Groups and permissions system
Summary
A user may belong to one or more groups, and the data in a group may
now at most be shared with users in the same group on the same
OMERO server. The degree to which their data is available to other
members of the group depends on the permissions settings for that
group. Whenever a user logs on to an OMERO server, they are connected
under one of their groups. All data they import and any work that is
done is assigned to the current group, however the user can now
easily copy their data into another group.
Users
- Administrator
- Your OMERO server will have one or more
administrators. Each group can be administrated by any of your server
administrators. The administrators control all settings for groups.
- Group owner
- Your group may have one or more owners. The group
owner has some additional rights within each group than a standard
group member, including the ability to add other members to the
group.
- Group member
- This is the standard user.
Groups and users must be created by the server administrator. Users can
then be added by the administrator or by one of the group owners
assigned by the administrator. This would typically be the PI of the
lab. The group’s owners or server administrator can also choose the
permission level for that group. See the Help guide for managing groups for more information about how to administrate them
in OMERO.
Group permission levels
The various permission levels are:
- Private
This group is the most restrictive:
- A private Group owner can see and control who the group
members are and can view their data.
- As a Group member, you will only ever be able to see your
own data.
- This can be used for general data storage, access and analysis, but
has very limited collaboration potential other than for the
Group owner to see other group members’ data.
Potential use cases of Private group:
- A PI as Group owner and
their student, as a Group member, can access the student’s
data. A student might use this as somewhere to store all of their
data and from here, the PI and/or student might decide which data
could/should be copied into a more collaborative group where
additional members would also be able to view the data.
- An institutional repository type structure where data are being
archived, but not necessarily open for general viewing.
- Read-only
This group is the intermediate option that allows visibility of other
users and their data, but minimal ability to annotate their data:
- The Group owner can control group members as above and can
perform some annotations on the other group members data.
- Group member can see who other members are and view their
data, but cannot annotate another members’ data at all.
Potential use cases of Read-only group:
- A scientist might move data into a read-only group when they want
other group members to access and view their data. Their PI, as a
group owner could then annotate and/or add Regions of Interest
(ROIs) to their images.
- For an institutional repository where data are being archived and
then available for other users in the institute to view; this could
be standard storage of all original data, or for data that is
included in publications.
- Read-annotate
This is a more collaborative group:
- Group member can view other members, their data and can
make annotations on those other members’ data.
Potential use cases of Read-annotate group:
- This could be used by a group of scientists working together with
data for a publication.
- Read-write
This group essentially allows all the group members to behave as if
they co-own all the data:
- Group member can view, annotate, edit and delete all
data; the only restriction is that they cannot move other members’
data into another group.
Potential use cases of Read-write group:
- A group of scientists working in a completely collaborative way,
trusting every member of the group to have equal rights and access
to all the data.
Changing group permissions
It is possible for the Group owner or server Administrator to
change the permissions level on a group after it has been created and filled
with data, with the following limitations:
- It is not possible to ‘reduce’ permissions to Private. Once links
have been created in the database under Read-only or
Read-annotate permissions, these cannot be severed. However, it is
possible to ‘promote’ a Private group to be more permissive
- It is possible to toggle permissions of a group between Read-only
and Read-annotate groups.
- Only Administrator can promote a group to Read-write
permissions. Make certain all the members understand that this allows
anyone in the group to permanently delete any of the data before performing
this action.
Warning
Please be very careful before downgrading a group’s
permission level. If a user has annotated other users’ data and
the group is downgraded, any links to annotations that are not
permitted by the new permissions level will be lost.
Permissions on your and other users’ data
What can you do with your data?
All OMERO users in all groups can perform all actions on their own data.
The main actions available include, but are not limited to:
- create projects and/or datasets
- import data
- delete data
- edit names and descriptions of images
- change rendering settings on images
- annotate images (rate, tag, add attachments and comments)
- de-annotate (remove annotations that you have added)
- use Regions of Interest (ROIs) (add, import, edit, delete, save and analyze
them)
- run scripts
- move data between groups, if you belong to more than one group
What can you do with someone else’s data in your group?
Actions available for you on someone else in your group’s data will
depend both on the permissions of the group you are working in, and what
sort of user you are. See the table below for a quick reference
guide to permissions available on other people’s data.
Some of these policies may evolve as the permissions functionality
matures in response to user feedback. Please let us know any comments or
suggestions you have via our mailing lists
or through the forums.
Permissions tables
The following are the permissions valid for users working on data belonging to
other group members. These permissions depend on the group permissions and on
the type of the user performing the action.
Key
- Action
- Action on other users’ data
- Annotate
- Add annotations (rating, tag, attachment, comment ROI)
to another users’ data. Also create & save ROIs (save
ROIs that you draw on another users’ data).
- Delete
- Delete data such as images or ROIs. ROIs may have been
added by others or yourself.
- Edit
- Modify the name or description of other users’
objects such as images.
- Mix data
Copy, Move or Remove other users’ data to or from your Projects,
Datasets or Screens.
Copy, Move or Remove your or others’ data to or from others’ Projects,
Datasets or Screens.
Note
You should always be able to remove
annotations (such as tags) that you linked to
other users’ data (you own the link). The
link can be deleted, but the tag itself will
not be deleted.
- Move between groups
Only the admin has the right to move other users’
data between groups.
Note
The admin does not have to be member of the
destination group.
- Remove annotations
- Remove annotations made by others on your data.
- Render
- Create your own rendering settings (this will not
modify the settings of the owner).
- View
- View other users’ data such as images. View ROIs added by others.
Draw ROIs on other users’ data, but they cannot be saved.
Issues to be aware of
ROIs
- You can never edit (change text or move) other users’ ROI.
- Any ROIs added to other users’ data will not affect ROIs added by
the owner.
Scripts
- Although all users can run scripts on other users’ data, the actions
within those scripts will be subject to the restrictions of the
permissions detailed in the tables above.