Lockdown Bluebeam Revu Video Transcript

Hi, this is Jeremy Moskowitz, Microsoft MVP, Enterprise Mobility and Founder of PolicyPak Software. In this video, we’re going to learn how to configure Bluebeam Revu using PolicyPak.

I’ve already got Bluebeam Revu installed on my computer, and I’m just a regular user here. As you can see, I’m logged on as a guy called “eastsalesuser4.” I’ll open up Bluebeam to start with and go to Preferences, and examine the configuration settings a user has access to.  Here on the General tab, I’ve got some key settings such as Recovery, Auto-save and JavaScript, and what Document application wouldn’t be complete without Spell Checking?

Bluebeam Revu application configuration settings don’t reside in the registry.  They instead reside within a settings file which means that this application can’t be managed by Group Policy.  I have the settings file location already open so let’s change the “Enable Document Recovery” setting within it and save it which you can clearly see eastsalesuser4 was able to.  If users know how to navigate to the settings file, they can easily alter your settings.

Let’s see how we can ensure compliance and perform desktop management of settings quickly using PolicyPak. I’ll go ahead and switch over to my Management Station computer.

We’ll go ahead and right click over our “East Sales Users”, “Create a GPO” and we’re going to call it “Lockdown Bluebeam Revu.” So this GPO is now associated with the “East Sales Users.” I’ll right click over it. I’ll click “Edit…” I’ll dive down under “User Configuration,” “PolicyPak/Applications/New/Application.” There it is, “PolicyPak for Bluebeam Revu” along with other applications like “Java,” “Flash” “Firefox,” “Skype” and lots of other important desktop applications that your users utilize every day (and you want to make more secure).

Let’s start with “General” and let’s make sure that “Enable document recovery” is always turned on.  I’ll do this by unchecking and rechecking the box.  Notice how when I initially unchecked this setting that the text became underlined.  This means that these setting values will be delivered by PolicyPak.  On this same tab, I want to make sure that JavaScript is always unchecked.  Now I’m going to right click on each of these settings and select “Perform ACL Lockdown” which will lock these settings within the application so that they cannot be altered by users.

Let’s next move to “Spelling” and let’s make sure that Spell Check is always enabled.   Let’s conclude by going to “Document” and making sure that “Auto Detect by page size” for ‘Page layout” is always selected.

Now I will go back to my client machine, we’ll get a command prompt and run “gpupdate.”  Now you could envision the user logging on for the very first time, using a Terminal Services or Citrix machine, using a VDI session, changing job roles, or getting a new computer.   I just happen to be using gpupdate.

Now that that’s done, let’s reopen the application and review the application settings once again.  Notice that the General tab settings have been delivered.  You can see “Enable document recovery” is checked on as enabled, and “Enable JavaScript” is checked off, or disabled.

We can also verify that PolicyPak delivered to enable Spell checking, and on the Document tab, Page Layout is now set to “Auto Detect by page size.”

Now, let’s do the final test and reopen the settings file and attempt to modify the setting that the standard user — Mr. East Sales User 4 successfully did earlier.

As you can see, you’ve prevented him from making changes to the “Enable Document Recovery” settings when you use PolicyPak’s ACL Lockdown™ feature.

And we are done. That is how incredibly easy it is for you to use PolicyPak to manage Bluebeam Revu as well as tons of other desktop applications.

If you’re looking for a trial of PolicyPak, just click on the “Webinar / Download” button on the right.

Thanks so much for watching, and get in touch with us if you’re looking to get started. Talk to you soon.