PowerShell to Update Permissions for Custom Permission Level in SharePoint

Requirement: Update permission level in SharePoint using PowerShell.

How to Edit a Permission level in SharePoint?

If you have ever created a custom permission level in SharePoint, you know that it can be a bit of a pain to set the permissions correctly. This blog post will show you how to update permissions for a permission level. We will also show you how to use PowerShell to update permissions for your custom permission level!

To edit an existing permission level in SharePoint, follow these steps:

1. Permission levels are scoped at site collection. So, Navigate to the SharePoint site collection where you want the permission level to be edited.
2. Click on Settings gear >> Select Site Settings from the Settings menu.
3. On the Site Settings page, click on the “Site Permissions” link under the Users and Permissions section.
4. On the Permissions page, click on the “Permission Levels” button from the Permissions tab of the ribbon. 
5. On the Permission Levels page, click on the permission level you want to edit.
6. Uncheck the tick boxes next to the permission to remove it from the permission level. E.g., I’ve removed “Delete Items” from the permission level. Similarly, you can add any permission to include it.

   

7. Scroll down and click on the “Submit” button to save your changes. 

This updates the permission level in SharePoint. Now, let’s see how to change the permission level in SharePoint using PowerShell.

PowerShell to Update a Permission Level in SharePoint

To change permissions of a permission level using PowerShell, use:

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

#Parameters
$SiteURL = "https://sharepoint.crescent.com/sites/operations"
$PermissionLevelName = "Contribute without Delete"

#Get the Site collection's Root web
$web = Get-SPWeb $SiteURL

#Get the Permission Level
$RoleDefinition = $Web.RoleDefinitions[$PermissionLevelName]

If($RoleDefinition)
{
    #Set the Base Permissions
    $Permissions="ViewListItems, AddListItems, EditListItems, OpenItems, ViewVersions, ManagePersonalViews, ViewFormPages, Open, ViewPages, CreateSSCSite, BrowseDirectories, BrowseUserInfo, AddDelPrivateWebParts, UpdatePersonalWebParts, UseClientIntegration, UseRemoteAPIs, CreateAlerts, EditMyUserInfo"

    #Update the Permissions for Permission Level
    $RoleDefinition.BasePermissions = $Permissions
    $RoleDefinition.Update()
    Write-host "Permisssion Level Updated Successfully!" -f Green
}
Else
{
    Write-host "Couldn't find Permissions Level $PermissionLevelName!" -f Yellow
}

To get all available base permissions, refer: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/microsoft.sharepoint.spbasepermissions?view=sharepoint-server