Access levels enable you to control who can read and write your data.

Each item of data has a read access level and a write access level. To read it, a user or program must have an access level superior to its read level. To change or delete it, a user or program must have an access level superior to its write level.

Source administrators can manage access levels and determine how users and programs can get authorization to use them.

There is a pre-defined access level, the public level, that is inferior to every other access level. There is also a pre-defined admin access level for each source, but it is not necessarily superior to the other access levels in the source. Its name in its source is admin. A user with this level can manage other access levels in the source.

Every access level other than the public level is stored as an item in a data source. It has read and write access levels that control access to it. It has a name that is unique within its source, and is referred to by the name of its source and its unique name in the source, for example: home:admin.