Permissions control which specific actions in changing statuses each person can take. It's a grid: every user is a row, and each controllable action is a column — tick the cell to grant that user that permission.
The permission grid
The columns are the set-status permissions — one column per article status — which decide who is allowed to move an item into that status. Ticking a user's cell for a status with green lets that user set it; setting red stops them. This is how you keep workflow-advancing stages, such as approving or ordering, in the hands of the people responsible for them.
If a cell is left blank, no permission is applied there — so anything you haven't set stays open to everyone. Permissions only start restricting once you set them; leave the grid empty and every action is open to all users.
💡 Good to know: permissions are granted per user, not per role. Two people who hold the same role can have different permissions — what someone can do is always read from their own row here, not from the roles they wear.