Resources projects can access

Omniscope Evo 2022.1 adds the ability to provide tighter control on what resources projects can access. Previously you could only control if projects can access resources outside the sharing folder or not. By default, this was prevented which meant projects could only access resources within the sharing. If you allowed access then the projects will have access to the entire file system of the server. 

We have now added a new section in the Admin app “Project Resource Access”. 

Project Resource Access

As the name suggests here you can define what resources projects can access. The section is split into sections normal projects and administrative projects. 

As mentioned above by default Omniscope will prevent projects from accessing resources outside the sharing folder. However, you may want to allow some folders to be accessible for projects i.e. some shared data folders which are not part of the sharing folder. 

You can now do this in the Specific folder and files section. The resources you define here are then accessible within the Workflow app when you browse for files and folders. The resources will be listed in the “Other resources” section.

Administrative projects

Administrative projects are a new concept introduced in special projects which get extra capabilities in terms of what resources they can access compared to normal projects. There is no difference in terms of functionality of what you can or cannot do. 

The only difference between the two is that administrative projects are only accessible and visible to users who have “Administer server-wide settings” permission enabled. This means non-administrative users will not be able to see administrative folders and projects.

The project resource access section allows you to define the folder and files for administrative projects. 

Note: Administer server-wide settings is only takes effect on the root folder and doesn’t apply to sub-folders. You must configure this option for the users on the root folder. 

How do you create administrative projects?

To create administrative projects you have to mark the folder as “Administrative folder”. This will make all projects in the folder and sub-folders as “Administrative projects”. 

This can be done from the permissions dialog for a given folder, and then ticking "Administrative folder" in the advanced section.

Prevent projects from accessing resources outside the current folder

We have also added the ability to prevent projects from accessing resources outside the folder where the project is defined. Projects in the folder can still access resources in sub-folders, but not in parent or sibling folders. 

You can control this from the permissions dialog on a per-folder basis and by ticking "Restrict access to within this folder".