the world's leading software for label, barcode, rfid & card … · 2012-09-13 · the...

Librarian Integrating secure workflow and revision control into the BarTender Application Suite

The World's Leading Software for Label, Barcode, RFID & Card Printing

White Paper

Contents

Overview of Librarian ....................................................................... 4 Features ................................................................................................... 4

Reviewing File Storage without Librarian ....................................... 4 Loose, Scattered Files .............................................................................. 5 No Rules ................................................................................................... 5

File Storage with Librarian ............................................................... 5 The “Library” ............................................................................................. 5 The Librarian Main Screen ....................................................................... 6 Adding Files to the Library ........................................................................ 7 Getting Files out of the Library ................................................................. 7 Basic File Management ............................................................................ 7 Undeleting Folders and Files .................................................................... 7

Collaboration Support ...................................................................... 8 Checking Out Files ................................................................................... 8 Checking In Files ...................................................................................... 8

File States .......................................................................................... 8 Defining the Available States .................................................................... 9 Changing the State of a File ..................................................................... 9 Deleting an Available State ...................................................................... 9

File Publishing and Workflow ........................................................ 10 Specifying Initial States for a File ........................................................... 11 What it Means to “Publish” a File ............................................................ 12 Effects of the “Published” Property on File Access ................................. 12 Defining Valid File State Transitions ....................................................... 13 Importing and Exporting Workflows ........................................................ 15

Revision Control ............................................................................. 15 Viewing your File History ........................................................................ 15 Getting Older File Versions .................................................................... 17 Rollback to Earlier File Revisions ........................................................... 17

Security ............................................................................................ 17 Security Center Permissions for Librarian .............................................. 17 Relevant BarTender Permissions in Security Center ............................. 19 Organizing Users and Groups According to their Functional Roles ........ 20 Advanced Security Topics ...................................................................... 21 Other Security Considerations ................................................................ 22

BarTender’s Seamless Integration with Librarian ....................... 22 Enhanced File, Open .............................................................................. 22 Automatic Check Out ............................................................................. 23 Enhanced File Save ............................................................................... 24 Syntax for Referencing Files in the Library ............................................. 24

White Paper: Librarian

Overview of Librarian

“Librarian” is one of many Companion Applications in the BarTender Application Suite. It lets large groups of designers, administrators and other users cooperatively and securely manage the storage and revision of label formats and other files. Librarian can help you to better manage any label printing system, but it is particularly valuable in highly regulated environments, such medical and pharmaceutical, and highly secure environments, such as military and chemical.

Note:

Librarian is supported only by the Enterprise Automation edition of BarTender.

Features • File Storage – Allows you to store files in a database rather than “loose” on

various hard drives. • Collaboration Support – Supports the “Check In” and “Check Out” of files to

prevent users from overwriting each other’s changes. • File States – Allows you to specify custom named “states” for files that are in

different phases of the publishing process. • File Publishing and Workflow – Builds upon user-defined file states by

adding rules for the allowable transitions between the files states. This makes it easy to manage multiple levels of review prior to publishing.

• Revision Control – Retains copies of all previous versions of a file so that you not only have a history of who has made what changes and when, but you can retrieve actual copies of the previous versions and even “rollback” to an older version if desired.

• Security – Provides control over which users can access files within Librarian and what they can do with them.

• Integration with BarTender – Allows label formats stored in Librarian to be directly loaded from within BarTender for printing and modification. (BarTender users can also directly load picture objects stored in Librarian.)

Librarian can be run from the BarTender folder of the Windows Start menu, as well as from BarTender’s Tools menu.

Reviewing File Storage without Librarian

The benefits of Librarian are easiest to understand if you first consider the more traditional methods of file management.


Loose, Scattered Files Individual users commonly keep the files they are creating and editing locally on the hard drives of their own individual PCs. This allows individuals to manage their documents without regard for corporate and/or departmental standards. A somewhat better approach is for a group of users to edit the files they are working on in one or more shared folders on a network file server. Although there is still nothing to prevent users from altering files without following proper procedures, they may be influenced by the increased visibility their work has to coworkers and managers.

