Alfresco Dynamic Watermark (Preview & Download)

Avoid data theft and ensure proper use of your company’s files. Now you can choose from multiple watermarks inside Alfresco and protect your files with flexible permissions.

The Alfresco Dynamic Watermark addon was developed by Skytizens to allow users to protect their company documents. Not just a text stamp, this dynamic watermark gives companies the ability to place unique designs on all sensitive documents. Dynamic—because it can include logos, HTML code, and even particular information such as the name of the user who is currently accessing the document.

Dynamic in its use as well, the watermark can be applied to select areas of the Document Library by folder, file, user, and group. The module makes watermarking customizable in the system so that certain low-level users can only access documents that contain the watermark and other high-level users will not see the watermark at all. Practical for security and easy to use, this watermarking module makes data protection a breeze.

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What is Alfresco Dynamic Watermark?

The Dynamic Watermark addon is a tool for placing watermarks on documents in Alfresco. A watermark is a transparent design, which is visible behind the printed text of a document. Typically, it identifies the creator of the document or the owner of the content. Watermarks are used for confidential information to restrict content sharing, such as proprietary industry information that is kept within a company. This Alfresco Watermark module is dynamic. It holds multiple watermarks in the system.  It can be programmed to deploy a specifically chosen watermark based on a variety of system locations and user roles. Finally, it has two distinct watermark restrictions—Watermark View and Watermark Download. This allows your company to leave a watermark design permanently on sensitive files, even when they are downloaded out of the system.

Why is Alfresco Dynamic Watermark so important?

  • Protect content– restrict access for non-vetted employees such as new hires, temps, and consultants
  • Avoid data theft– watermark sensitive data in the system and downloadable content
  • Ensure authorization– get credit; make sure that research and quality presentations that go onto the internet for sharing purposes will always point back to your company
  • Avoid financial loss– don’t let anyone take data, research, or documents that your company has paid someone to produce
  • Multiple watermarks – keep multiple designs in the system for stratified permissions

The Benefits of Alfresco Dynamic Watermark

Everybody understands the basic concept behind watermarks. Skytizens has developed the Dynamic Watermark addon in Alfresco so that your company can add a watermark to documents where and when you need it most. Instead of using outside software or going over-the-top with security measures, we have developed this effective watermark module to be part of your Document Management System (DMS). We give you the ability to make multiple watermarks. We made sure that files and folders can be programmed with watermarks depending on who is looking at the documents. We added a restriction for users who are restricted to viewing watermarked documents and others are who are restricted to downloading watermarked documents. This integration makes watermarking uncomplicated and a seamless part of your company’s document handling strategy.

How Does It Work?

The system administrator creates one or more watermarks in the Alfresco system. There is no limit to the number of watermarks created. Most companies keep multiple watermark designs on file so that documents across departments have a uniform look. The system has room to hold an unlimited number of distinct watermark designs which can be toggled to Enable/Disable as needed.

Alfresco allows the administrator to use HTML and Rich Text Formatting to create the watermark. Once the watermark(s) have been designed, all users are free to use the watermark on folders within the Document Library.

For document control purposes, any user who creates a file or folder can designate the permissions. In the Manage Permissions option, the folder manager can assign users of this folder to one of two Roles:

  • Watermark View – This user sees the watermark when they preview documents and is not allowed to download documents
  • Watermark Download – This user sees the watermark in document preview mode and if they download a copy off the system, it will retain the visible watermark

When assigning the above permission controls, the folder manager can choose from the complete list of multiple watermarks available for the company. Each department can have a watermark that meets their specific needs. For example, your company may have three watermarks on file: one for ISO document control, one with legal “Do Not Distribute” wording, and one simple sales department watermark that includes the logo and a website address for organic marketing.

To allow users to view and download documents in subfolders without the watermark, the folder manager can add a Folder Rule that removes the watermark. The options for watermark view or download can also be assigned by User, User Group, Folder, and File. These options give managers complete control over who can see company documents without a watermark and when.

Main Features

Dynamic Watermark setup – Administrators must design a watermark in order to deploy this module. In Admin Tools under HTML Dynamic Watermark, the administrator has a rich text format field to design a watermark.

