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VivaCloud Features

Whether you use VivaCloud as an editorial system, for form-based design, for asset or document analysis, or just for file management. Whether you have one user or thousands of users and organizations: With its extensive data, user and role management features, VivaCloud can handle almost any task.

Architecture

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Web-based browser application
VivaCloud is a browser application based entirely on HTML and does not require any extensions such as Flash or Java. It runs on all modern browsers under all operating systems on desktops and tablets.

Storage technologies
All files (images, documents, etc.) in VivaCloud are stored on S3 (Simple Storage Service) compatible cloud storage.

Storage location
By default, VivaCloud data and files are stored in our German and European high-security data centers according to German data protection rules (DSGVO). Optionally, the files can also be stored in all worldwide Amazon data centers.
On request, the files can be stored in YOUR data center if an S3-compatible service can be provided. The management of the data and files is unaffected.

User Management

User types
Named users are users who are members of VivaCloud, regardless of their role and function there.

Anonymous users are not members of VivaCloud and can use VivaCloud functions only through shared URLs/links. This option is useful when you want users to edit or create data in VivaCloud without going through a registration process.
Example: Imagine a party wants to give all party members the possibility to create their own posters or business cards with a form on a website. Most members would like to use this service, but do not want to register on a new platform to do so.

User access
Depending on the system configuration, a user can become a member of VivaCloud either exclusively via invitations (default) or self-registration. Optionally, users can invite other users without administrator rights, but only to the same user role and home directory.

Users who can register themselves must be confirmed by a group manager and assigned to a role by default. Alternatively, you can filter users by specific criteria. For example, only users who provide a company mail address can register. These are then automatically assigned to a role and confirmed.

Optionally, you can also invite many users automatically by importing a list. The user can log in both on the viva.cloud website and directly on your website. To do this, you just need to add a line in your HTML code. Anonymous users can optionally be asked to enter their name and a password for identification when accessing the website.

Roles
VivaCloud has a role-based rights management. Users are assigned to a role. This role contains all information about which functional rights and accesses to files and folders a user has within VivaCloud. Optionally, it can be defined which rights are available to him when editing VivaDesigner documents.

Group and multi-tenant concept

VivaCloud is multi-tenant, which means that you can manage the data of multiple organizations (companies, associations, schools, etc.) within  VivaCloud.

For this purpose, VivaCloud provides the «Group» and «Home Directory» option:

Group: one client usually corresponds to one group. The «Group» option (default) creates a separate group for each organization. The groups are physically separated from each other, like two different hard disks.

Home directory: with the «Home directory» option, all organizations are located in one group, like on a hard disk with different folders. For this purpose, a separate folder is created for each organization and sub-organization, which in turn can have any number of sub-folders. Each user is assigned to a folder that corresponds to his «home directory». The user only has access to this «home directory» and its subfolders. With this technique, thousands of organizations and users can be managed within a group. Each organization sees only its own data, but can access common folders available to all organizations and users (e.g. templates, documentation, images, fonts, etc.).

A user can be a member of different groups (mandates) at the same time and have different roles there. Furthermore, he can switch between different groups (mandates) at the push of a button without logging in again.

File Management

Files
In VivaCloud you can store any files, such as layout and office documents, images and graphics, fonts, presentations, PDFs, calculations, videos, ZIP files or even programs, i.e. all types of files that you can also store on your computer.

Folder
The folder structure lets you manage files just as you do on your PC, except that you can specify who can see what data through a simple rights system. Users who can see this data are far from having the right to download, copy or delete it. This also applies to folders.

Private areas
Regardless of your company’s rights system and data, the VivaCloud also has an optional private section where you can store data just as you would on your computer’s home directory.

File sharing
A URL (link) allows you to share files with external users who are not members of the VivaCloud. You can create download links for individual files or entire folders, for example, to share images with others. You can also create upload links to give your customers or suppliers the opportunity to send you large amounts of data. All links can optionally be limited in time and protected with a password. This provides a number of workflows for external users who want to avoid having to log in to VivaCloud.

Layout and form-based Design & Publishing

Edit Layouts
Create or edit layout documents created with VivaDesigner or InDesign programs directly in the browser.

Use all the functions of a professional layout program or restrict editing via user roles so that even non-professionals can achieve perfect results. Use VivaCloud for proofreading workflows or as an editorial system for magazines, journals, church newspapers or school newspapers. Work with multiple users in a team and combine multiple documents into one issue with the «Collection» option.
See our instructions for creating templates.

Work online and/or offline
Edit layout documents from VivaCloud online in the browser or alternatively offline with VivaDesigner Desktop Edition. Specify whether VivaCloud documents can be opened and saved locally or only in VivaCloud. The editing rights of the respective user role also apply to documents edited offline with Desktop Edition.

Create Web-to-print forms
Create perfect web-to-print forms directly from VivaDesigner or InDesign for editing in the browser in just a few minutes without an additional program or plug-in. Alternatively, use the Database Publishing program to create complex and highly dynamic layouts.

External users
Analogous to FileSharing, you can make layout documents available for editing to external, anonymous users via a «layout link» (URL) and forms via a «form link». Example: A party would like to give all party members the opportunity to create their own event posters or business cards. Most members would like to use this service, but do not want to register for it on a new platform.

User Interface & Customizing

Multi-language
The VivaCloud user interface is available in multiple languages, which can be switched at the touch of a button. Additional languages can be added if needed. The user language is automatically selected based on the browser language or the user’s language settings after login.

Design/startup screen
The design of VivaCloud can be optionally customized with a custom home screen and URL (viva.cloud/your-name). In addition, you can place your logo in the title bar.

Views
Choose between different views and backgrounds to display files in list or preview mode. Define individual backgrounds for download and upload link.

Workflow

Tasks
You can assign tasks to single or multiple users, which are either general in nature or bound to a document. Tasks can have a priority and a delivery date. With the help of automatically sent mails, users are reminded to complete the task before the delivery date expires.

Status
You can define any statuses and specify exactly which role can set or revoke which status for a file or folder. This way you can ensure that a user who has set the status «Done» or «Ready to print» cannot indiscriminately take it back because, for example, decisive actions are linked to it.

Events and actions
With the help of events you can trigger individual actions. For example, an event can represent a change of status or a file upload. A subsequent action can represent, for example, a message to a user and/or moving files to another folder.