One of the key remits, or areas for active consideration for our development team, is the flexibility of use of Passwordstate. Since its first release, way back in August 2004, our developers have continually looked at how they can add flexibility and value to the core concept of secure password management.
Back in August 2020 we published a blog entry that gave suggestions on what else can be recorded in Passwordstate. From Credit Card details, to Software Licenses and SSL Certificates. If you haven’t read that blog entry the link is here https://blog.clickstudios.com.au/what-else-can-i-record-with-passwordstate/.
But what if you need to add documents, such as Operating Procedures, Process Documentation, Contract details etc. Where can you add those, so that the documentation is located logically right alongside the information or credentials, that you’ve chosen to protect with Passwordstate?
Password Lists and Records
The first areas that documents can be added to is both at the Password List and Password Record levels.
We have customers that add policy or ownership documentation to each Shared Password List, outlining who the business or IT owner is for the Password List, the functional roles allowed access to the list and who to contact when requesting changes be made. Don’t forget, the Password List may not hold traditional Password Records. As an example, it may function as a “light” contract management database, holding all software contracts for a particular business unit.
Likewise, we have customers that add documents to individual Password Records, this can be a process or guideline document that states what a particular credential can be used for. Alternatively, using the “light” contracts management database angle above, it may hold the contract details such as period of coverage, service level agreements and contact numbers for a single contract.
To add a document to a Password List simply click on the Password List then Documents then Add Document;
and when adding documents to a Password Record, click on the action icon next to the record, select View Documents and Add Document;
In both examples you’re then prompted with the Add New Document dialog. Just fill in the File Name and Description and the use the Select button to open File Explorer, select the file you want to add and click Open, and the Save;
Your document is now added against either the Password List or Password Record depending on where you’ve decided to upload it.
Hosts
The next area you can add documents to is Hosts. This is especially useful for Process and Work Instructions that are specific for certain servers.
For instance, you may have an application server with temperamental services that requires special attention every time a Microsoft update is applied (we’ve all experienced this haven’t we). While it would be nice for those application vendors to improve the resiliency of their software it sometimes takes them years. In the mean time you could add a document reminding your System Admins to restart the badly behaving service or restart a series of them in a particular order.
To add a document to a Host, simply select the Host in question and click on the Add Document as per the screen shot below;
This will bring up the same Add Document dialog previously shown. Again, simply fill in the File Name and Description and the use the Select button to open File Explorer, select the file you want to add and click Open and then Save.
What Do Lots of Password Lists and Hosts Need?
If you read the heading above then you’ll know where this is headed – that’s right, Folders. If you’ve got lots and lots of Password Lists or Hosts then you really should be making your life easier by organising them. This is where Folders are essential, they allow you to logically organise Password Lists and Hosts into meaningful collections.
And you’ll have guessed what you can do with Folders as well. That’s right, you can add documents to Folders. But why would you want to do this? Let’s use the example that you’ve got your High Availability systems distributed across geographically dispersed Data Centres. When it comes to patching you may have procedures to only patch certain servers in each data centre on specific days. This can be summarized in a document at the Folder Level. Or you may have a process instruction that states system reboots for particular systems requires coordination with a key business stakeholder.
Again, the process is the same for adding the documents as it is with Hosts, Password Lists and Password Records.
How Do You Restrict This?
Firstly, only those users that have been granted access to those specific Password Lists, Password Records, Hosts and Folders have access to add Documents to those objects. Secondly you can enable or disable documents being uploaded, limit the size of the documents being uploaded and restrict uploaded documents to specific extensions by navigating to Administration->System Settings->miscellaneous as per the screenshot below;
Note: you can also link off to external systems containing documentation by using the External Links feature on Folders and Hosts. This may be a useful method of linking to documentation stored with SharePoint or a Wiki based system;
Adding documents to Passwordstate can be extremely beneficial, you really just need to think how can I make this work for me. As always, if you’ve got any feedback you’d like to share please send it to support@clickstudios.com.au.