How to Allow WordPress Admin Area Access for WooCommerce Users

The PublishPress Capabilities plugin is one of the most popular ways to control permissions for WooCommerce.

The PublishPress Capabilities plugin is sometimes needed because WooCommerce can have confusing ways of handling permissions.

Several PublishPress Capabilities users have written to us about access to the WordPress admin area. As soon as they install WooCommerce, some users lose access to the admin area.

This is because WooCommerce automatically blocks access to users who do not have one of these three permissions:

1. edit_posts
2. manage_woocommerce
3. view_admin_dashboard

Why does WooCommerce do this? I think it is to avoid distracting customers. The customers on your WooCommerce site do not need to see the admin dashboard or the WordPress toolbar.

The first two permissions on this list (edit_posts and manage_woocommerce) are powerful permissions and give access to large areas of the WordPress and WooCommerce dashboard.

So if WooCommerce is blocking your users, you can use PublishPress Capabilities to give them those permissions.

Video guide

Video and screenshot guide

This image shows how you give the edit_posts permission thanks to the PublishPress Capabilities plugin.

• Go to the “Capabilities” link in your WordPress admin menu.
• Check the box in the “Edit” column and “Posts” row.

This image shows how you give the manage_woocommerce permission.

• Go to the “Capabilities” link in your WordPress admin menu.
• Check the “manage woocommerce” box.

Finally, there is a third option and this is probably the best choice for most sites.

• Go to the “Capabilities” link in your WordPress admin menu.
• Find the “Add Capability” box.
• Enter “view_admin_dashboard”.
• Click “Add to role”.

• Select the “view admin dashboard” box.

I believe that view_admin_dashboard is a good choice is because it is very limited. All it does is allow users access to the WordPress dashboard. Here is a screenshot of a user who has view_admin_dashboard plus also the ability to manage WooCommerce products: