Setting folder permissions on the Cloud server
There are 3 ways to set folder permissions on a Cloud Server; add User Groups, make use of My Documents or register an additional Cloud account.
User Groups
This feature is available from version 12.1 onwards and can be used to ensure that only certain user groups have access to folders. The feature needs to be managed by an Account Administrator. It is important to understand that if no permissions are implemented on a folder, then by default that folder is visible to ALL USERS.
In v12, after implementing permissions, folders are still visible to all users, but those without rights to access them are unable to browse to them. Therefore files and folders which should be ‘hidden’ from users should be inside sub-folders which are restricted.
From v14 onwards, the folders are completely hidden from users who don’t have permissions to them.
To implement folder permissions, first add a user group, then add users to that group, and finally decide which folders are accessible by which groups.
Add a User Group
In v12, it is done like this.
- Click Settings>Manage User Groups
- Type in a new User group name and click Add User Group
In v14, it is done like this:
- Click Manage> Groups
- Click Add User Group, type in a Name and click Save.
Add users to your new group
In v12, it looks like this:
And in v14, it looks like this:
Click on the group name to add users.
Manage the permissions on folders
Go back to your templates and in the context menu of any folder, click Manage Permissions to decide which groups have access to that folder.
Use the My Documents folders
This is a different method of implementing restricted access. Each user has their own My Documents folder to which only they have access, with the exception of Account Administrators. An Account Administrator has access to all users’ My Documents folders.
- An interesting implementation of this feature is to send assembled documents and data to individual users’ My Documents folders. Whilst this restricts the sharing of data, it also protects it.
- For implementation, use either the Configuration or the SetSavedDocumentFolder and SetSavedDataFolder commands in a template, along with the <MyDocuments> command. <MyDocuments> is the way to address the user’s My Documents folder on the cloud account. Similarly templates, code templates, included templates or data sources could be saved in that folder.
Register an additional Cloud account
Registering separate Cloud accounts for different parts of the business might be an answer to keeping certain templates hidden. Some things to be aware of though:
- Although the templates themselves might be different there is still a need to maintain two sets of templates – the config, the included templates, the code templates, perhaps even a database.
- Contact XpressDox for the cost implications of multiple Cloud accounts.
