How does a Document Get its Default ACL?

When you create or import a new document, if you don’t explicitly assign an ACL to it, Documentum will assign an ACL by default. But how does the server know which ACL to assign? Actually, you can configure the server to choose the default ACL based on one of three methods.

·         By User: Every document created by a lawyer gets the legal ACL, regardless of what type of document it is or where it’s located. Every user has a default ACL defined in the dm_user object. You can see this by going to the Users dialog in Workspace. If you configure the docbase to assign default ACLs by user, the ACL that is assigned to a new document will be determined by the ACL that is defined in your dm_user object. The default Documentum installation will assign default ACLs based on the user’s default ACL.

·         By Object Type: Every contract gets the legal ACL regardless of who created it or where it is located. If you configure Documentum to assign default ACLs based on object type, then whenever an object is created, it will get the ACL that is assigned to the object type that you are creating. If no ACL has been assigned to the object type, the server will traverse up the object hierarchy until it finds an object type that does have an associated ACL.

·         By Folder: Every document created in a folder gets that folder’s ACL regardless of the type of document or who created it. This is probably the most meaningful way to assign default ACLs. Whatever ACL is assigned to the folder that the document is created in, this is the ACL that will be assigned to the document.

To configure the server to use one of these methods, set thedefault_aclattribute of thedm_server_configobject. Use 1 to assign default ACLs based on Folder, 2 to assign based on Object Type, and 3 to assign based on User.