Non-administrators unable to tag contacts using Tags tab redux

Question

I'd like to draw attention to a flaw in the ACL permissioning. I'm a volunteer setting up a national database for a new non-profit, but I want non-admins to be able to edit the data for their state and not others. I got that to work using smart groups and the ACL system (yay!). The flaw is that non-admins can't tag contacts. I'm not talking about administering tags...they can't add an existing tag to an existing contact. The permission edit_all_contacts is required, but that ruins the state level permissioning. This is a serious flaw that defeats the benefits of the ACL system. This issue was also documented in June: Non-administrators unable to tag contacts using Tags tab In that case, it was Drupal version: 7.37. CiviCRM version: 4.6.3.

I'm using 4.5.8 and the current versions of Wordpress and the Members Plugin. Our org is new and we can't afford much at this point, but we plan on contributing to ya'll once we're up and running. Thanks for the great software and I look forward to your reply!

Answer 1

I can't really see the use case where "Edit All Contacts" should be required for adding a tag. I think this is something that should be changed. So the solution is to submit a patch or ask a developer to do so.

Now, I'm not part of the CiviCRM core team - but I do submit patches like this one on behalf of my clients. I'm pretty slammed, but I'll make you an offer. If your organization is willing to join the CiviCRM Membership Program, I'll volunteer to fix this in an upcoming version of CiviCRM - and to help you install a personalized patch so you don't need to wait until you upgrade.

If this is amenable to you, please:

• File an issue for this at https://issues.civicrm.org. Reference this question, and mark the "Funding Source" as "Contributed Code".
• Add a comment on this answer linking to your new issue.
• In 1-2 days, the core team will reply. If they agree that there's no legitimate case for "Edit All Contacts" permission to create tags, you'll join the membership program.
• I'll ask the membership coordinator to inform me when this happens.
• At that point, I'll develop a patch, submit it to the core team, and work with you to get it working on your system.

Please let me know what you think!