Category: Security and resilience

What are workflows and how you can use them to update your document directly in Xoralia

How to assign yourself or others as Document Owners

Security resilience

Application security, load testing and threat protection

How to configure SharePoint permissions with Xoralia

Assigning mandatory reads

Documents & tags

Setting up a grouping of documents in Xoralia as a “Collection”

Web parts & addons

Can’t see the Viva web parts in your page web part catalogue?

These instructions guide you through the process of inviting external guests to your Azure Active Directory. By following these steps, you can seamlessly add collaborators who aren’t part of your organization, making collaboration in the Azure environment a breeze.

Invite Guest User to Active Directory

1. Login to Azure Portal via https://portal.azure.com/.

2. Expand the left menu by clicking the top left button.

3. Click “Microsoft Entra ID”.

4. Click “Users”.

5. Click “+ New user” -> “Invite external user”.

6. Type in the email address of the external guest to be invited in the “Email” textbox. Fill in “Display name” of the external guest.

7. Fill in information under “Properties” tab.

8. Add AD groups which this guest user should be in.

9. Click “Review + invite”.

10. Verify the information is correct and then click “Invite”.

Last updated: 30 April 2025

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Caching and performance

Posted on 25 February 202230 April 2025 by Hannah Barltrop

Document lifecycle

What are workflows and how you can use them to update your document directly in Xoralia

How to assign yourself or others as Document Owners

Security resilience

Application security, load testing and threat protection

How to configure SharePoint permissions with Xoralia

Assigning mandatory reads

Documents & tags

Setting up a grouping of documents in Xoralia as a “Collection”

Web parts & addons

Can’t see the Viva web parts in your page web part catalogue?

Xoralia has been built to be efficient and under most circumstances will load libraries and reports fast. It has been tested in scenarios with libraries containing over a thousand documents.

In order to achieve fast speeds and performance at all times we have had to put in place some caching functions. This is because querying SharePoint at page load time can be slow, especially with large libraries containing many documents. Whilst standard users are not likely to be affected by this, document owners might notice irregularities caused by caching.

It’s useful to know how caching works so that you do not get any unexpected results when using Xoralia: the system queries SharePoint document libraries at 10 minute intervals and caches the results. When a user loads a library Xoralia is returning the contents of the cache. This means the list of documents is at most 10 minutes old. Any documents uploaded into a document library within this 10 minute window might not show up until the cache is refreshed by the system. Document owners who upload a document into SharePoint and then want to start working on them immediately in Xoralia should wait up to 10 minutes before the documents will appear and actions such as assigning documents can be carried out.

Please note, caching does not affect ‘Documents I must read’. This list is always up to date and loads instantly.

Last updated: 30 April 2025

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Application security, load testing and threat protection

Posted on 25 February 202230 April 2025 by Hannah Barltrop

Document lifecycle

What are workflows and how you can use them to update your document directly in Xoralia

How to assign yourself or others as Document Owners

Security resilience

Application security, load testing and threat protection

How to configure SharePoint permissions with Xoralia

Assigning mandatory reads

Documents & tags

Setting up a grouping of documents in Xoralia as a “Collection”

Web parts & addons

Can’t see the Viva web parts in your page web part catalogue?

This article will cover all application security, data encryption and threat protection elements of Xoralia. Any further information required can be requested from [email protected].

Application Security

The Xoralia application infrastructure has been built with security at the forefront. All Azure services that are utilised are protected by both Azure Application Gateway Web Application Firewalls and Azure Virtual Networks. This ensures that only valid, secure traffic is passed on to Xoralia web apps and APIs.

Within the application itself, we have utilised the following technologies / techniques:

Azure SQL Auditing
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Azure Transparent Data Encryption
Azure Key Vault

All staff working across the Xoralia platform are running Windows 10 or later compliant devices and using company-managed antivirus, malware and firewall systems. Content Formula staff are background checked prior to joining the team.

Data encrypted at rest and in transit

All data stored on Xoralia servers is encrypted at rest using Azure Transparent Data Encryption. All data in transit is sent over HTTPS connections only. HTTPS is enforced on all web apps and APIs.

Under load testing and scalability

Xoralia has been tested under high loads (>5000 active users) and has passed all tests as expected.

The Xoralia application architecture allows us to proactively monitor and instantaneously scale the application on demand should it be needed. In the event of high load on 1 service, the application monitoring will automatically scale that service until normal operations are realised.

Last updated: 30 April 2025

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Backup, retention and location of Xoralia data

Posted on 25 February 20221 May 2025 by Hannah Barltrop

Document lifecycle

What are workflows and how you can use them to update your document directly in Xoralia

How to assign yourself or others as Document Owners

Security resilience

Application security, load testing and threat protection

How to configure SharePoint permissions with Xoralia

Assigning mandatory reads

Documents & tags

Setting up a grouping of documents in Xoralia as a “Collection”

Web parts & addons

Can’t see the Viva web parts in your page web part catalogue?

In this article, we will describe how Xoralia handles backups, what data is backed up and retained on Xoralia systems and where that data is stored. Any further information required can be requested from [email protected].

