Securely Distributing Data with Those Outside of Your Organization

The Event module has risen to the occasion many times when the need comes to controlling access for those outside of your organization. Typical scenarios include; summits, meetings with partners, vendors and virtual events.

Below I will describe the process and lessons Ive learned using the Connect Pro Event module to manage sensitive data for those not within your organization.

Adobes corporate policy does not allow non-corporate Connect Pro user accounts, as is the case with many of our customers. To clarify and for example, our account settings use an email address as the login which must be a @adobe.com (@corportate.com) address, otherwise the account will be purged from our system.

Perhaps the most common way to restrict/manage access is to only allow registered users and accepted guests. Downsides to this method would be the guest name you get is the name they type in the guest field before entering the room and the bombardment/distraction of pop-up requests to enter the room.

This can present an issue should you have the need to share sensitive data via Connect Pro with people outside your organization.

Creating an event using the Connect Pro Event module will allow you to restrict access to only allow registered users to do this you will need to pre-register the attendees, thus allowing access to the following: Connect Pro meeting or Seminar room, Content, Course or Curriculum.

Its worth mentioning you must have access to the Event module to create an event. Once the event has been created you can return to the Participant Management page to set permissions just as you would a traditional Connect Pro meeting (Host, Presenter, Participant) including permissions for others to manage the event.

Creating a new Event is much like creating a new Meeting or Seminar room.

The wizard is pretty self-explanatory: Fill in the Event information Select the content/meeting Modify/customize registration (require additional registration questions) Add/import attendees Email options

Lets focus on the Add/import attendees option. The key here is to import the list of approved guests thus allowing them to register and ultimately attend your event/meeting. Anyone with the registration link can register, however only those who are on the list and have either been approved (or promoted to a Participant after the event has been created) will be able to access the event/meeting, content, or recording.

When importing your file it must be in .CSV format divided by, first name, last name and email address. Do NOT include a header row. To confirm you have a clean file for importing, open it in notepad to ensure there are no extra commas or spaces if there are,,,,,,,, remove them and save the file.

• Next you will need to change the attendees status from Invited to Participant (you can shift+click to select multiple names, but no more than 75 at a time).

Before we finish and Publish our event well want to select and modify the Email Options. Only the Send event invitations and Notify users when approved for event are required.

If you have late additions after the event has been published, use the Remind participants closer to the event.

Note: This will send the reminder email to all users who are invited to the event I suggest limiting it to once or email the registration/event information directly.

Heres a sample of the event invitation and additional Run Time Fields which can be included.

You have been invited to the following event:

Event: {event-name}
Description: {event-description}
Host: {event-creator-name}
When: {event-time}
Time Zone: {time-zone}

To register for this event, please go the following link:
{event-registration-url}

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Run Time Fields
{event-creator-name}{event-name}
{event-description}{event-time}
{event-login-url} {event-registration-url}
{meeting-dial-in} {meeting-passcode}
{time-zone} {user-email}
{login}

As you may have noticed the information in the invitation is very basic and utilitarian. Fortunately we can customize the invite to include important information

Here are a few tips:

• Include your Connect Pro password policy (if your registrants dont meet the password criteria when registering there isnt a default message or error stating what the password criterion is).
• The invitation will come from the event creator. delete this runtime field and replace with the event team or other contact.
• As an alternative to deleting the event creator information you may want to create an event coordinator account (monitored) to use for all of your events since the invite will come from the event creators email address.
• Include contact information for registration questions and support.

Before saving your modified invitation, un-check the Yes box to Attach Microsoft Outlook iCal. Some email programs may treat the attachment as spam.

I recommend previewing and testing the event information, login and registrations pages with a non-corporate email address to experience what the Participants will experience.

You should receive the invitation and confirmation emails (one right after the other)

If everything is in order click Publish to publish your event! Good Luck!