It is important to note that the visibility feature in HowNow is for setting what is able to be seen for a user when logged into HowNow - the windows security will need to be applied to the folders/documents to stop users from accessing them through the 'back end'. Read the information below about visibility and security and see the end for our recommendations.
The Visibility feature is part of your HowNow license and can be turned on at any time, by one of our support team members. To confirm if you have the Visibility feature installed, goto the File Menu>About HowNow and check in the Additional Modules section for “Document Security”.
This optional module allows documents, records, record locations or contacts, to be accessed only by the members of one or more teams. Teams are setup in HowNow and then designated employees are assigned to required team/s. Once your teams are defined and setup in HowNow, continue with the HowNow Visibility setup as below.
HowNow Teams Example:
When and who can set Visibility?
Visibly can be set on a document when profiling into HowNow or it can be set on record locations so that if a record is filed to a location it is automatically assigned the correct visibility. You must be a member of the Team to set the Visibility. An example of the Visibility selection screen is below:
HowNow Document Visibility (Knowledge Tab)
Visibility can be set when you are profiling a document into HowNow or after profiling a document by editing the profile.
To select/deselect the visibility options on a profiled Knowledge document, right click on the document to be modified, select the Visibility tab. Tick the team in which the document can be visible to. The document will only be visibly to members of the team/s selected. You may also use Profile Selection to change the Visibility team/s on multiple documents at a time.
HowNow Record Visibility (Records Tab)
Visibility can be set per document or per Record Location.
Document
Visibility can be set when you are profiling a document into HowNow or after profiling a document by editing the profile.
To select/deselect the visibility options on a profiled Records document, right click on the document/s to be modified, select the Visibility tab. Tick the team in which the document can be visible to. The document will only be visibly to members of the team/s selected. You may also use Profile Selection to change the Visibility team/s on multiple documents at a time.
Record Location
You may setup a "HR" Location for e.g. so all confidential HR documents stored to this location are only visible to persons within the HR Team.
To set the Visibility team/s against the required record location, from the Records tab, select Administration>Record Locations to open the Record Location Editor.
Highlight the location and select Edit. Click on the Visibility tab. As per the example below, tick the team in which the records profiled into this record location can be visible to. From this point forward, the record location and records profiled to this location, will only be visible to members of the team/s selected.
IMPORTANT NOTE: HowNow does not apply the same security settings against the Windows folder. These may be set in Windows Permissions area by your IT team.
If you require records to be stored in a separate server or server location with security applied, please contact our support team to assist you with setting up specific location paths against top level record locations within HowNow.
HowNow Contact Visibility (Contacts Tab)
Visibility can be set per contact so only certain team members can see certain contact/s. Setting visibility on a Contact, will NOT:
- Apply the visibility to the existing record documents profiled against the contact. This may be done manually per document or using Profile Selection for more than one document.
- Automatically set the Visibility when being profiled into HowNow - the user must apply when adding documents using the Visibility tab
To set the Visibility teams against the required contact, from the Contacts tab, Double Click on the contact. Click on the Visibility tab. Tick the team in which the Contact can be visible to. The Contact will only be visible to members of the team/s selected.
HowNow Jobs / Tasks Visibility
Visibility can be set per Job/s or Task/s so only certain team members can see the Jobs or Tasks.
To set the Visibility teams against the required Job or Task, from the relating tab, Double Click on the contact. Click on the Visibility tab. Tick the team in which the Contact can be visible to. The Contact will only be visible to members of the team/s selected.
Recommendations for Visibility & Security
Below are our recommendations for easy management of visibility and security on records.
- Set up a new location and apply the security at the top level or folder level
- Don't use visibility on an individual document level as this is very hard to manage the windows security in the back end
- Make sure the windows security is applied and matches the visibility teams before adding and documents to this area