What data is stored on Xoralia

Xoralia uses the following information:

Active Directory usernames (UPN)
Active Directory first and last names of users
Active Directory group names (of groups that are used in Xoralia only)
Document filenames and IDs
Document meta data that has been set inside of Xoralia (tags, review dates, assignments)
SharePoint site names, URLs and IDs
SharePoint document library names, URLs and IDs
Document reporting information (who has read, who has been assigned, when a document was read, which version was read)
System auditing information (system logins, who assigned a document, who updated metadata)

At no point does Xoralia consume or store the contents of any documents stored on SharePoint or any other platform. Xoralia only stores the names of people who are assigned documents or those who have some sort of privileged access such as document owners, Xoralia admins etc.

Back up policies

Xoralia backs up all data listed above every 24 hours in differential backups with point in time backups occurring every 7 days. All backups are stored for 7 days. Recovery of information usually takes less than 3 hours if required. Xoralia does not copy or back up your actual documents at any point since these are stored in your SharePoint instance. If any recovery needs to be made within SharePoint, Microsoft’s standard SharePoint back up policy backs up data every 12 hours and typical recovery times are less than 12 hours. If in doubt please check with Microsoft.

Retention of data

Once a customer has ended their association with Xoralia, all data relating to that installation will be removed from Xoralia systems within 90 days.

Location of data

During installation of Xoralia, you can choose which location your data will be stored in at rest. Currently Xoralia supports four Azure regions: UK South, Central US, UAE North and AUS West. Customers can select their favoured data residency location during installation.

Last updated: 1 May 2025

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How to configure SharePoint permissions with Xoralia

Posted on 25 February 202230 April 2025 by Hannah Barltrop

Document lifecycle

What are workflows and how you can use them to update your document directly in Xoralia

How to assign yourself or others as Document Owners

Security resilience

Application security, load testing and threat protection

How to configure SharePoint permissions with Xoralia

Assigning mandatory reads

Documents & tags

Setting up a grouping of documents in Xoralia as a “Collection”

Web parts & addons

Can’t see the Viva web parts in your page web part catalogue?

When associating a SharePoint library with Xoralia, Xoralia will respect any permissions that have been set in SharePoint: if a user does not have access to a document, Xoralia will never show that document to the user. Similarly, if you would like to make a document assignment to a user in Xoralia, they must already have access to the SharePoint site before they will be able to view the document. Be sure to check out our article about the Xoralia permissions model in conjunction with this article.

SharePoint permissions are a set of rules that controls what actions users can perform within a SharePoint site. These permissions define the level of access users have to: document libraries, folders, and individual items or files.

SharePoint permissions operate on a system of inheritance, the top-level sites allot their permissions to the objects and content within the site by default. For instance, lists and libraries inherit their permissions from the parent site, while folders inherit permissions from the library in which they reside. Files inherit permissions from their parent library, or from folders if they are nested within one.

When managing permissions at the folder level, subfolders will inherit those permissions, unless inheritance is broken for the subfolders as well. If unique permissions are needed for subfolders, inheritance must be manually broken at each level.

You can break the inheritance model to apply unique permissions to specific objects in SharePoint [libraries, folders, or subfolders] however, it increases the complexity of management. Our recommendation is to set permissions at the highest level possible to simplify management and have less room for error.

For a user to be able to see a document in Xoralia, they must have at least Read access to the SharePoint document library.

We suggest for Xoralia/policy management projects that unless you are a SharePoint expert that you seek advice from a professional, such as ourselves. Broken permissions, though powerful, can cause all sorts of problems that are not necessarily simple to fix.

SharePoint permission levels

Owners …………………. Full control
Members ………………. Editors
Visitor …………………… Read
Restricted view ……….. Read-only, no download, no printing

Site Owners

Site Owners have complete access to the SharePoint site. That’s the highest permission level.

→ Manage site content

→ Manage site settings

→ Manage site content

→ Delete a site

Site Visitors

It’s read-only access to the site, allowing users to view content and download. This applies to documents, pages, events, news, links – virtually any content you have. Visitors can also make comments to a SharePoint pages.

→ Read-only

→ Download

Restricted View

The Restricted View permission in SharePoint is more restrictive than the standard visitor’s permission. It’s a specific permission level designed to provide read-only access to content and restrict users from downloading or printing policies reducing the risk of unauthorized distribution. If the permission level is not visible, we need to activate that permission.

→ Read-only

Enabling “Restricted View” permissions in SharePoint

If the permission level is not visible, we need to activate that permission by following these steps:

Navigate to Site Contents.
Select any document library.
Choose any file and click on the ellipsis (three dots) next to the document name.
Click on Share.

Note: Simply clicking the “Share” button and closing the pop-up modal is enough to enable the Restricted View permission.

Next, update permissions as needed:

Go to Site Permissions > Advanced Permission Settings. You have few options to assign the permissions:

- Update the Visitors group permission from Read to Restricted View.
- Create a new group and set the permission to Restricted View.
- You can also grant permissions to individuals / AAD groups and set the permission level to “Restricted View”.

IMPORTANT: Ensure that users are assigned to the correct group to apply the appropriate permissions.

Last updated: 30 April 2025

Download user guide:

The Xoralia permissions model

Posted on 25 February 202230 April 2025 by Hannah Barltrop

Document lifecycle

What are workflows and how you can use them to update your document directly in Xoralia

How to assign yourself or others as Document Owners

Security resilience

Application security, load testing and threat protection

How to configure SharePoint permissions with Xoralia

Assigning mandatory reads

Documents & tags

Setting up a grouping of documents in Xoralia as a “Collection”

Web parts & addons

Can’t see the Viva web parts in your page web part catalogue?