The Terms documents tool is used to upload and store terms of service for people to give consent to how their data is used and handled in Smartabase. Under the European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) it is a requirement for Smartabase sites that deal with personal data belonging to EU residents to have people consent to personal data processing. Because data use and handling varies between sites, organizations with members residing in the EU must provide terms of service for people to accept before using Smartabase. There are several options for deciding how members of your organization can consent to your organization's terms of service.
- If your organization is not subject to the GDPR and you don't need to track consents, you can choose to provide a generic terms agreement on the Smartabase login screen. These do not require people to read and consent (or reject) the terms before they log into Smartabase. This option does not require the use of the Terms documents tool and can be set up for you by the site owner.
- If your organization wants to track consent to a single set of terms for all members, then you can use the Terms documents tool to create a single terms document and apply these terms to all roles. It is not possible to track who has consented to the generic terms configured in the site's Application details.
- If your organization needs to provide different terms of use to different types of people using your Smartabase site, you can use the Terms documents tool to create a terms document for each scenario and apply the terms to the relevant roles. In this situation, it is also possible to apply multiple terms to a single role, so people who have differing sets of responsibilities can be shown the terms specific to each part of their job.
- If terms acceptance is mandatory for all members of your organization, you can ask the site owner to enable a site configuration setting called Requires terms acceptance. This prevents all people from logging in until they have accepted all terms applied to their role and ensures that anyone who doesn't have terms applied to their role cannot log in.
- If it is necessary to enforce terms acceptance every time anyone logs in or refreshes Smartabase, then a terms document can be set to Always accept mode. This is useful if your organization has an obligation to display the terms to members each time they use Smartabase. Once this option is enabled, these terms apply to everyone on your site. In this case, you do not have to assign the terms document to specific roles
Terms are added using the Terms documents tool in HTML format, then applied to the relevant roles. Once a terms document is saved, any necessary revisions must be made in a new document, and the old one archived, as it is not possible to edit the terms once they've been saved.
To make tracking revisions easier, we recommend that when when you create a new terms document you name it clearly and add a description that includes the creation date.
You can audit each terms document to check which people have consented or withdrawn their consent to the terms. If it's necessary to be notified when someone withdraws consent, you can ask the site owner to add an email address for your organization's privacy officer (or equivalent) to your Smartabase site configuration.
Steps to create a new terms document
- Log in to the administration interface.
- Select the Terms documents tool.
- Select the Create new terms document button from the top of the screen.
- Name the terms document clearly.
- Add a description for the document, including the date of creation.
- Paste the HTML terms of service into the Terms box.
- Click Save.
- Select which roles must accept the terms.
- Click Save.
Steps to archive a terms document
- Log in to the administration interface.
- Select the Terms documents tool.
- Ensure there is a replacement terms document ready.
- Select the old terms document from the list of terms documents
- Tick the box next to Archive. This will archive the selected terms document.
- The terms document will no longer be available to apply to any roles.
- The terms document will not appear on the list of terms visible in the user account page.
Note that you can still archive a terms document if Always accept has been enabled on a terms document.
Steps to audit a terms document
- Log in to the administration interface.
- Select the Terms documents tool.
- Use the terms document list to identify which terms document you want to audit.
- Click the Audit button for that terms document.
- Choose whether you want the audit to include people who haven't logged in since the terms document was applied to their role.
- Click the Download button to generate an audit in CSV file format.