Is there a permissions setting to disable the ‘Duplicate Selected’ option in the right-click menu?
Right now, there’s not an option to disable the duplicate functionality in Shotgun. What’s the workflow you’re trying to support (or not support )
Hi Mason,
If a Role
has permission to “Create” a given Entity, then the Duplicate Selected
option is available in the right-click menu.
Duplicate Selected as a right-click menu option is a problem.
Scenario:
- A senior asset artist has been told they need to work on a new
Asset
. - But they can’t work on thatAsset
until it exists in Shotgun due to aTask
environment management tool. - Production staff have not yet created the
Asset
entity in Shotgun. - The Sr. Artist
Role
has the ability to createAsset
Entities
(Shotgun support staff have suggested to allow more permission than necessary, removing permissions as things present as problems)- We want to allow this for the situations where an assets artist does know the safe way to create a new asset using the
+ Asset
button.
- We want to allow this for the situations where an assets artist does know the safe way to create a new asset using the
- The artist then chooses to
Duplicate Selected
on an asset they’re familiar with rather than using the+ Asset
button (because they may be unaware of the implications of their actions) - A new
Asset
Entity is created.
Problems incurred by the above scenario:
- The new Entity will have an assigned
code
field:AssetName (Copy)
by default.- If folder creation triggers are in place (whether by Webhooks, or by Shotgun Event Daemons), this creates a series of related folders on the network. - These “junk” folders may have unacceptable or disallowed characters in the filepaths, and are unnecessarily taxing on the hardware.
- Triggers for Entity “Creation” will only trigger on the duplication (
EventLogEntry
metadata"in_create" : True
), not on the rename to the appropriate name as a followup step (which would register as a field update). - If any of the linked or related Entities on the duplicated Entity are not set to be “Created” by that Role, then the duplication of the Entity will fail - leaving the web UI in a non-responsive state.
(This will also not duplicate the base Entity) - For Assets: If a generic Asset Entity has multi-entity links to multiple shots, then all the connections to those “Related Shots” are also duplicated. - This has the certainty to affect Asset membership and inclusion for other Pipeline / Production tools which deal with Rig referencing / imported assets / ingested products / QA tools, etc.
I’m sure there are more issues and implications which I have not considered yet.
Suggestions:
- Provide a Permissions-People setting to remove the right-click menu for
Duplicate Selected
- Change the functionality of
Duplicate Selected
so that it presents the user with an Entity creation interface with filled-in fields taken from the original Entity so that the user is aware of the field population.
I hope this characterizes some potential workflow issues.
Cheers,
David
Thank you @Mason / @shotgunSupport for the dialogue concerning this topic.
Unfortunately, it’s not possible to disable the ‘Duplicate Selected’ option per Permission Group. … we have no plans in the short-term to dive into this area of Shotgun.
The Duplicate Selected
functionality is considered a globally available option so long as the user Role
is permitted to Create
that Entity type.
When asked about the reasoning behind this decision:
No specific reasoning, just that we didn’t hear these use-cases when the functionality was developed (many moons ago) so the extra controls weren’t included.
In an effort to save Artists / Production staff from this “feature” - I propose that the only workaround currently available is such:
- Turn off primary Entity creation for all Roles (effectively disabling the right-click menu for duplicate selected)
- Build a framework of
Action Menu Item(s)
forCreate
:Asset
,Shot
,Episode
,Playlist
,Project
, etc. (made available to the Roles who previously had the ability to create those Entities) - Build an additional
Action Menu Item
which could then be exposed to select Roles to permit “safe duplication” of selected entities.
This seems to be a lot of work prescribed to the tech team in order to appropriately respond to the situation. - It is also very opaque and disconnected from the “Permissions” of a Role, so future maintenance of the system could be a challenge.
This would also circumvent the most effective feature of Shotgun’s web UI - The Creation Template Form
From reading [this] post, …the first thing I’d suggest would be to attempt to train your users to not use the ‘Duplicate’ function. …the suggestions [above] would work, although as you point out, that’s a fair bit of work.
As a follow up, I will be bringing this issue to the Product Team through the roadmap. - If this is affecting you as well, I suggest chiming in on the suggestion to help promote it. (link to follow)
If anyone is aware of a more suitable method or approach to this issue, I would love to hear it!