Considerations for editing policies

When you edit a policy, the changes affect documents that the policy currently protects, as well as documents that the policy protect thereafter. For example, if you remove recipients from a policy that is currently applied to a document, the recipients can no longer open the document.

The status of the document determines when the change takes effect:

  • If the document is online, changes are applied immediately unless the user has the document open. In this case, the user must close the document for the changes to take effect.

  • If a recipient is using the document offline (for example, on a laptop computer), the changes take effect the next time the recipient takes the document online and synchronizes with Rights Management by opening any policy-protected document.

Note: Policies that Acrobat auto-generates for the recipients of documents that are attached to email messages in Microsoft Outlook do not appear in the policy list. You can view these policies only by opening the Document Detail page for the associated document.

When you edit policies, these restrictions apply:

  • Invited users can only edit policies if the administrator enables this capability. If you cannot edit policies, the Edit option will not be available.

  • Policy set coordinators can edit policies within policy sets only if they have the correct permissions. The super user or policy set administrator sets these permissions in the Rights Management administrator interface.

  • If the policy has a watermark configured that the administrator deleted since the policy was created, this watermark will no longer be applied to documents if you edit and save the policy. Deleted watermarks remain in effect only for existing policies as long as you do not edit the policy. If you edit the policy, you must select another watermark to replace the deleted one.

  • You cannot grant anonymous access to a document by editing the policy that is currently applied. If you edit the policy, users must still log in to access the document. To apply anonymous access to this document, first remove the policy in the client application and then apply another policy that permits anonymous access.

  • Policies that Acrobat auto-generates for the recipients of a document that is attached to an email message in Microsoft Outlook do not appear in the policy list. To access this policy, locate the document on the Documents page, open the Document Detail page, and click the policy name in the list of document details.

Create or edit a policy

  1. On the Rights Management page, click Policies and click one of these tabs:

    • To create or edit a personal policy, click the My Policy tab.

    • To create or edit a shared policy, if you have permission, click the Policy Sets tab and click the appropriate policy set name, then click the Policies tab.

  2. Click New or select the policy that you want to edit from the list.

  3. In the Name box, type a name that uniquely identifies the policy. In the Description box, describe what the policy does and when to use it. If the policy is within a policy set, the name and description appear in the policy list for all specified users. Personal policies are available only to the user and the administrators.

    The following characters cannot be used in the name or description:

    • less-than sign (<)

    • greater-than sign (>)

    • ampersand (&)

    • single quotation mark (')

    • double quotation mark (")

    • backslash (\)

    • forward slash (/)

    If you use the following character in the name or description, they are converted to spaces:

    • carriage return (ASCII character 13)

    • new line (ASCII character 10).

    Note: You can create a policy name that contains extended characters; however, when a comparison is made between two strings, accented and non-accented characters such as "e" and "é" are considered to be the same. When someone creates a policy, a comparison is made to check whether a policy with the same name already exists. The comparison cannot distinguish between names that are the same except for accented characters. It is assumed that the policy is already added to the database and the new one is not added.

  4. Add users and groups to the policy and set the appropriate permissions. (See Users and Groups.)

  5. Under General Settings, select the appropriate options. (See General Settings.)

  6. (Optional) If applicable, select an external authorization provider and specify its properties. If you do not want to use an external authorization provider, click Remove Default Provider.

    An external authorization provider is used to set up properties within the policy and when selected, the external authorization provider uses this information to evaluate the policy. The available properties are configured by the administrator and the person who installs the software.

  7. Under Advanced Settings, select the appropriate options. (See Advanced Settings.)

  8. Under Unchangeable Advanced Settings, select the appropriate options. (See Unchangeable Advanced Settings.)

  9. Click Save. The policy appears in the policy list. An icon with a red circle appears beside the new policy, indicating that it is still disabled.

    To make the policy available to users, enable it. (See Enable or disable shared policies.)

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