Download approval builds on the download justification workflow by additionally requiring director or administrator approval before an asset can be downloaded. Administrators are always exempt from download approval.
Download approval applies to original asset downloads and repurpose actions only. Views, thumbnails, previews, metadata and Create PDFs are exempt. Since views, thumbnails, and previews are not subject to approval, they need to be removed from download options if you do not want users to have direct access to them.
Enable download approval
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
image.downloadApprovalEnabled |
If this property is true, download approval will be enabled on your site. If this property is false, no user (regardless of any other property configuration) will be subject to download approval. Note that download justification must be enabled to enable download approval. Value options: true / false Requires restart? No |
Email notifications
Before configuring an approval workflow, you must specify the email address that will receive all approval-related emails.
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
image.downloadApprovalAdminEmail |
The value of this property should be an email address that will receive all download approval-related emails. This email address must be unique to a single director or administrator-level user. Value options: NetX user's email address Requires restart? No |
Additional notification options
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
image.downloadRequestSubject |
Customize the subject of emails sent to the designated approver. The default is Pending download request. Value options: text Requires restart? No |
image.downloadApprovedSubject |
Customize the subject of emails sent to the original download requester when a download is approved. The default is Results of your download request. Value options: text Requires restart? No |
image.downloadRejectedSubject |
Customize the subject of emails sent to the original download requester when a download is denied. The default is Results of your download request. Value options: text Requires restart? No |
Configure download approval
Download approval can be configured with a variety of triggers that determine which users and assets are subject to download approval.
Some triggers can be used in combination, such as user level and group, or user level and attribute. When combined, these triggers are cumulative—if a user is a member of a group that has been configured as a trigger but belongs to a user level that is exempt from approval, approval will still be triggered.
By user level
When this property is set to the numeric equivalent for a user level, all users of that user level (and below) will be subject to download approval.
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
image.downloadApprovalUserLevel |
Enforces download approval across any user of the specified user level or below, i.e. a value of 4 will enforce download approval for all producer, importer, and consumer-level users. Only a single user level value can be used at a time. Value options: 2 / 3 / 4 / 7 / 8 / 9 (user level number) Requires restart? No |
By group
To apply download approval to specific users, add these users to a group and configure one of the following settings:
By group name
The following property targets specific user groups for download approval; this setting will enforce download approval across all assets for all non-administrator users in a named group.
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
image.downloadApprovalGroups |
The value of this property must correspond exactly to at least one existing group name; any non-administrator user included in the named group will be subject to download approval, even if they are a member of multiple groups that are not subject to download approval. Multiple groups can be added as values delimited by commas with no space on either side of the comma. Value options: Group name(s) Requires restart? No |
By group attribute value
The following property targets specific user groups for download approval – but also allows for a more granular trigger which can be applied to individual assets. This means assets may be tagged individually with a group's name rather than enforcing download approval across all assets.
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
image.downloadApprovalAttributeName |
The value of this property must correspond exactly to one existing attribute name. If the chosen attribute's value applied to an asset matches the exact name of a desired approval group, all users in that group will be subject to download approval for that asset. Multiple groups can be tagged on the same asset under the same attribute name if multiple selections are supported for that attribute's type. A pulldown or tag attribute type is highly recommended as this limits any value options to exact matches to the value(s) for a group name. Value options: Attribute name Requires restart? No |
By attribute value
Date type attributes are not supported as download triggers.
The following properties, when set in conjunction, trigger download approval for any asset with the named attribute value applied to the named attribute. This will subject every user who is not an administrator to download justification for all affected assets.
