Authors vs Readers

Readers and Authors fields - a common interview question. I remember whatever interviews I have given in any organisation or who ever I have interviewed I have always asked them questions related to Readers and Authors field with lot of permutation and combination. Today I thought of documenting whatever I know about these fields, so I can refer to it whenevevr I want and brush up my brain a little if I have forget anything in future. 

Basics about Authors and Readers field

Authors

Authors field works in conjuction with Author access i.e. it controls only people with Author access in the ACL.

If you have only Author access you can Read, but you cannot Edit that document.

However, if you have Author access and your name is listed in the Authors field of that document, then you can edit that document.

Authors field affects only users who have Author access in the ACL. If you have Read access in ACL and your name is in Authors field, then you cannot edit the documents. Thus, Authors field cannot override the ACL.

Editor access or higher access in ACL are not affected by the Authors field.

Readers

Readers field controls who can read the documents. Readers field doesn't give you more access than what you are given in the ACL. 

If you have No Access and are listed in the Readers field then you cannot read the document.

However, if you have Editor or higher access and your name is not listed in the Readers field then even if you have Editor or higher access you are not be allowed to read the documents.

If you have Editor or higher access and you want to read the documents with Readers field in it then have your name listed in the Form Properties > Security Tab > Default read access for documents created with this form >

a. have your name added to the ACL and tick the All readers and above checkbox.

b. have your name added to the ACL and tick the names who should read documents cerated with that form.

c. have your name added to the Readers field in the form design.

It doesn't affect the read access list or the ACL. Readers field can control/restrict the access of the document before it is created. Readers field also affects the Replication of the documents.

Authors & Readers

Authors field doesn't affect Edit Access or higher. Readers field does affect Edit Access or higher.

Authors field overrides the Readers field. i.e. if your name is not there in the Readers field, but is there in the Authors field of that same document, then you will be able to read the document.

A Readers field with a blank value mean that everyone can Read the document.

However, an Authors field with a blank value doesn't allow anyone to Edit the document.

"*" value in the Readers / Authors field enables everyone to Read / Edit, respectively, the documents.

If you go to the Document properties and check the Fields Tab, you can see the Field Flags.

The Readers field shows field flags as: READ-ACCESS NAMES

The Authors field shows field flags as: READ/WRITE-ACCESS NAMES

Things need to be taken care of while creating Readers/Author field

The right way of adding values to the Readers / Authors fields are:

a. Use canonical form of the name, i.e. CN=Gayatri Gouda/OU=IND/O=CS.

b. Use roles with the square brackets, i.e. [HelpdeskAnalyst].

c. Do not use the Domain name with the canonical name i.e. no @DOMINO.

d. Avoid any extra spaces before or after or in between the names in quotes. Use @Trim.

The field type of these fields should be Editable / Computed / Computed when composed.

e. Do not make these fields as Computed for Display. Otherwise the notes document would fail to calculate your access.

f. If you want multiple users to edit or read the documents, in the field properties, you must tick the Allow multiple values in the field properties. This stores the names and the roles as a Text-list and in the form of:

"CN=Gayatri Gouda/OU=IND/O=CS":"CN=Suchi Gouda/OU=IND/O=CS":"[HelpdeskAnalyst]"

g. Use colon (:) to separate values and not semicolon (;) or any other character.

h. Enclose the values in parenthesis ("").