External Sharing

Updated February 26, 2024 19:34

Sharing sensitive information can be scary! Hudu's built-in, encrypted, share options allow you to easily provide clients with any required credentials, share KB articles and asset information, and enable your team to maintain transparency with end-users on the handling of their data.

Sharing information stored within Hudu can be accomplished in numerous ways; including quick-share links, generating printable versions and/or exporting data, utilizing our open REST API, and/or via the creation of the end-user-facing portal!

In this article, we'll explore the two main ways to share information with end-users and/or external (non-technician) users! These are:

Share links
- Individual passwords and knowledge base articles both come equipped with the ability to generate quick-share links; allowing technicians (those with permissions to do so) to easily provide clients with useful articles and/or required credentials.
- Although quick-share links are encrypted in transport, external users accessing quick-share links are NOT required to have unique Hudu credentials; therefore these are public URLs.
Share portal
- The external share portal serves as a read-only documentation system to securely share end-user data back with them! Almost any piece of information stored within your Hudu environment can be added to the portal.
  - Portal users can be created in the Hudu admin >> Users tab; and are at no extra cost to your team.
  - Each portal user requires unique login credentials and can only have access to a single end-user portal.

Guides

Enabling External Sharing

External sharing is enabled by default and upon creation of your Hudu environment; if you'd like to disable external sharing completely (removes share-links and access to portal creation/configuration on all client spaces); you can do so by navigating to the Hudu admin >> Security tab (must be admin or super-admin user-role).

Creating Share Links

Navigate to a specific client/company space, and into either the clients' passwords section or to their KB section.

Viewing items shared via quick-share links DOES NOT require a Hudu login.

Passwords

Individual general passwords stored within a client's space can be shared. Share Password Via Link is located at the bottom of the details page:

Select how long you'd like the link to remain active; from 30 minutes to 30 days.
Include a message.
Include the username.
Include the TOTP code.
Have the link expire after the first view.

Knowledge Base Articles

KB articles also come equipped with quick-share links to allow the technicians access to easily share useful guides with external users.

Share links on KB articles can be found at the top of the right-hand side menu (ensure that you're not hiding the sidebar with our full view mode).
Before being able to share, you’ll first need to create the public share link, which can be copied and shared out.
If you’d like to remove access to a link, you can either:
- Make Private: Disables the share link.
- Regenerate Share Link: Disables the share-link but generates another unique URL to share.

Configuring the Portal

Portal Setup

Our external share portal allows your team the ability to configure a read-only interface to share information back with your end-users; this could be all the information you're maintaining for a client, or only specific items (i.e. a single WIFI password).

Navigate to an individual client/company space; and into the External Sharing tab, found at the top of the Overview page.

Before you can configure what information, you'd like to share with the client; you'll need to activate the portal first. Click ((External Portal)) >> ((Create Portal)) >> ((Activate Portal))
Once activated, you can start configuring what information you'd like to add to this specific client's portal. This could be:
- Custom assets
  - Items stored within a custom asset layout in the clients' interface; choose to bulk share all items within an asset layout, or selectively remove ones you'd like to remain private.
- Passwords
  - General passwords are stored within the clients' passwords section; choose to include all passwords or selectively add individual passwords you'd like to share.
- Website info
  - Information tracked on a website (items found within the clients' website section); choose to bulk share all websites, or selectively add websites you'd like to share.
- KB Folders
  - Add any global and/or client-specific article folder to the portal.
- External links
  - Highlight clickable links on the front page of the portal (portal overview).

Adding items to the portal can also be accomplished from an individual information page (inside an individual password, website, or custom asset); at the top of the right-hand sidebar, click ((Add to Portal)).

Managing the Portal

In addition to the ability to choose what information gets shared via the external share portal; portals can be branded, and further customized; both globally (changes all client portals) or changed per client portal!

Editing all portals (global edits) can be accomplished by navigating to the Hudu admin area >> Portal (under Basic Setup). From this window, you can update all nomenclature for the portals.
- Changes made will apply to all active client portals.
- Global changes to the portal are restricted to admin or super-admin roles.
From within an individual client space, changes can be made that apply to only that specific client's portal. These include:
- Branding the portal
  - Add a custom client logo to the portal.
- Edit client portal
  - Allows use of our WYSIWYG editor and provides an information category on the overview page of the specific client you currently reside.

Tools

The sections below will serve to introduce additional tools associated with external sharing and portal customization. Expand each section for an overview of the feature.

Secure Notes

Share one-off secure notes directly with your clients and/or end-users! These links can be created from the Paper Airplane tab at the top right of the page External Portal page as well as from the Company Overview Page.

Our secure notes section works similarly to our quick-share links and allows you to:

Include a message.
Select how long you'd like the link to remain active; from 30 minutes to one week.
Have the link expire after the first view.

Secure notes are encrypted with Zero Knowledge encryption.

Links cannot be re-accessed; therefore, navigating away or refreshing the page will require you to create a new note.

Portal Nomenclature

If you’d like to update the labels/nomenclature of the portal:

Select the Hudu admin tab at the top of the Hudu Dashboard.
In the Basic Setup section, choose Portal.
From there, the admin can change the nomenclature of the portals.

Changing the portal nomenclature/labels will change these items globally (for all external portals). Visit the Portal for additional information.

QR Code Generation

For any of your custom assets stored within Hudu, you have the ability to generate a QR code in PDF format containing this information. Once scanned, the QR code will pull up information pertaining only to the specific asset it was created for. To generate QR codes:

Navigate to the asset of choice.
At the top right, click the Print Icon and select Generate QR code.

FAQ

Not seeing the External Sharing tab/option?

Answer: This tab can be turned on/off in the Hudu admin area > General, so make sure it is on!

Notes: You must be an admin or super-admin within Hudu to access this option.

Portal members see a blank page or error message when accessing the portal.

Answer: This is likely one of two options:

- The Portal that they are assigned to has like not yet been created and/or activated. Go to the Company >> External Sharing and hit the Create Portal >> Activate Portal.
- They haven't been assigned a portal. Go to the Hudu admin >> Users >> ((Edit)) on the portal user; assign them to a client. Each user can only be assigned to one client (access one portal).