Out of the box, SharePoint provides add/edit item rights to the list as long as the user has contribute or full permission. Access policies can be scoped at the site, list and item levels. Since the user has contribute access to a list, it is possible for the user to add items from UI even if we associate a custom form using tools like PowerApps. This will mess up the custom logic or formulas we used in our PowerApps forms before saving the data in the respective list columns.

Requirement:

Restrict the smart user’s data entry on the SharePoint list which is associated with PowerApps using the out of the box approaches such as quick edit.

Solution:

Create a permission level

A quick way to create a new permission level is to make a copy of an existing permission level. We might want to do this when the existing permission level has permissions similar to what the new permission level will have. After we make the copy, we can add or remove the permissions we need the new permission level to have.

  1. On the Permission Levels page, click the Contribute permission level
  2. On the Edit Permission Level page, choose Copy Permission Level, which is at the bottom of the page after the Personal Permissions section.
  3. On the Copy Permission Level page, type a name as “Restrict Smart User Data Entry“ and description as “This is a custom permission level to restrict manual data entry.” for the new permission level.
  4. Uncheck the View Application Pages permission under List Permissions
  5. After you made the changes, click Submit.

Create Group & Add Users

  1. Click on the Settings icon and choose Site Settings from the drop-down menu.
  2. Go to Site Permissions listed under the Users and Permissions header.
  3. Click on the Create Group icon in the Grant section.
  4. Enter the necessary details in the create group page.
  5. Select the Restrict Smart User Data Entry permission level we created in the previous section.
  6. Click Create
  7. Add the necessary users in this group who can add/edit items in the list that is associated with the PowerApps App.

Configure Permission

  1. Go to the list associated with the PowerApps App
  2. Choose Settings icon and then List settings.
  3. Click Stop Inheriting Permissions to break permissions inheritance from the parent
  4. Click Grant Permissions on the Permissions tab.
  5. In the Share… dialog box, select the group created in the previous section and click share.
  6. Select the out of the box members group and click on remove user permission.
  7. We are all set, now user should not be able to open the list from the browser but can add/edit items from PowerApps app.

We are here to talk about different ideas for improving our process so apply your own permission mechanism based on your requirements to disable the unnecessary data entry on your list/items associated with a custom form.