No Rules Even if the group of users agrees to maintain files in (for example) sub-folders with names like “Draft” and “Published,” adherence to this structure is strictly voluntary, rather than a set of enforceable “rules.” Consider, for example, a shared folder named “Label Formats in Use” that is supposed to contain only formally inspected and fully approved label designs. Despite this supposed “rule,” nothing prevents users with access to that folder from making changes outside of the formal approval process.

File Storage with Librarian

BarTender Librarian allows you to store your label formats and other files within a secure database, instead of “loose” on your hard drive.

The “Library” Librarian stores folders and files in its “Library,” which is actually a dedicated set of tables within the BarTender System Database. Bringing files into the Library and managing them once they are there is straight forward and relies on traditional Windows file management techniques whenever possible.

Configuring the BarTender System Database If you have not yet configured your BarTender System Database by running the System Database Setup utility, then you will be prompted to do so the first time you run Librarian. The System Database Setup utility will configure either SQL or SQL Express for use by the BarTender Application Suite.

Implementing a Secure Database It is important to remember that individuals with only moderate knowledge of databases can use SQL Enterprise Manager (and other database tools) to directly browse and edit a SQL database – without even installing Librarian. Therefore, if achieving the highest possible security is an urgent priority for you, your systems administrator must take additional steps to prevent unauthorized users from accessing your SQL (or SQL Express) database using software other than Librarian.


The Librarian Main Screen Viewing the files and folder structure you have placed into the Library is easy and straight-forward. In addition, Librarian makes it very easy to examine the revision history for any file.

When you click on a folder in Librarian’s Folders pane, the corresponding files in that folder are displayed in the Files pane at the top-right of the main Librarian screen.

The Folders Pane The Folders pane, located on the left side of the Librarian screen, displays folders that you add to the Library. You can add, delete, and rename folders just by right-clicking anywhere within this pane. (In the screen image above, notice that the root folder in the Folder’s pane is actually called “Library.” It cannot be renamed, although all other folders can be.)

The Files Pane When you click on a folder in the Folders pane to select it, the files located within that folder are displayed in the Files pane. In addition to displaying a timestamp and size, just as the standard Windows file system does, Librarian’s Files pane also displays how many times a file has been revised and (if states have been defined) what publishing “state” each file is currently in.


The File History Pane The File History pane displays a variety of revision history information not available within the Windows file system at all. This includes a summary of the most recent transaction type on the file, who performed that change, and what state the file is in (if states have been defined).

Adding Files to the Library The easiest way to add files to the Library is simply to “drag” them from a Windows folder into the Library using your mouse. You can also add files to the Library by right-clicking anywhere in Librarian’s Folders or Files panes and selecting Add. You can also add BarTender label formats by using BarTender’s File, Save dialog and specifying a folder in the Library. (See the “Integration with BarTender” section of this document for more details.)

Getting Files out of the Library To copy files out of the Library, you right-click on the desired file in Librarian’s Files pane to display the context menu. If you then select the Get Latest Revision… option, the Get File(s) dialog is displayed. This allows you to browse to and select the folder on your network into which you want to copy the selected file when you press the Get button.

Basic File Management To perform any of the basic file management functions, such as delete, rename, cut, copy, and paste, simply right-click on files or folders in the Library to pop-up the context menu. Then select the desired function.

Undeleting Folders and Files Within the View menu (located at the top of the main Librarian screen) is the Show Deleted Items option. When enabled (or “checked”), all previously deleted folders and files will be shown. However, the document icons for these items displayed on the left side of the Files windows will be faded. If you right-click on any of these items and select Undelete, the display of the icon returns to its normal “unfaded” state. This indicates that the file has been undeleted and that you can once again work with it normally.

Enabling the “Show Deleted Items” option allows you to see previously deleted files and even undelete them.


