PowerSchool Security
- PowerSchool system users must be added as staff members before security permissions can be assigned
- Staff members can be assigned access to one or both of the following:
-
Teachers and Affiliations tab is used to assign:
- PowerTeacher access and login credentials
- Home school and secondary school affiliations
- Note: - changing the Staff Type option for the home school affiliation, will change the staff type selected on the staff information page
-
Admin Access and Roles tab is used to assign:
- PowerAdmin access and login credentials
- Default Group credentials
- Specific usage times
- Specific allowed IP address
- Individual Roles and School access
-
Teachers and Affiliations tab is used to assign:
- Staff member permissions can be added and modified as needed
- Permissions can be assigned by user groups, roles, and through page and field level permissions
Security Hierarchy
When multiple Roles/Security Groups are added to a school, the user's effective security permissions will be the highest level granted for all groups tied to a school.
- If Group 1 allows access to Historical Grades, and Group 2 allows access to Demographics, then the user will have access to Historical Grades and Demographics
- If Group 1 allows View Only access to Historical Grades, and Group 2 allows Modify Access to Historical Grades, then the user will receive Modify Access to Historical Grades
In addition, if a security group is removed from a user's assigned role, the Default Group will become their effective security group (if it was their only role for a particular school). This allows the user uninterrupted access to the school until a role can be added that does have a specific security group.
Group Based Security
PowerSchool users and staff members are assigned to groups to simply the process of assigning and modifying permissions. Although users are assigned the permissions of their default group, modifications can be made per user.
Group permissions can be set up to allow No Access, View Only Access or View and Modify Access.
In addition to the default group permissions mentioned above, specific group permissions can also be set for the following:
- Individual PowerSchool Modules such as:
- Modifying Schedules
- PowerScheduler Access
- Language Translator/Customizer Access
- Log Access, such as:
- Discipline
- Attendance
- Health
- Counselor
- Incident Management Access
- Health and Immunization
- Fitness
In many situations, access permissions for third party plugins will appear within the group permissions screen. Refer to the
third party plugin instructions on how to set up group
permissions for users.
Click Group Security for instructions on how to edit, add, and copy Group Security Permissions.
Role Based Security
Role assignment provides for flexibility to set different security group access at different schools, or to create a user account for only external systems, such as features added through the Plugin Management Dashboard.
Users, of the administrative portion of PowerSchool, can be assigned a different access level at affiliated schools, via role assignment.
Things to Remember:
- Roles are assigned on the individual staff members Security Settings page
- At least one role must be associated with a Security Group, allowing users to switch schools
Click Role Assignments for instructions on viewing, assigning, editing, and deleting Role Assignment Permissions.
Page-Level Permissions
Page-Level Permissions are used to define each user group's access to individual PowerSchool pages.
- Access is defined for one page at a time
- Each user group can be assigned one of the following permissions to the specified page:
- None - user group will not be able to gain any access to the specified page
- View Only - user group will be able to view the page but not allowed to modify data
- View and Modify - user group will be able view and modify data
If Page-Level Permissions are not defined to user groups, PowerSchool uses the default access level originally defined for the group on the Edit Group page.
Click Page-Level Permissions for instructions on how to enable, set, and/or disable Page-Level Permissions.
Field Level Security
The Field Level Security feature provides easy-to-use tools for the PowerSchool Administrator to configure and manage field level security for PowerSchool Admin and PowerSchool Teacher fields that need to be limited.
Field Level Security accomplishes the following:
- Protect Personally Identifiable Information (PII) so that unauthorized users cannot see or access it
- Protect data integrity by limiting who can edit specific fields, even though some other users may need to view the information
Users can be granted the following access:
- No Access
- View Only Access
- Full Access
Things to Remember:
- Field Level Security is complimentary to and not a substitute for Page Level Security
- Users are never given more access than is granted at the page level, for example:
- If a user has Field Level Security set to "Full Access" on a particular field, but the page is set to "View Only" for that user, user will be "View Only" access to the field on that page
- It is possible for a user to have full edit access on another page for the same field
- The following PowerSchool pages do not enforce Field Level Security and should continue to be secured through Page-Level Security where possible:
- Autosend
- Import
- Family Management
- ReportWorks
- Reports that utilize SRP platform
Click Field-Level for instructions on how to learn about Field-Level Security.