Access Control for Dashboards
Dashboard permissions are different from application permissions. You must control not just who can access a dashboard, but what data they see. A sales manager should see their region's data, not competitors' data.
Role-Based Dashboard Access
Admin sees all dashboards. Manager sees dashboards for their team. Individual contributor sees their personal dashboard. Different roles need different views.
Implement role-based access: check the user's role before allowing access to a dashboard.
Row-Level Security for Dashboards
Beyond access control (who can see this dashboard), you need data filtering (what rows this user can see).
A regional manager should see only their region's data. The dashboard UI is the same, but the data shown is filtered by the user's region.
Implement at the query level. Before returning data, filter by the user's assigned region.
Column-Level Permissions
Some columns are sensitive. Financial details visible to finance but not operations. Contact info visible to customer service but not to public users.
Show or hide columns based on role.
Public Dashboards
Shareable links to a dashboard view. No login required. Useful for stakeholders who don't have accounts.
Must be carefully scope-limited. If you expose a public dashboard, ensure it contains only data you want public. Use unique tokens for access control (hard to guess URLs).
Dashboard Ownership and Edit Permissions
Who can view vs who can edit. Admin can edit. Viewers can see but not modify.
Editing a shared dashboard requires coordination. If multiple people edit, changes can conflict. Require explicit edit permission.
Audit Trail for Dashboards
Log access: who viewed which dashboard, when. Required for compliance. Valuable for understanding usage.
Log modifications: who changed what, when. For edit-enabled dashboards.
Multi-Tenant Dashboard Isolation
If your product is multi-tenant, every query must be scoped to the current tenant. Customer A can't see Customer B's data.
A data leakage bug here is critical. This is not a minor issue—it's exposing customer data to competitors.
Testing Dashboard Permissions
Write automated tests verifying user A can't see user B's data. Not just that the UI hides it, but that the API enforces it.
Test each role: admin sees everything, manager sees their team, individual sees only their data. Test that data is actually filtered, not just hidden client-side.
Verifying Permissions at Every Layer
Don't trust the UI. The UI might say "user can't view this", but always verify on the server.
A user with developer tools could remove the "hidden" attribute and see data. Or craft an API request directly.
Always enforce permissions server-side before returning data.
Caching with Permissions
If you cache query results, be careful with permissions. Manager A's query is cached. Manager B asks the same question but for a different region. You return the cached result, exposing Manager A's data to Manager B.
Cache keys must include user context. Cache separately for each user/role.
Permission Changes
When a user's permissions change, stale data becomes wrong. If you promote someone to admin, they should immediately see admin dashboards.
Invalidate caches when permissions change.