The Rights Manager feature standardizes content licensing and consent tracking via a new Rights document type and two subtypes, License and Consent. Rights documents track and record rights evidence, License documents define the permitted usage of content, typically bound by dates and a scope, and Consent documents define the consent associated with content usage, including validity and revocation.
This helps DAM Librarians with renewals and Brand Managers with content reuse verification, establishing a solid foundation for compliance-driven decision-making. This also centralizes previously fragmented metadata from the Component level to the Rights level to more easily validate and track the expiration impact via the Rights document.
The Rights Manager feature provides a Document Relationship Type that links eligible documents, such as Components and Reference documents, with Rights documents. The feature also provides a Document Type Group that enables the Rights Manager document Information panel for the document type. Rights documents are available in the Related Rights panel in the Doc Info pane with color-coded status cards. The Material-level Components Manager panel provides Content Owners and Brand Managers an at-a-glance aggregate Rights status across all linked Components. Rights Manager also includes an Expiring Rights Report for items expiring within 90 days to reduce compliance risks.
Related Rights Panel
When you open an eligible document and review the Doc Info pane, you can select the Related Rights panel to review associated Rights documents. If no documents are added, you can click +Add to add a Rights document from the Search dialog. You can link or unlink one or more Rights documents with the eligible document.
Once the Rights documents are associated, you can filter the Related Rights panel by rights country and license channel. Each Rights document is displayed in a card with the following rights metadata listed:
- The document name formatted as a link
- The document version
- The color-coded Rights Document Lifecycle state
- Red: Inactive states such as Expired, Revoked, or Superseded
- Gray: States such as Draft, In Review, Revise, and Resubmit
- Green: Active states such as Approved or the workflow steady state
- The start and expiration date
- The rights country
- The document subtype
- The license type
- The document number
You can click the Rights document name from the hovercard to open and review the document. If you click , you can edit the rights metadata in the Rights Manager section of the Information panel, including the Start and Expiration Date, the License Type, the rights Countries, the license Channels, the Contacts, and Rights Other.
Rights Coverage
You can click the plus icon (+) in the Related Rights panel to add new eligible documents to the rights coverage. You can search for, filter, or upload documents, and link or unlink multiple documents. You can filter the covered documents list by document type and subtype. The eligible document cards are displayed in a grid, and the cards list the document name formatted as a link, the document version, type, and number, and the Document Lifecycle state.
To add an eligible document to a Rights document’s coverage, the eligible document’s current lifecycle state must allow Edit Relationships within the User Role.
License Expiration
License expiration is determined by the Rights Document Lifecycle state of the License document, when the document transitions to the Expired or Revoked state, either manually or through the daily Rights Expiration job. The license can be renewed by up-versioning the Rights document. Linked documents carry forward the new version automatically via the Rights Document Relationship Type, and the previous version moves to Superseded.
Components Manager Panel
When you open an eligible document and review the Doc Info pane, you can select the Components Manager panel to see an aggregate view of Rights statuses across all linked Components at the Material level.
Note: The Components Manager panel only reads Components linked through the standard Components Document Relationship Type. Components linked through a custom relationship type don’t appear until they’re migrated to the standard one.
The aggregate view displays the Rights statuses of Current, Expiring Soon, or Needs Review. Documents in a Current status have active and valid rights; documents with an Expiring Soon status have rights expiring within 90 days, and documents in Needs Review have expired or missing rights. Any expired Rights document on any linked Component pushes the Material to Needs Review regardless of other active coverage on the Component.
Under the aggregate view, you can scroll to review a list of Component cards that represent all of the Components linked to a Material via the Components Document Relationship Type. These cards are grouped by lifecycle state, with Obsolete and Superseded listed first.
To add or remove Components in the panel, the eligible Material document’s current lifecycle state must allow Edit Relationships in the Material Document Type Group.
Rights Manager Reports & Jobs
Rights Manager includes two reports that show which Rights documents are expiring and which Components and Materials they affect, plus a daily job that moves expired Rights documents to their expired state.
Expiring Rights Report
The Expiring Rights Report displays Rights documents with expiration dates within 90 days. This report is available in the Reports tab and lists Licenses and Consents that are about to expire and the eligible documents linked to these Rights documents.
Expiring Rights Impact Report
The Expiring Rights Impact Report displays Rights documents with expiration dates within 90 days and the related affected components and materials. This report is available in the Reports tab and lists the Rights status across the full rights-to-component-to-material chain.
Note: The Expiring Rights Impact Report only reads Components linked through the standard Components Document Relationship Type. Components linked through a custom relationship type don’t appear until they’re migrated to the standard one.
Rights Expiration Job
The Rights Expiration job is a daily expiry job that automatically moves expired Rights documents to an Expired or Revoked state and sends a summary email to a configured User Group of recipients. The summary email lists the expiration reasons of expired by date or expired by consent revocation and any errors that occurred when the job ran.
Enabling Rights Manager
To enable this feature, Admins can navigate to Admin > Application Settings > Rights Management and select the Enable Improved Rights Management checkbox. This activates the standard Rights document type and subtypes, the Rights Documents Lifecycle, the associated document fields, the Rights Document Relationship Type, and the Rights Documents Document Type Group.
Note: Enabling Rights Manager does not automatically migrate existing custom rights implementations. Legacy custom document types and relationships can coexist until you complete your rights migration.
Enabling Rights Expiration Notifications
To enable this feature, Admins can navigate to Admin > Settings > Application Settings > Digital Asset Management and select the Enable Rights Expiration Notification checkbox. Admins can then select one or more User Groups whose members will receive the summary email after the daily Rights Expiration job runs.
Admins also can update the notification template for the summary email under Admin > Configuration > User Account Emails > Notification Summary.
Related Permissions
The following permissions control functionality related to Rights Manager:
| Type | Permission Label | Controls |
|---|---|---|
| Security Profile | Document Lifecycles: Rights Document: Create, Edit, View, Delete | Ability to create, see, update, and delete Rights documents in the Related Rights panel of the Doc Info page. |
| Document Role | Edit Relationship | Ability to add Rights documents to eligible documents per the Document Lifecycle state. |
Note: Users who have View permission for a Material see its aggregate Rights status in the Components Manager panel, even if they don’t have permission to the Rights documents or Components behind it.