Why can't I access some features or areas?

To perform an action in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you must first be assigned one or more security roles. A security role is a defined set of privileges. The security role assigned to you determines which tasks you can perform and which parts of the user interface you can view. For example, if you are a salesperson, you probably have permission to create and view the opportunities, quotes, orders, and invoices entities because your system administrator assigned the Salesperson security role to you. On the other hand, your organization's sales managers likely have permission to create products in the Product Catalog area, because the system administrator assigned the Sales Manager security role to them.

If you do not have permission to access a Microsoft Dynamics CRM entity, you cannot access that entity and, in many cases, you cannot view that entity either. For example, because the Salesperson security role does not have the Create (create a record) privilege for the Product Catalog entity, if you are assigned the Salesperson security role, you cannot view the Products area. However, that security role does grant Read (view a record) and Append (add a note or activity to a record) privileges for the Product entity. It also grants Write (change a record) and AppendTo (relate one record to another) privileges for the Quote, Order, Invoice, and Opportunity entities for the user's business unit. Therefore, if you are assigned the Salesperson security role, you can add products to quotes, orders, invoices, and opportunities, even though you cannot create or change data in the Products area.

For more information about security roles and privileges, see the online Help topic: "Controlling Data Access."

What security role do I need?

Microsoft Dynamics CRM does not automatically assign security roles to users. Your system administrator must assign the appropriate security role to your Microsoft Dynamics CRM user account. Additionally, he or she can assign more than one security role to you and can modify existing security roles for you by adding or removing privileges. Therefore, this article provides information on the system defaults.

The following table lists common actions, the security roles that have permission to perform the action, and the security roles that do not have permission to perform the action.