Collaboration Support

When files are simply stored “loose” on a hard disk, users can accidentally (or even deliberately) open and edit files that other users have already been making changes to. This could obviously create confusion and the possibility that one user might overwrite another user’s changes. Librarian solves this problem with Check In and Check Out functionality. Once a user “checks out” a file, it is marked as such and cannot be checked out by any other users until the original user has checked the file back in. This ensures that any one user must be fully complete with his or her modifications before another user attempts to make additional changes.

Checking Out Files When you right-click on a file in Librarian and select Check Out, a dialog is displayed that allows you to select a folder on your hard disk to copy the file to. This is somewhat similar to the previously-described Get function, except that the file that gets copied is marked as “checked out” within Librarian. This is indicated by check mark next to the file’s icon in the Files Pane. Once a file has been checked out, in cannot be checked out by any other users until it has first been checked back in. You can see who has a file checked out by right clicking on a file and selecting Properties. You can also look in the File History pane and scan the User column until you see the row that says Check Out in the Action column.

Checking In Files When you right-click on a file in Librarian and select Check In…, a Check In File(s) dialog is displayed that allows you to select a file from your hard drive to update the selected Librarian file with. Once you select the desired file, Librarian displays another dialog in which you can supply a comment and, if you have defined file states for your implementation of Librarian, specify the state to assign the newly checked-in file.

File States

General purpose file systems, such as that built into most commercial operating systems, generally do not give you the ability to specify different “states” for a file. For example, there is no standard way to specify whether a given file is ready for production use or is still in development. Librarian addresses this administrative challenge by allowing you to create your own custom state designations for assignment to files stored in the Library.

All “checked out” files are always indicated with a check mark in the Files menu.


Defining the Available States Librarian’s Administer, Workflow Setup dialog allows system administrators to define a custom list of File States that are then available for assignment to files stored in the Library. This can be as simple as two states, such as "Proposed" and "Approved," and as increasingly complicated as you like.

The File States list at the left of the Workflow Setup dialog allows you to add, delete, and rename states. If all you need are informational states, without any kind of rules governing changes from state to state, then all you need to do is create states. (When you create states, you do not need to also specify any of the Properties for Selected State options.) To modify the behavior of states, including rules governing the allowable transitions between states, please see the File Publishing and Workflow topic below.

Loading the Sample Workflow As an alternative to building your own fully custom system of file states from scratch using the Workflow Setup dialog, you can import a sample system of files states just by clicking on Librarian’s Import button, located at the bottom of the Files States pane of the Workflow Setup dialog. Then select and open the “Sample Workflow.xml” file found in the displayed folder.

Changing the State of a File To change the state assigned to a file in the Library, simply right-click on the file and select the Change State option. The Change State dialog will open and display the current state. You can now select a new state and enter any desired comments regarding the state change.

Deleting an Available State Care must be taken to ensure that any states being deleted have not already been assigned to files in the Library. If you do delete a state that is already in use by one or

Librarian’s Workflow Setup dialog, accessed from the Administer menu, lets you define your own custom list of states for assignment to the different files in the Library.


more files you will be required to provide a new state to assign to those files when you close the Workflow Setup dialog.

File Publishing and Workflow

As long as a workgroup of colleagues strictly adheres to agreed-upon rules for how a defined system of states is used, the use of states alone represents an easy way to improve document management. Unfortunately, such a voluntary system is highly vulnerable to the habits and attention to detail of the people using it. Librarian lets you gain better control over the management of your files by defining rules for Workflow transitions. This is a major step toward the implementation of a powerful workflow management and file publishing system. You will not only be able to better organize your files, but you will also maintain more orderly control over the revision and publishing process.

Don’t Forget about Security! For secure file management and revision control, you also need to properly configure your system’s security settings. This includes properly assigning access rights using Windows’ security system and configuring the Librarian sections of the BarTender Security Center. (Please see Security section later in this document.)

Workflow is the process of creating files and managing reviews and revisions until the file is deployed or published. Because workflow management philosophy and guidelines are often unique to a company or organization, Librarian’s Workflow Setup dialog gives you full control over the publishing process, including the approval steps required and who can authorize each step. This makes it easy for you to define a system of rules for creating, reviewing and publishing files, thereby avoiding the chaos of “rogue” and improvised file deployment.


In addition to defining states, Workflow Setup allows you to define a set of workflow rules to help you control your file publishing process.

Once you have used Workflow Setup to define your available states, you can use the options in the Properties for Selected State group on the right to create your desired workflow.

Specifying Initial States for a File If you are taking advantage of Librarian’s File States functionality, then anytime you add a new file to the Library or check back in a new revision of an existing file, you will have to assign an “Initial” state to that file in the library. Typically, when you define a workflow, you will only want some of your defined file states to be available for use as this initial state. All states that have had their Allowable initial state checkbox enabled will be listed and available for assignment within Librarian’s Add File (shown below) and Check In dialogs.

You enable Allowable initial state and all other available state properties in the Workflow Setup dialog by clicking on the desired state in the File States pane and then configuring the available rules in the Properties for Selected State group.

Defining the Default Initial State Even if you have more than one state that has its Allowable initial state option enabled, you can only enable the Default initial state option for one of them. This defines the default state displayed in the Add File and Check In dialogs.


All files with the “Allowable initial state” option enabled in the Workflow Setup dialog will be available in the “New State” list within both the Add File and the Check In dialogs. Only one state can have the “Default initial state” option enabled and it will be selected by default.

What it Means to “Publish” a File In any file development environment, whether it is label formats, documentation, or computer programs, you can have both Published and Unpublished files. The Workflow model supported by Librarian assumes the following about these files:

• Unpublished Files: These include files that are not yet ready for use and/or viewing by the “general public” in an organization. Unpublished files can be in development, waiting for approval from a manager, and possibly even “rejected” as not yet suitable for publishing.

• Published Files: Once the development of a file is complete, it may be released to the general public by the author or, depending on the procedures in force, submitted to one or more managers for approval prior to publishing. Thereafter, once “published,” the file is viewable and usable by the general public.

When using Librarian, a file is considered to be “published” if the current state assigned to one or more revisions of a file has the Published property in the Workflow Setup dialog enabled. For example, a BarTender Librarian administrator might define a file state called “Approved” and enable its Published property. Settings in BarTender Security Center would then be configured to ensure that the “general public” could only view files in the Library that have been assigned “published” states – that is, those that have had the Published property enabled. An organization with a more complex workflow might also wish to define more than one published state.

Effects of the “Published” Property on File Access The Published property in the Properties for Selected State group of the Workflow Setup dialog is useful when Librarian is used in conjunction with


BarTender Security Center, another companion application. Users whose permissions in BarTender Security Center are limited to Open Published Files will only be able to open files that have been assigned a “published” state (that is, they have the Published checkbox in Librarian enabled). If two or more revisions of a file stored in the Library have states with the Published property enabled, users whose permissions are limited in BarTender Security Center to Open Published Files will only be able to open the most recently published revision.

As an example, consider the following series of events:

1. A file is added to the Library and is assigned an “unpublished” file state (that is, one whose Published property is disabled).

2. As part of the publishing process, somebody manually assigns the file a “published” state (that is, one whose Published property is enabled). For example, a file state called “Approved” may have been defined that has its Published property enabled. (Remember that there are no rules limiting what names an administrator can define for file states and which Workflow properties can be assigned to them.)

3. Somebody then “checks out” the file for the purpose of revising it. 4. When that user checks the file back into the Library, a second revision of that

file with the same name will automatically be created by Librarian. An “initial state” gets assigned to this new revision that has its “Published” property disabled.

Consider the different behavior encountered by the following two Librarian users, each with different permissions defined in BarTender Security Center:

• Users that only have “Open Published Files” permission: In the above example, this class of users will only be able to open the initial revision of the file because it is the only one that has been assigned a state with the Published property enabled.

• Users with “Modify Files” permission: When opening the file from BarTender’s File, Open dialog, this class of users will have the option of opening both the published and the more recently revised unpublished version of the file.

Defining Valid File State Transitions When you first create File States, no rules are automatically created governing how and when you can assign them to a file or change a file’s state. Therefore, defining File States alone merely gives you a system by which a group of very cooperative workers have the opportunity to keep better track of their file publishing process.


To implement a true file publishing “Workflow,” you also need to define allowable file state transitions. For example, if you choose to have states called Draft, Proposed and Approved, you can impose an approval process by requiring that files that are set to Draft first be Proposed before they can be Approved. (This is just an example. You can name your Files States anything that you like and create your own custom rules governing their workflow.)

To define the allowable transitions between states, you use the Allowable Previous States and Allowable Subsequent States controls in the Workflow Setup dialog. Once you have done this, anytime you display the Change State dialog in order to change the state of a file, only states that have been specified as Allowable Subsequent States for the currently active file state will be listed as options in the New State control.

The workflow transition rules that you define in the Workflow Setup dialog control which states that are available for changing to in the “Change State” dialog.

Your file publishing workflow is defined by clicking on each state in your File States pane and then setting the Allowable Previous States and Allowable Subsequent States properties in the Workflow Setup dialog.


Importing and Exporting Workflows All of the settings in the Workflow Setup dialog can be imported from and exported to files. If you have already defined some states, and you import a Workflow, your existing list of available states will be replaced. Therefore, if a named state in the current workflow that happens to already be in use by one or more files when a new workflow is imported is not also named in the new workflow, then you will be prompted to remap the old state to one of the new states.

Revision Control

Anytime you save a new version of a file using a conventional file system such as that built into Windows, the previous version is lost. Sometimes, however, you may want to review a list of previous versions and possibly even retrieve (or “rollback” to) them. These functions are helpful for troubleshooting revision problems and essential for audit preparation.

Viewing your File History The File History pane is the lower rightmost pane in the main Librarian window. It displays all actions taken on the file currently selected in the Files pane (which is located just above the File History pane). The displayed information includes:

• Revision number changes. • State changes. • The name of the user that made each change. • A date-time stamp indicating when the change was made. • Optional comments.


Librarian’s File History pane shows a variety of revision history information not available with conventional file systems.

Anytime a file is added to the Library for the first time, that copy of the file becomes “Revision 1.” Subsequently, every time the file is checked out and then checked back in again, the revision number is increased by one to indicate that a new revision has been created. Each individual revision can have multiple actions performed on it, such as creating a comment or changing its state one or more times. However, although these actions are recorded, they do not result in any changes to the file itself. (Librarian does not perform a binary file compare when you check files back in. Therefore, if you check out a file and then don’t modify it, you will still end up with a new revision number after you check the file back in. For this reason, you should keep in mind that that you can review a file without necessarily performing a “check out.”)


Getting Older File Versions Anytime you “check out” a file, you will be given the most recent revision (regardless of whether or not it is in a “published” state). That means that you simply cannot “check out” older revisions of a file. In addition, if you right-click on a file in Librarian’s Files pane and select Get Latest Revision…, you are obviously also always provided with the latest revision.

In order to view or edit files older versions of a file, you need the necessary permissions granted to you in BarTender Security Center to right-click directly on the desired revision in the File History pane and select the Get Revision… option. (To help you determine which revision is the one you are looking for, you can right-click on earlier revisions and select Properties to see an on-screen preview.)

Rollback to Earlier File Revisions Sometimes you or another user may make undesirable changes to a file. Fortunately, Librarian lets you easily revert to older revisions using the Rollback feature.

As an example, assume that you have selected a file in the Files pane that has three revisions listed in the File History pane. Assume also that you made a mistake in the third (and most recent) revision and that you want to make the second revision back into your current revision instead. Simply right-click on the second revision listed in the File History pane and select Rollback. The Rollback dialog will prompt you to enter a comment and the file state to assign to the new revision that you are about to make. Then, when you press Ok, Librarian will create a new fourth revision of the file by copying the second revision. This rollback action effectively performs an “undo” of the changes made in the third revision. Finally, if you want the “general public” to be able to access this new, latest revision, you will need to assign it a “published” state.

Whenever you perform a rollback, the previous revisions of the file continue to be retained in the Library and can be accessed again if necessary.

Security

To implement a secure label printing system, you must ensure that the user permissions specified in BarTender Security Center allow only authorized personnel to access Librarian and BarTender.

Security Center Permissions for Librarian There are two sections of permissions in Security Center that apply to Librarian:

• Librarian • Librarian: File States


The Librarian section of Security Center defines the following permissions:

• Run – This permission allows users to run the Librarian application. What users are able to do once they run Librarian is defined by the rest of the permissions listed here. Users that only have the Run permission listed will still be able to view files and their history.

• Administer – Controls access to the options in Librarian’s “Administer” menu:

o System Setup o Workflow Setup

The Administer permission should only be granted to users that require the highest level of administrative control within Librarian.

• Edit Existing Comments – When users perform actions on a file, such as checking it in, renaming it, etc, a log of these actions is recorded along with optional comments from the users. This permission controls whether or not users can edit existing comments. The ability to add new comments is controlled by the Edit Files permission below.

• Edit Files – Allows users to perform the following file actions: o Add o Open (Users with Edit Files permission can open the most recent

revision of a file, regardless of whether or not it has been assigned a file state whose Published property is enabled.)

o Get o Check In o Check Out o Comment o Rollback

• Full File Control – This permission allows users to perform all actions on a file including deleting, renaming, and moving to another folder.

• Open Published Files – Allows users to open the latest published revision of a file. (This is a much more restrictive permission than Edit Files.)


Among the many permissions managed by BarTender Security Center are permissions dedicated to Librarian and Librarian File States.

The Librarian: File States section of Security Center lists all of the user-defined file states in Librarian. (Please see the previous “File States” chapter of this white paper for more details.) The rules defined in Librarian’s Workflow Setup dialog for “previous” and “subsequent” allowable states determine file state changes that are possible in Librarian. In addition, using BarTender Security Center, you can control the states that individual users and groups can assign to a file. This is especially useful for limiting the number of users that are authorized to change files to a “published” state.

Relevant BarTender Permissions in Security Center Two of the permissions listed in the BarTender permissions section of BarTender Security Center apply to Librarian:

• Print Published Label Formats – This BarTender permission allows users to print the latest published revision of a label format stored in the Library. Authorizing a user to print label formats means that they will also have permission to print published label formats. However, because a file can only be assigned a state if it is kept in the Library, files stored loose on a hard drive rather than in the Library can never be assigned a “published” state. Therefore, limiting BarTender users printing permissions to Print Published Label Formats prevents them from even opening label formats from their


individual hard disk. This can reduce the loading, creation and printing of unapproved label formats.

• Print Unpublished Label Formats – Allows a BarTender user to print both unpublished label formats stored in the library and all label formats that are stored loose on the network (rather than in the Library). Users that are not given permission to Print Unpublished Label Formats will only be able to open label formats that are stored in the Library and set to a state that has is Published property enabled. The Print Unpublished Label Formats permission includes permission to Print Published Label Formats.

Organizing Users and Groups According to their Functional Roles When planning the Librarian file states and Security Center permissions that your file management system will use, it is useful to classify users into functional roles and set their permissions accordingly. When you have multiple users performing similar functional roles, it is easier to organize them into domain user groups so that you can manage all of the group’s permissions at once, instead of requiring permission settings to be separately defined for each individual user.

Each organization that designs and publishes label formats will have its own favored approach to user security and file publishing. However, although there is no “one size fits all” security model that will work for everybody, certain general categories of users will typically be required in order to implement “secure” label printing in many organizations. We summarize a proposal here and you can rename, combine and further sub-divide the user group categories as you see fit. (Remember, this is just a conceptual proposal; these are not predefined user groups ready for you to use within Librarian.)

The following proposal suggests the names of user groups that domain administrators might create using Windows’ Active Directory Domain Services (an LDAP-like directory service). The name of each proposed group is followed by the permissions that would then be assigned to that group using BarTender Security Center:

• Print Operators – These users only open published label formats and print them. Their permissions in the Librarian section of BarTender Security Center should be limited to Open Published Files and Print Published Label Formats.

• File Editors/Label Format Designers – These users edit and modify label formats. Their Librarian permissions should include Run, Edit Files, and Print Unpublished Label Formats. These users should probably also have permission to change files to most of the available unpublished states.

• File Publishers –These users review the work of File Editors, including approving and rejecting their work. File Publishers require all Librarian permissions except Administer. If your Librarian workflow requires multiple levels of approval, you will likely want to use standard Windows Security


features to create more than one user group for this purpose. You would then use BarTender Security Center to set the Librarian publishing permissions so that each group could only change the file states (and therefore issue approval) appropriate for that level of file publishers.

• Librarian Administrators – These users are responsible for configuring and administering to Librarian. They should therefore be granted all Librarian permissions from within BarTender Security Center.

Advanced Security Topics Some subtleties of creating and implementing a secure file publishing workflow within Librarian merit special discussion.

Electronic Signatures One way to improve the security of any file label format publishing system is to specify in BarTender Security Center that users must enter an electronic signature when changing a file’s state. This requirement can be specified in the Librarian: File States section of the Electronic Signatures tab in Security Center. (For more details about electronic signatures, please see the dedicated section in the Security Center white paper.)

Using Security Center, you can optionally require that users enter “electronic signatures” (basically, their login credentials) whenever they change the state of a file.

Controlling the Printing of Unpublished Label Formats Any time a user prints out an unpublished (and therefore an unapproved) label format, it represents a security risk. Accordingly, the Print Unpublished Label Formats permission should only be granted on an as-needed basis. In addition, you may wish to require the entry of electronic signatures when printing out unpublished formats. This guards against the possibility of unauthorized users improperly using computers normally used by File Editors and File Publishers to

http://www.seagullscientific.com/docs/whitepapers/Barcode-and-Label-System-Security(English).pdf#ElecSig


print unpublished label formats. It also ensures that you have a log of exactly which authorized users printed out unpublished label formats and when.

Other Security Considerations It is important to remember that individuals with only moderate knowledge of databases can use SQL Enterprise Manager (and other database tools) to directly browse and edit a SQL database – without even installing Librarian. Therefore, if achieving the highest possible security is an urgent priority for you, you systems administrator must take additional steps to prevent unauthorized users from accessing your SQL (or SQL Express) database using software other than Librarian.

BarTender’s Seamless Integration with Librarian

BarTender’s File, Open and File, Save dialogs let you open and use label formats stored in Librarian’s Library as easily as opening label formats stored “loose” on your hard drive. However, there are security and workflow advantages to accessing label formats stored in the Library. Librarian’s file management features in combination with precisely set BarTender Security Center permissions provide you with a level of publishing workflow, revision control, and record keeping simply not available with more conventional file management systems, such as that built into most operating systems (including Windows).

Enhanced File, Open For BarTender users with Full File Control and/or Edit Files permissions specified in BarTender Security Center:

If the most recent revision of the file is in a “published” state, then that revision is automatically opened. Otherwise a dialog pops up asking the user whether he or she would prefer to open the most recently published revision (even though it is not the latest revision) or open the most recent overall revision (even though it is not yet in a published state).

When using BarTender to open label formats stored in the Library, only users with the necessary permissions are given the option of opening the latest revision if it is not yet officially published.

For users that only have permission to Open Published Files:


The most recently published version of the file will be opened (regardless of whether or not it is the most recent revision overall). (Unpublished files are not displayed to this user in BarTender’s File, Open dialog.)

Automatic Check Out When BarTender users first open a label format that is stored in the Library, a lock icon appears on screen right next to the label format design area. When BarTender users with Edit Files permission attempt to modify a label format that is not already checked out, a warning message dialog pops up asking them if they would like to check it out. If the user clicks OK then the lock icon goes away, which tells users that they can now modify the label format. If a user clicks Cancel as well as anytime a user open a label format from the Library that is already checked out, the user will not be able to make edits. In this case, the user will still be able to print.

When BarTender users first open a label format stored in the Library, a lock icon appears on screen. When users that are authorized to do so “check out” the file, the lock goes away, indicating that they can make edits.


Enhanced File Save BarTender can automatically Check In and Add label formats to the Library.

Automatic Add New label formats can be saved from BarTender and added directly into the Library. If you have defined File States using Librarian’s Workflow Setup dialog, you will have the opportunity to specify an initial state for the file.

Automatic Check In When you use BarTender to save changes to an existing label format back into the Library and you had that label format “checked out,” then the label format is automatically checked back in at the time of the save. This also automatically creates a new revision of the label format in the Library with the next higher revision number.

Syntax for Referencing Files in the Library Just as there is a standard syntax for referencing files on a hard drive, Librarian also provides a syntax for referencing files in the Library.

Review of standard Windows Syntax Because Windows users often use their mouse to click through folders and subfolders to find the files on their hard drive that they want to open, they may not remember that the correct file path syntax that Windows uses is:

C:\<path>\<filename>

For example, to open a BarTender label format, you might reference a file in this manner:

C:\MyLabelFormats\ShippingLabel.btw

Referencing Files in the Library The syntax for referencing files in Librarian’s Library more closely resembles an internet location than a hard disk location. The general syntax is:

lib://<path>/<filename>

Note that this internet-style URL uses forward slashes instead of backslashes. (The “lib://” at the beginning is always required to reference files in the Library.) Using this syntax, the file reference used in the previous example would change to the following when accessing a file in the Library instead of on hard disk:

lib://MyLabelFormats/ShippingLabel.btw

You can reference a file in the Library using any of these methods:


• Typing the text string into BarTender’s File, Open dialog. (It is often easier to just click on the Librarian button in the File, Open dialog.)

• Executing BarTender using command line parameters. Here is a sample use of a command line that instructs BarTender to open a label format from the Library and launch a print job: bartender.ext /f=lib://formats/shipping/overnight.btw /p

• When BarTender is reading data sourced graphics while printing • Running BarTender XML Script • Executing commands from within Commander that launch and control

BarTender print jobs

Version: 2012-09-12 15:30 Copyright © 2012 Seagull Scientific, Inc.

Available Seagull White Papers

General White Papers • The Advantage of Drivers by Seagull

Companion Applications • Printer Maestro: True Enterprise Print Management for Windows • Librarian • BarTender Security Center • BarTender Web Print Server

Recent Upgrades • What’s New in the Latest BarTender

Integration White Papers • Integration Overview • Commander • Commander Examples • BarTender's .NET SDKs • BarTender's ActiveX Automation Interface • Exporting Printer Code Templates • Using BarTender with Remote Desktop Services and Citrix XenApp • Integration with Oracle's WMS and MSCA • Integration with IBM WebSphere Sensor Events • Integration with SAP

Miscellaneous White Papers • Weighing Scales • Dynamically Changing Objects at Print Time using VB Script • GHS Compliance Labeling • Licensing for BarTender's Automation Editions • Printing International Characters Using BarTender • BarTender Software Activation • Using BarTender's Application Identifier Wizard • Optimizing Output Performance • Status Monitor Overview • Silent Install

For downloadable versions, visit: www.seagullscientific.com/aspx/white-papers.aspx

http://www.seagullscientific.com/aspx/white-papers.aspx

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