Permission structure

Kimai provides a flexible permissions system, which is based on user roles.

You can change the permissions with the administration screens in the System > Roles page.

Plugin permissions

Developer can add/change permissions through plugins, see Developers documentation.

Permission configuration in local.yaml

Since Kimai 1.6 there is generally no reason for changing the default permission through the local.yaml. It can be considered bad practice, as it can lead to problems with future updates.

Understanding permission structure

Before you learn to configure the permission system, you have to understand the three involved config types:

1. Permission sets - a re-usable mapping of a free choosable name (e.g. TEST) to a list of:
   • one or more “permission names” (e.g. test)
   • one or more “permission sets” (linking other sets can be achieved by prepending an @, e.g. @TEST)
   • one or more “negated permission names” (prepend an ! to negate a permission, e.g. !test)
2. Permission maps - a mapping of a role name to a list of “permission sets” (no @ required here, e.g. TEST)
3. Permissions - a mapping of a role name to a list of:
   • one or more “permission names” (e.g. test)
   • one or more “negated permission names” (e.g. !test)

An example and its explanation:

    permissions:
        sets:
            ACTIVITY: ['view_activity', 'create_activity']
            TIMESHEET: ['view_own_timesheet', 'start_own_timesheet']
            PROFILE: ['my_profile', 'show_roles', 'other_profiles']
            EXAMPLE: ['@PROFILE', '@ACTIVITY']
            EXAMPLE_USER: ['@PROFILE', '!show_roles']
        maps:
            ROLE_USER: ['TIMESHEET', 'EXAMPLE_USER']
            ROLE_ADMIN: ['TIMESHEET', 'EXAMPLE']
        roles:
            ROLE_USER: ['!other_profiles']
            ROLE_ADMIN: ['delete_activity']

• In sets we define the permissions sets names “ACTIVITY”, “TIMESHEET”, “PROFILE” and “EXAMPLE”.
• The set called “EXAMPLE” inherits the other sets called “PROFILE” and “ACTIVITY”, so its contains the permissions: my_profile, show_roles, other_profiles, view_activity , create_activity.
• The set called “EXAMPLE_USER” inherits the set called “PROFILE” and removes the permission “show_roles”, so its contains the permissions: my_profile, other_profiles.

In maps we now apply the permission set called “TIMESHEET” and “EXAMPLE_USER” to the user-role “ROLE_USER” and the two permission sets called “TIMESHEET” and “EXAMPLE” to the user-role “ROLE_ADMIN”.

At this step the roles have the following permissions:

• ROLE_USER - view_own_timesheet, start_own_timesheet, my_profile, other_profiles
• ROLE_ADMIN - view_own_timesheet, start_own_timesheet, my_profile, show_roles, other_profiles, view_activity, create_activity

As last step, the list of permission names will be merged with the list of previously calculated permissions. We removed the permission “other_profiles” from the user-role “ROLE_USER” and added the permission “delete_activity” to the user-role “ROLE_ADMIN”.

At the end the system calculated the final list of permissions:

• ROLE_USER - view_own_timesheet, start_own_timesheet, my_profile
• ROLE_ADMIN - view_own_timesheet, start_own_timesheet, my_profile, show_roles, other_profiles, view_activity, create_activity, delete_activity

Yes, that could have been easier ;-) but I wanted to demonstrate all possibilities!

Changing permissions

In most cases you just want to adjust single permissions, like remove from or add single permissions to a user role. This can be done by adding something like this to your local.yaml:

kimai:
    permissions:
        roles:
            ROLE_TEAMLEAD: ['!edit_invoice_template', 'delete_invoice_template']

This example removes edit_invoice_template and adds delete_invoice_template for the user role ROLE_TEAMLEAD.

If you want to go further and want to re-adjust which sets are applied to a user role, you have to overwrite the complete map for that role. Lets assume you want to redefine user permissions and allow full access to tags, then you edit your local.yaml like this:

kimai:
    permissions:
        maps:
            ROLE_USER: ['ROLE_USER', 'TAGS']

As you overwrite the default map ROLE_USER by defining it, you have to apply the default set ROLE_USER and append the set TAGS (see below in “Existing maps”).

Customizing sets is generally not recommended, as you should be able to achieve everything with maps and permissions. See below in “Existing sets”.

Existing sets

Existing sets can be seen in kimai.yaml, their customization is generally not necessary. You cannot extend existing sets, if you define them, they will be overwritten with your config. Therefor it is not recommended to overwrite any existing set but create new ones (start their name with a prefix like ‘CUSTOM_’):

kimai:
    permissions:
        sets:
            CUSTOM_ROLE_USER: ['@ROLE_USER', '@TAGS']
        maps:
            ROLE_USER: ['CUSTOM_ROLE_USER']

Existing maps

By default each role owns only one set, which is called like the user role itself:

kimai:
    permissions:
        maps:
            ROLE_USER: ['ROLE_USER']
            ROLE_TEAMLEAD: ['ROLE_TEAMLEAD']
            ROLE_ADMIN: ['ROLE_ADMIN']
            ROLE_SUPER_ADMIN: ['ROLE_SUPER_ADMIN']