delete, Backup and Restore permissions
![image2.png]()
Types of Permissions
In a quick overview of Permissions, there are basically 2 types:
- Unique Permissions: where we assign unique users/groups & permission levels.
- Inherited Permissions: where the securable object (site, list, item) inherits permissions from its parent.
How to Generate the Report?
Let us examine the procedure to generate a report for a site collection.
Step 1: Enter URL
Run Squadron & in the screen that appears, enter the URL of the site. Please note that you should run this in the SharePoint Farm Account context.
![image3.png]()
Step 2: Open Permissions
From the left hand side click the Permissions link.
![image4.png]()
Step 3: Set Options
You can set the options in the screen that appears.
![image5.png]()
- Site: To include site objects check this item.
- List & Library: To include list & library objects check this item.
- Item: To include items & documents check this item.
- Expand Groups: A permission entry can be a SharePoint Group or User. If it is a SharePoint Group, you might need to include the users contained inside it. Check this item to include users.
- Show User Name: The user item will have a Login Name (eg: "DOMAIN\user") & a Display Name (eg: "Full Name"). You can choose this option to include the Display Name of the user as well.
- Include Hidden: There could be hidden lists that are not visible in Quick Launch or in the All Site content page. Check this option to include those.
- Unique Permissions Only: Check this option if you need only Unique Permission items.
- Expand Inherited Groups: Usually the Inherited Permissions will be expanded in the parent object, as it is unique there. This checkbox enables you to expand the inherited groups too.
- Filter By: Checking this option will enable a URL TextBox where you can enter the URL to filter the result.
- Highlight: Highlight Unique Permissions as Yellow & inherited ones as Green.
For the time being I have checked the following options:
![image6.png]()
Step 4: Generate
For generating the report, click "View Permissions" from the left. You will see the result as in the following depending on your Site.
![image7.png]()
Step 5: Save Report
For saving the report, you need to right-click on the grid & choose the option.
![image8.png]()
- Save to Excel
- Save to CSV
You may uncheck the option "Open after save.." if you do not want to launch your report file after saving it.
I have selected the option to save as Excel.
![image9.png]()
Enter the file name and click the Save button.
You will be viewing the file in Excel after saving.
![image10.png]()
This concludes our usage of the Squadron Permissions add-in.
![image1.png]()
I wanted to iterate the Microsoft Recommendation of using SharePoint Groups instead of directly adding users to the site/list/item permissions. Groups are more easily manageable & easier to understand.
About the Wizards
The additional wizards are separately documented. Here is the screen shot of the wizard screens.
![image11.png]()
References
http://bit.ly/10uiVpB
Summary
In this article we have explored the Squadron Permissions Add-in. I believe in a real-life scenario the add-in is useful to quickly analyze a SharePoint site.