Excellent permissions plugin

I am using AAM 3.0.10 with WP 4.4.2. It is the best permissions management tool I have found. (I tried plenty of them.) It allows me to limit what permissions users have as well as which pages or blogs they have access to. Page and blog access allow separate control for list / read / update. We have a very complex site in regards to which users can edit which pages, etc. This plugin gives us all the control we need.

AAM is compatible with UM (Ultimate Member). I found that some other plugins are not compatible with UM. The other plugin blocked menu access. AAM blocks permissions. With AAM, even if a user sees an edit link, they will not be able to edit a page if they do not have permission to do so in AAM. I think it quite likely that other membership plugins would be similar.

In a perverse way, the negative reviews are a tribute to the power of AAM. Before I installed AAM on my production site, I experimented with it on a locahlost site, and I was very glad I did so. I also found several helpful YouTube tutorials. Here are some other suggestions that will help your site run smoothly.

Create custom roles and base them on a standard WP role. Never edit the standard WP roles. If you are like me, you will go back to them several times as a reference. Use two browsers — one to set permissions, and one to log in as a test user to see exactly what the permission change does.

Group your pages into categories. Group your users into WP roles. For page access, control page categories to WP roles (not users to pages).

Go light on permission edits. Use only the minimum number of edits required. Pay attention to the permissions that warn in red that performance may be slowed.

Finally, if you make any changes, turn caching off. Changes in permissions will not be seen when caching is on. When you are done, turn caching back on. If you forgot, turn caching off, then back on again. This will force AAM to rebuild it’s “quick access file”.

The one thing I wish AAM would add is page groups. Then I could assign 2 or more groups to a WP role. Users would have access to all the groups to which they are assigned. But even without this feature, AAM is the best permissions editor available.