Exporting Permission Sets to XML

Permission sets that exist in Dynamics 365 Business Central can be exported and packaged for your extension directly from the client, instead of defining XML by hand. These permission sets are also known as tenant permissions, and are shown in the UI as Extension permissions. The underlying functionality of permissions has changed with the latest version of Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Important

With the latest version of Dynamics 365 Business Central permissions are no longer defined as data in the application database. Permissions that can be created by using AL objects are called system permissions. For more information, see Entitlements and Permission Sets Overview.

To export permission sets from Dynamics 365 Business Central

1. In Dynamics 365 Business Central, search for Permission Sets, and then choose the relevant link.
2. On the Permission Sets page, choose the permissions that you want to export, and then choose Export Selected Permissions.
3. In the Export Permission Sets dialog, choose to export permission sets only for the application, only for the tenant, or for both.
4. Save the file to your extension folder.
5. Delete the permission sets from Dynamics 365 Business Central.

You can generate a permission set file which contains permissions to all the files in your extension. This will make it easier to start setting up permissions for your app. You can do this by simply creating an extension with some objects as described below.

To export permission sets using Visual Studio Code

1. In Visual Studio Code, open your extension with objects; pages, reports, tables, queries, codeunits, and/or XMLports.  
2. Open the command palette using the Ctrl+Shift+P keys and select the AL: Generate permission set containing current extension objects command.  

   Note

   If you do this repeatedly, Visual Studio Code will probe for overwriting the file, there is no support for merging manual corrections into newly generated content.

3. Publish the app. 

Now, you have the XML file with default permissions to all your objects.

Example from Visual Studio Code

The following example illustrates the generated .xml file from MyProject which contains a table with objectID 50106 and two object types are generated; <ObjectType>0</ObjectType> is TableData and <ObjectType>1</ObjectType> is Table.

Note

The maximum length of the RoleID attribute is 20 characters. If the RoleID exceeds this length, then the XML schema validation fails and the corresponding permission set file is not included in the resulting app package. You will get a warning in the Visual Studio output panel.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<PermissionSets>
  <PermissionSet RoleID="MyProject" RoleName="MyProject">
    <Permission>
      <ObjectID>50106</ObjectID>
      <ObjectType>0</ObjectType>
      <ReadPermission>1</ReadPermission>
      <InsertPermission>1</InsertPermission>
      <ModifyPermission>1</ModifyPermission>
      <DeletePermission>1</DeletePermission>
      <ExecutePermission>0</ExecutePermission>
      <SecurityFilter />
    </Permission>
    <Permission>
      <ObjectID>50106</ObjectID>
      <ObjectType>1</ObjectType>
      <ReadPermission>0</ReadPermission>
      <InsertPermission>0</InsertPermission>
      <ModifyPermission>0</ModifyPermission>
      <DeletePermission>0</DeletePermission>
      <ExecutePermission>1</ExecutePermission>
      <SecurityFilter />
    </Permission>
</PermissionSet>
</PermissionSets>

Object type mapping

The mapping of object types in the XML such as <ObjectType>0</ObjectType> generated from Visual Studio Code is the following:

Object type	Number
TableData	0
Table	1
Report	3
Codeunit	5
XMLPort	6
Page	8
Query	9
FieldNumber	11
PageExtension	14
TableExtension	15
Enum	16
EnumExtension	17
Profile	18
ProfileExtension	19

See Also

Entitlements and Permission Sets Overview
Permissions on Database Objects
Permissions Property
TestPermissions Property