I am frequently asked to setup SharePoint libraries that contain folders and where different users or groups of users will have access to specific folders based on a set of rules. Common use cases include client folders where a sales manager can see all folders but each sales person only sees folders for their clients.

Power Automate can be used to set permissions on either documents or folders in a SharePoint Document Library using the Grant Access action. In this demo video I explain how to set the default library permissions and how to set unique permissions with Power Automate. The Flow is triggered automatically when the folder is created.

The demo is a very simple example, however this could be extended using other Power Automate actions. For example, if the SharePoint library had a metadata column for the folder Owner (a person column), then you could use ‘Get Metadata’ to retrieve the folders owner and then set permission using the Owner value.

You will also notice in the example, that it runs on any item created in the library. A condition could be added to run this only on Folders and not documents.

Dynamics CRM (Customer Engagement) can be configured to use SharePoint as a document repository. A user clicking into the documents tab for the first time triggers the creation of a folder for the entity in SharePoint. The folder owner is the person who clicked the item allow Power Automate to set permission for that user specifically and perhaps a related group e.g. sales team or other people, sales manager.

If you found this useful, please like the video and subscribe to my YouTube Channel. Thank you!