4 Replies Latest reply: Aug 28, 2014 11:10 AM by AIR-Chayah RSS

    Can RH Server enforce audience access rights?

    kdeuler Community Member
    kdeuler Aug 20, 2014 8:32 AM

      Hi Experts...

       

      My company has standard documentation that all customers can view. We also have documentation for premium products. We would like to have customers only access the documentation for the premium products (one or more) they’ve purchased. Can RH Server enforce these access rights, and can access rights be granted via API to an external authorization system? The PDF on the server is a bit unclear on access rights. I’m not sure whether it’s referring to access rights for RoboHelp authors, or for access rights for end users (those viewing the published material). I’d be primarily interested in the latter.

       

      Thanks!

       

      -Kurt Euler

      • 61 Views
      • Tags:
        • 1. Re: Can RH Server enforce audience access rights?
          John Daigle CommunityMVP
          John Daigle Aug 20, 2014 1:20 PM (in response to kdeuler)

          Hi, Kurt

          RoboHelp Server is a database application that "sits" on top of Apache Tomcat Server. There are two main purposes for the database (MS SQL, Oracle, etc.)

          1. To gather feedback analytics and traffic information on visits to various topics so that authors can fine-tune their content.
          2. (To answer your question specifically, the access rights are NOT limited to RoboHelp authors.) Limit Access to Content based upon authentication. "Areas" of content can be defined by the author. Then, you set up "Groups" of users (e.g., Premium vs. other end-users). Those groups can then be given access or not depending on the way you limit access. Those groups can also be added using LDAP for convenience.

           

          This online help topic may offer more details.

          http://help.adobe.com/en_US/RoboHelp/9.0/RoboEngine/WS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d11c0aaa9fd7-8 000.html

           

          Thanks

          John Daigle

          Adobe Certified RoboHelp and Captivate Instructor

          Evergreen, Colorado

          www.showmethedemo.com

          • 2. Re: Can RH Server enforce audience access rights?
            kdeuler Community Member
            kdeuler Aug 21, 2014 4:08 PM (in response to John Daigle)

            Thanks John.  If some content is restricted to users based on user group, which would be the best doc architecture design:

             

            1) Creating a merged project that includes the standard docs that all can see AND the premium projects.

            • Pros: Search could find hits in all documents.
            • Cons: For those users that don't have access to a premium products doc, links to the latter, from a standard doc, would be broken.
            • Note: If merged projects are put into one directory (no experience with this, so I'm not sure that they are), perhaps imposing access rights via Apache/tomcat wouldn't be workable.

             

            2) Post the the standard docs and each of the premium docs in their own directories, and maintain a few links to between each premium doc and the standard doc where it makes sense.

            • Pros: Might be easier to administer.
            • Cons: Won't have "universal search".
            • Note:  If the user clicks a link that leads from a standard doc to a premium doc's home page, and the user doesn't own that premium product, the user could be routed to a "Sorry, you must purchase this product to view its documentation page".

             

             

            Thanks!

             

            -Kurt

            • 3. Re: Can RH Server enforce audience access rights?
              John Daigle CommunityMVP
              John Daigle Aug 22, 2014 2:19 PM (in response to kdeuler)

              Hi, Kurt

              Let's see if I can sort this out. First, I gather you would use a Merged Project as defined here:

              Adobe RoboHelp 11 * Merging Help projects

              and publish that to the RoboHelp Server (WebHelp Pro) - as opposed to - simply using the automatic project merging feature of RoboHelp Server. In that scenario everything is published to one "Area" and all Search/Index/Glossary, etc. is merged and visible.

               

              Regardless, the "cons" you point out (universal search and inter-project linking) are certainly the biggest stumbling blocks.

              You should understand that the way authentication works is with Protected Areas as opposed to "directories". So, it's really like having a completely separate and self-contained website, even though the domain name is the same. If you link from a "standard" topic to a "premium" topic, you are going to get a request for authentication to proceed. And, when the end-user enters the Protected Area, they will be searching only that protected content (bummer.)

               

              If I understand your scenarios, the only way you might work this is to have redundant "Areas". One protected and one not. You would have to publish twice. The standard area would have all content you don't mind everyone seeing. Then using conditional build tags and variables, you could publish to a second "Premium" Area for those who are authenticated and it would have ALL content and thus be searchable across all content. You would give the Premium folks a different URL for "their" content. Obviously this causes a bit of redundancy, but it might serve your purpose given your use case.

              We can hope that future releases will address this feature. 

               

              I know there are quite a few RoboHelp Server authors that are faced with this issue and perhaps they have found a solution I'm not aware of. Maybe they will chime in.

               

              Thanks

              John Daigle

              Adobe Certified RoboHelp and Captivate Instructor

              Evergreen, Colorado

              www.showmethedemo.com

              • 4. Re: Can RH Server enforce audience access rights?
                AIR-Chayah Community Member
                AIR-Chayah Aug 28, 2014 11:10 AM (in response to John Daigle)

                Hi, Kurt and John.

                We were expecting to be faced with a similar problem. In our current WebHelp Pro Help system (which is integrated with the application), users only see product components that they've licensed, and, therefore, they only see the Help for those product components. I used conditional build tags for each component to achieve this.

                However, we also have a client portal where users can access a wide variety of user guides, etc., after they log in to the portal.

                When we started considering use of RoboHelp Server 9, we researched the use of protected areas to restrict access based on licensing, and, like you, saw that it could be unwieldy to manage. We decided to ask Product Management if restricting the Help was still a requirement. The answer was "no". We no longer see a need to restrict our clients from viewing documentation for components they have not licensed. In fact, the documentation could spur them to purchase a component!

                Carol