PUBLIC Link to a FILE

Huddle Customer Datasheet – 1st June 2015

Summary

Customers using Huddle’s can now choose to create public links to their workspace files.

This is a new capability focussed on supporting marketing and sales materials that have been produced inside Huddle workspaces. Content made public in this way may also be indexed by search engines like Google and find its way into search results particularly if the link is posted online.

This new service uses Amazon’s Cloudfront CDN for hosting the public copy of your file. Content may leave the European Economic Area when made public. Public link is therefore not a suitable replacement for Huddle’s secure workspace as a delivery mechanism for data subject to European data protection law.

Permissions for making your files public are per account, then per workspace. Company managers have oversight of all public content, and the individual who made it public. They can see how many times the file is viewed, and also have the ability to revoke public links if required.

Details

Huddle workspaces create safe boundaries for our customers to store, share and work on related content.

Particularly for marketing materials, it’s often true that workspace content will need to be shared outside the workspace. It’s likely to be used in email to customers, on your webiste, blog, or on social networks.

Huddle now lets you create a public link to a file in your workspace, so that you can share it with anyone.

Company managers have oversight of any content that’s made public. The permissions model allows the feature to be allowed on a per-business unit basis, and then enabled per workspace by a workspace manager.

Public files allow all visitors to download the content, and for supported file types in modern browsers, we also show a PDF preview when the page loads. Comments, audit trail and previous or working versions are not shown.

File editors have full control over when a file is published. New versions are not published automatically, so users can keep working on public content, and publish their new version when they are ready.

Key Benefits

  1. Share specific files with external parties – You no longer need to provide access to the entire workspace.
  2. Publish only when you are ready – No need to duplicate content when you’re making updates. You can work privately in the workspace, then publish only the latest version when you’re ready.
  3. Viewers are anonymous from each other – You can keep the private conversations and audit trail private, while only the content is made public.
  4. Create template emails linking to workspace collateral – Sales can use them daily, and the marketing team can update the content if required.
  5. Track popularity of your public content – every public link tracks the number of views, and Huddle can offer custom reporting on your content’s popularity.
  6. No need to duplicate content – create a document, note, or keep a template email with links to public content if you need to reuse published information.

Key differentiators from competitors

We found that in competitive products, users would create a separate “public files” area, and copy versions of files into that area to make them public. The result was two or more disconnected versions of the truth.

Huddle’s public link system keeps the public file linked to the workspace copy, but gives users the freedom to update the public copy to the latest version when they are ready. This gives you two key advantages:

1. RELIABLE LINKS: Huddle gives you reliable links – if you disable and re-enable a public link on a file, it will be the same. Also, if you upload a new version, the link remains – so you can integrate public content into your template emails and website.

2. VERSION PUBLISHING: Huddle’s system keeps the public file linked to the workspace copy, but gives users the freedom to update the public copy to the latest version when they are ready.

You can clearly see if the latest, or a previous version has been made public:

Creating a public link

We have made it easy for people to publish files, with two flows the user can take.

Share: a user can choose to “share outside workspace” which right now, includes just the ability for them to create a public link, or copy the existing one.

Or via Get link, where they can see the workspace permissions, and choose to create a public link too.

Company manager view

Users who have been given the “Company manager” designation have full oversight of all published content in your company workspaces. They can see which content has been made public, who published it, and when. They can visit the content to check it is appropriate, and disable the public copy or contact the publisher if concerned.

Permissions - Turning on Public Link for your company

All customers are now able to enable public link per account in their company through their company manager settings area:

New customers will automatically have public files enabled on their account, but it can be easily disabled if required.

Existing customers can now enable Public link on each of their accounts.

Permissions - Turning on Public Link for your workspace

If public link is disabled on your account, this acts as a master switch. It will also disable the feature for workspaces where the setting remains enabled.

Account setting / Workspace setting / User capability in workspace
disabled / disabled / disabled
disabled / enabled / disabled
enabled / disabled / disabled
enabled / enabled / enabled

Default:

If your account has public link enabled, each new workspace will also have public files enabled.

If your account has public link disabled, each new workspace will also have public files disabled.

Workspace managers can change the setting through workspace settings:

Additional Screenshots

When public files is turned on in a workspace you’ll see this new area:

Inside you’ll find a list of every public file in this workspace:

A public version of a Microsoft Word file (including PDF preview):

And in reading mode:

A public version of a jpg file: