Setting up restrictions on field value access

  • 20/03/2026
  • 6 minutes to read

You can help expense users focus on what's relevant to them when they create expenses by stipulating exactly which field values are visible to specific types of users in the Expense Mobile App and the Expense Portal. Specifying which fields are visible minimizes errors and means bookkeepers spend less time double-checking to see if expenses were posted correctly.

This feature allows you to set up access to specific field values for each individual expense user or for a whole group of expense users by limiting access to expense types, dimensions, or other lookup values.

Note

By default, all field values are accessible. Therefore restricting field value access means specifying which field values are visible to a user. For example, if you specify which field values are available for a user group, that group sees only those field values. Whereas a group using the default setup, sees all field values.

Limiting access to certain field values is particularly useful for large setups that may have hundreds of different projects to choose between, and many different field types, including field types that represent dimensions such as Job, Task, Department, or Cost Group. Field values such as Expense Type depend on the requirements of your organization.

To restrict user access to field values

Depending on the version of Expense Management that you're running, step three of the following setup process differs slightly.

To set up a restricted view of field values for one or more expense users:

  1. Search Search for and select Configured Fields.

  2. In the Description column of the table, click the linked field name to go to the record of the field you want to include access to (for example Expense Type).

  3. This action differs slightly depending on which version you are using:

    • From 2026 R1 onwards - On the action bar of the Field Type Card, click Lookup Value Access.
    • From 2022 R1 onwards - On the action bar of the Field Type Card, click Manage > Field Type.
    • Prior to 2021 R2 - On the action bar of the Field Types Card, click Field Type > Lookup Value Access.

  4. On the Lookup Value Access per User/Group page, click the top line of the table and fill in the field as needed:

    • Under Options, in the Show field, choose User or User Group from the dropdown menu to apply settings to an individual expense user, or a group of expense users.
    • In the Description column of the table, select the field and it automatically fills-in a description, based on the values you've selected.
    • Select or clear the All Users checkbox to specify whether or not all users can have access to the field that you selected in step two.
    • Select or clear the INT or LT checkbox to specify whether this user/user group has access to the lookup value.

  5. Repeat step four to add any additional field values to the restricted view you are setting up.

    Note

    You must create a table entry for each field value that you want to allow the user or group access to. If there's only one line in the table of the Lookup Value Access per User/Group page, then the user or group that you defined under field type will only have access to that value.

You have now set up the field value(s) that are accessible for the field(s) and user, or user group, that you specified.

Example setup

In this example, you want a group of internal users (INT) to only see "Accommodation" as an option in the Expense Type field of the Expense Mobile App and Expense Portal. Users who aren't in that group (and therefore don't have a restricted view) will instead see all expense type fields. Users who are in another group, for example, external (EXT) will see only the restricted view for their group.

  1. Search Search for and select Configured Fields.
  2. In the Description column of the table, click Expense Type, this opens the Field Type Card.
  3. On the action bar, click Lookup Value Access.
  4. On the Expense Type line,
    1. Under Options, in the Show field, choose User Group from the dropdown menu.
    2. In the Code column, click Accommodation.
    3. In the Description column, choose Accommodation.
    4. In the INT column, select the checkbox.
  5. On the action bar of the Field Type Card for Expense Type, click Update Lookup Values.
  6. Click Force Synchronize with Continia Online.

Setting up fields
Setting up field dependencies