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
image.downloadApprovalAttributeName |
The value of this property must correspond exactly to one existing attribute name. Value options: Attribute name Requires restart? No |
image.downloadApprovalAttributeValue |
If a value for the attribute named in the property image.downloadApprovalAttributeValue matches the value of this property, all non-administrator users will be subject to download approval for all affected assets. A pulldown or tag attribute type is highly recommended as this limits any value options to exact matches. Only a single value is supported. Value options: Attribute name Requires restart? No |
Additional configuration
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
image.downloadOriginalApprovalEnabled |
If this property is true, download presets will not require download approval. If this property is false, presets will be subject to the same approval process as the original asset file. Preview and thumbnail proxies will not be subject to download approval regardless of this property's value. Value options: true / false Requires restart? No |
image.downloadApprovalBoolean |
This property governs the behavior of download approval when multiple triggers are configured. OR: If multiple approval triggers are configured, any criteria match will still trigger download approval for that user, e.g. if a user's group is specified as well as an attribute value, download approval will be triggered if either property finds a match. This is the default behavior. AND: If multiple approval triggers are configured, a user's download must match all criteria to trigger download approval, e.g. if a group trigger and an attribute value trigger is configured, download approval will only trigger when a user is a member of the specified group and they are attempting to download an asset with the attribute value applied. Value options: OR / AND Requires restart? No |
asset.approval.daysToExpireApprovals |
This property governs when an approval link will expire; its value is measured in days. Setting the value to less than 1 will reset this property to its default (30). Value options: number Requires restart? No |
Combining approval and justification
Download approval requires download justification to be enabled. Triggers for each feature may be configured independently, however – e.g. a user level trigger may be used to trigger download justification, but this setting may be expanded upon by including a download approval trigger for a specific group. In this example, any user which is affected by the user level trigger will be subject to download justification, but only users included in the named group will be subject to download approval.
Requesting an asset
- Initiate a download with a value, group, or user level trigger.
- Select Original from the download options window; any other download selection will not be subject to download justification unless preset approval has been turned on.
- Use the justification form to justify your download.
- Click Continue.
- A warning will appear indicating that an administrator needs to approve the request.
Sharing assets is subject to the same download approval restrictions as downloading assets. However, the link of approved assets sent back by the approving administrator will be the only share link provided – e.g. any password protection or expiration setting will not be preserved.
Reviewing a download request
Once a user submits a download request, an email is sent to the email address associated with your site's designated approver. This email will list the file names associated with the requested assets, as well as the justification message submitted with the request. There are two ways to view and respond to the request:
- Click the Review button in the request email.
- Navigate to the Download requests tab of the Tools menu in NetX proper, while logged in as a Director level user or higher.
Download requests
The Download requests table displays all requests regardless of their approval status. Here, you can reference older requests and review any pending requests.
Approve/deny all
- Use the overflow menus to quickly approve or deny all assets in a request.
Request status
- View the list of pending requests by selecting Pending from the Status dropdown along the top of the asset list. Click the desired pending download request to approve or deny the requested assets. Completed approvals cannot be edited.
- View completed requests by changing the Status dropdown to Completed. Completed requests will retain all information in the original request including the requesting user, assets, justification information, and requested download options.
- View all requests regardless of their approval status by changing the Status dropdown to Any.
Sort and filter
- Easily find download requests by using the column headers to order the list by user, date, asset count, status, or source.
- Search for particular users associated with a request using the search filter in the header.
Export CSV
- Approval data can be exported as a CSV file by clicking the Export button.
Request details
To see more detail about a request and approve/deny individual assets, click on a request or use the overflow menu and select View assets
View assets
- Requested assets are listed with their thumbnail, file name, and file format.
- Clicking an asset's thumbnail will open that asset's detail page in a new tab.
View request details
- The requesting user's user name, email address, time, date, and source of the request displays to the right of the list of assets.
- Any justification message the requestor included with the request displays under the requestor's information.
- The second tab along the right of the window, Files, displays the download options requested for the listed assets.
Approving/denying assets
- Each asset will have a checkbox indicating whether it will be approved or denied. All requested assets are marked approved by default; to deny every asset in the request, use the topmost checkbox to un-check every asset at once.
- Approved assets are sent to the email address associated with the requestor's user.
- If all assets are denied, approvers have the option to complete the request without notifying the requestor.
Odds and ends
- If a valid Director/Administrator level user cannot be found that matches the email address configured in the image.downloadApprovalAdminEmail property, approval cannot be completed until the configuration is properly updated.
- You may see an [ Unknown ] placeholder If the user associated with the download request is deleted, the approver does not have permission to view the asset(s) or the asset was deleted before or after the request was submitted.
- If the approving user is not permitted to view or download an asset in a request, it will be denied to the requester if the approval is completed.
Downloading the results of an approval request
Once an administrator has reviewed a download request, the original requester will receive an email with a share link. This link will allow the requestor to download all approved assets.
Only approved assets will be reflected in the email and the resulting share link.