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## Protection Level

Whenever you create a workflow object in Oracle Workflow Builder, you have the option of protecting the object at a certain level. An object's protection level controls whether other users can modify the object based on their access levels.

To change the protection level of an object, display the Access tab of the object's property page. The protection level that you set for an object is dependent on your current access level. You can control access to an object in one of four ways:

- Allow access to everyone--By default, all users are allowed access to an object if both "Preserve Customizations' and 'Lock at this Access Level' are unchecked in the Access tab, that is the protection level is equal to 1000.

- Limit access to users with access levels equal to your own or higher--If you check 'Preserve Customizations' in the Options region of the Access tab, you designate the object as being customizable by anyone with an access level equal to or higher than your current access level. You should only mark objects as customizable if you are sure that you will not be providing upgraded versions of this object in the future that would overwrite other user's customizations to it.

- Limit access to users with access levels equal to your own or lower--If you check 'Lock at this Access Level', you protect the object and ensure that the object may only be modified by users with an access level equal to or lower than your current access level. Users operating at a higher access level will see a small lock on the workflow object's icon, indicating that the object can be used but not modified. Protect any objects that you want to define as standard components that will not change unless you provide a global upgrade. For this reason, it is important that you always operate at the same consistent access level.

- Limit access to users with access levels equal to your own--If you check both 'Lock at this Level' and 'Preserve Customizations' you ensure that the object cannot be modified by anyone other than users operating at your current access level.

Preserve Customizations | Lock at this Access Level | Access Level applied to Object
--- | --- | ---
|  | Object may be updated by any access level.
X |  | Object may only be updated by users with access levels equal to or higher than your current access level.
| X | Object may only be updated by users with access levels equal to or lower than your current access level.
X | X | Object cannot be updated by any access level except for your current access level.

> Attention: If you have installed the beta version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer on your PC, which automatically installs an early version of a file called comctl32.dll, you may not see the lock icons appear on the locked objects in Oracle Workflow Builder. To correct this problem, install the production version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer to replace comctl32.dll with the latest copy.

The protection and access levels in Oracle Workflow are present to remind you that certain workflow objects should not be modified or should only be modified by someone accessing the tool at an authorized access level. It is not intended as a means of securing or source controlling your workflow objects.

> Attention: Most workflow objects provided by Oracle Workflow have a protection level of 0, which means the objects can only be modified by the Oracle Workflow team, operating at an access level of 0. If you attempt to alter your access level to 0 and modify the data anyway, your customizations will not be supported, especially if Oracle Workflow provides an upgrade to the seed data that may overwrite the modifications you make to the originally protected data.

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