The anonymous portal allows your organization or clients to easily access documents in your repository such as newsletters, forms, or corporate policies without having the need for a registered user license or to login with a username or password. This method is extremely helpful when an organization wants to proactively have employees look at information. The portal alias users are given extremely limited access to the documents and features of FileHold. Portal alias user accounts are ideal for casual employees, external personnel, partners, or vendors that are not part of your internal network, but that may require secure access to specific documents or areas in the library.
The portal is disabled by default for FileHold Cloud customers even if they have purchased a portal alias user. If you have configured your library, and you are ready to start using the anonymous portal, contact to enable your portal. Self-hosted customers are able to do this on their own, but can request no-charge assistance from the FileCare team. You will need Windows administration access during the configuration.
The anonymous portal is configured so that users are automatically logged in without having to enter a username and password. You can send the link to a document in an email or have it posted on a website. After clicking the link, the Anonymous Portal opens and guest users can access documents they have permission to view in the repository.
This section discusses the use of an anonymous portal that is used in conjunction with a “portal alias” user account. The anonymous portal needs to be configured on the FileHold server using the FileHold Instrumentation Tools (FHIT). In order to create the portal, you will need system administrator privileges, access to the FileHold server, and Microsoft SQL credentials.
In order for anonymous portal users to access documents, they will need a “portal alias” account to be created by a system administrator and then added to the limited security group/role. The limited user group will then need to be given access to cabinets, folders, and schemas. The Library Administrator will have to carefully plan the library hierarchy and security membership for the portal. When guest users access the portal, they will only be able to see those cabinets, folders, and documents that they have access to.
The Anonymous Portal can be configured to use a customized header. See Customizing the Header Panel in the Anonymous Portal.
Preparing the anonymous portal
To create the Anonymous Portal
- Create a user for the “portal alias” account. For example, create a user called “FileHold” with a password of “guest123”. You can choose a more secure password, this is just an example of course.
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA) can be enabled or disabled for guest alias users. See Multi-factor Authentication and Creating or Viewing Locally Managed Users for more information on MFA.
- Add the user to the Limited group/security role.
- Login to the FileHold server using the Administrator username and password.
- Go to C:\Program Files\FileHold Systems\Application Server\FHInstrumentation and run FHInstrumentation.exe.
- In Actions menu, select Configure anonymous portal and click .
- Specify the directory where the FileHold application server is installed. By default, this location is C:\Program Files\FileHold Systems\Application Server. Click to change this location.
- Click .
- In the Database connection settings, enter the SQL server name and enter authentication credentials.
- Click .
- Select the Enable Portal check box.
- Select the Portal alias user from the dropdown list. If the guest alias user has not been created, click . See Creating Portal Alias User Accounts for more information.
- Enter the Portal alias password.
- Enter the contact email address. This email address is displayed as part of a message on the self-service guest portal screen should the portal become unavailable. This allows the user to contact the email address owner if any issue should arise.
- Enter the path to the Custom portal header. This path is relative to to the C:\Program Files\FileHold Systems\Application Server\WebClient\ directory. For more information on a custom header panel, see Customizing the Anonymous Portal Header Panel.
- Enter the path to the Custom portal class, if needed. See Customizing the Anonymous Portal Header Panel for more information.
- Copy and save the guest portal link that is displayed on the screen for future use.
- Click .
- Click .
- The message “Completed successfully” should appear. Click .
- Using the link copied above, paste the link into a browser window. Note that you should use a different browser than the one being used for the regular user session.
Portal options configuration
Several managed options are available to tailor the portal user interface.
- AnonymousPortal.DisableLibrary – Set true to prevent the library node from appearing in the left panel. Users will not be able to browse the library, but they can still find documents using search.
- AnonymousPortal.DisableLibraryArchive – As above, but for the library archive node.
- AnonymousPortal.DisableVersionHistory – Set true to allow only the current visible version of the document to be available. If the version column is included in the view, it will not include a link to the document versions.
Disabling the library and library archive does not prevent the user from accessing documents they have permission to. They will still be able to find them using search.
Although not strictly part of the portal configuration, there are a number of other options you can use to configure the user experience with the portal.
- Using group settings to disable download or viewing.
- Using group settings to disable ad hoc search.
- Use saved searches to help users direct their search.
- Direct access with document URLs.
- Directed lists with Search by URL.
