Activity rights determine which portal objects a user can create and which portal utilities a user can execute to create or modify portal objects. For example, you can specify that users can create communities, create folders, create content types, and create portlets. Activity rights are global and cumulative. If a user is a member of multiple groups, each with different rights, that user inherits all the activity rights of all the parent groups. That user can exercise all of those rights in any area of the portal to which that user has the appropriate access. Groups can also inherit activity rights.

In addition to the default activity rights, you can also create custom portal activities. For example, if you have an inventory control system accessed through the portal and only certain users are allowed to edit it, you can create an Edit Inventories activity. You can then create inventory-control portlets that verify whether a user has the correct activity right prior to receiving access to the portlet.