  1. Watermark Name
  2. Description
  3. Rich Text Editing Field – basic options for designing a unique, professional watermark
    • Rich Text Formatting (including fonts, bold text, text colors, and more)
    • Insert Image (logos and pictures)
    • Special Characters
    • Basic Drawing Items (lines)
    • Tables
    • HTML code
  4. Available Variables– Make the watermark unique to the document, user, location, and time it is being viewed.
    • ${USER_USERNAME} – user login
    • ${USER_FIRST_NAME} – user name first name
    • ${USER_SURNAME} – user surname
    • ${USER_EMAIL_ADDRESS} – user email address
    • ${CLIENT_IP_ADDRESS} – client IP address
    • ${SERVER_IP_ADDRESS} – server IP address
    • ${SERVER_HOSTNAME} – server hostname
    • ${DOCUMENT_OPEN_DATE} – date of opening document
    • ${DOCUMENT_OPEN_TIME} – time of opening document
    • ${DOCUMENT_OPEN_NAME} – name of the document
    • ${DOCUMENT_OPEN_NODEREF} – id of the document
  5. Priority – 1 or 2
  6. Rotation – watermark design can be rotated 360◦
  7. Opacity – can be adjusted on a sliding scale from 0% (fully transparent) to 100% (fully opaque)
  8. Horizontal – location on the page; option to repeat watermark for pattern effect
  9. Vertical – location on the page; option to repeat; choose repeat for both horizontal and vertical page location to produce a blanket effect
  10. Status – Enabled/Disabled in the system watermark menu
  11. Preview – See and adjust (in Preview Mode) how the watermark looks on the page

Available Variables – Variables can be used in the design that will take information from the Alfresco system to create the watermark. There is a Help Menu that has a list so that the watermark designer can copy/paste these items into the text field. If the document is used in public, it will be clear who circulated this copy.

For example, the NASA company has the watermark design:

LOGO (image)

Document: ${DOCUMENT_OPEN_NAME}

 ${USER_USERNAME} – ${DOCUMENT_OPEN_DATE} – ${CLIENT_IP_ADDRESS}

Confidencial Property of NASA. NO NOT REDISTRIBUTE!

www.nasa.gov

When user opens the document, the watermark will look like:

Multiple Watermark Designs – The system can hold an unlimited number of watermark designs. Admin can edit, create, and delete watermarks as needed.

Supported Extensions – A long list of compatible files are capable of being modified using the Dynamic Watermark module.

    1. Documents – pdf, doc, docx, docm, xls, xlsx, xltx, xlsm, xltm, xlam, xlsb, ppt, pptx, pptm, txt, dotx, dotm, ppsx, ppsm, potx, potm, ppam, sldx, sldm, vsd, htm, html, xps, xml, odt, opd, mht, csv, rtf, pot, potm, potx, ppa, ppam, pps, ppsx, ppt, pptm, pptx, bin, eml, msg
    2. Pictures – ai, eps, png, jpg, gif, bmp, ps, psd, emf, tif, tiff

Watermark Restriction Roles – Two levels of content restriction:

  1. Watermark View – the user sees the watermark during document preview mode; the user is restricted from downloading
  2. Watermark Download – the user sees the watermark in document preview mode and all downloaded content retains a visible watermark

Permissions Control – Deployment of the Dynamic Watermark feature is based on Role by:

  1. User – Managers can restrict users to a Watermark Role by changing the user’s role in folder permissions
  2. Group – Managers can restrict groups by Watermark Role by assigning the users to a group and then changing the group’s role in folder permissions
  3. Folder – Folder managers can apply watermarks by folder. To deploy the watermark, folder managers can navigate to Manage Permissions in the Folder Action Menu. The features for customizing the watermark are the same as below. The watermark settings will apply to all files within this folder.
  4. File – File managers can apply watermarks by file. To deploy the watermark, file managers can navigate to the Manage Permissions options of the Action Menu on an individual file.
    1. Remove Inherited Permissions
    2. Add User(s) and/or User Group(s)
    3. Designate User Permissions – The file manager can designate user-by-user or group-by-group who sees the watermark when they preview files in this folder.
      1. Watermark View – The user sees the document in Preview Mode with the watermark. The user cannot download the document. This Role is best understood as a combination of two Roles: Watermark View + Read Only.
      2. Watermark Download – The user sees the document in Preview Mode with the watermark. When this user downloads the document, the watermark is also present.
    4. Choose your watermark – After designating a user as having one of the watermark restrictions above, a second button will appear where the file manager can choose which watermark is used for that user or user group. The file manager can choose from the complete list of watermarks in the system.

Conclusions

Avoid data theft and ensure proper use of your company’s files. Now you can choose from multiple watermarks inside Alfresco and protect your files with flexible permissions.

The Alfresco Dynamic Watermark addon was developed by Skytizens to allow users to protect their company documents. Not just a text stamp, this dynamic watermark gives companies the ability to place unique designs on all sensitive documents. Dynamic—because it can include logos, HTML code, and even particular information such as the name of the user who is currently accessing the document.

Dynamic in its use as well, the watermark can be applied to select areas of the Document Library by folder, file, user, and group. The module makes watermarking customizable in the system so that certain low-level users can only access documents that contain the watermark and other high-level users will not see the watermark at all. Practical for security and easy to use, this watermarking module makes data protection a breeze.

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