Implementing audience-based content segregation with custom fields for external platforms

When using Document360 as a headless content management system, you may need to control which content is visible to different user groups or organizations in your external application. This is particularly common in enterprise scenarios where multiple companies or departments share the same knowledge base but require segregated access to specific policies, procedures, or documentation.

This guide explains how to use Document360's Custom Fields feature to store audience metadata that external platforms can consume via API to implement content segregation. Unlike Document360's built-in Reader Groups (which control access within Document360 itself), this approach allows external applications to make authorization decisions while keeping audience definitions centralized in Document360.

Prerequisites

1. Document360 account with Custom Fields feature enabled

2. API access to Document360 (API key or authentication method)

3. External application capable of consuming Document360 APIs

4. Understanding of your organization's audience segmentation requirements

5. Content management permissions in Document360 to create and configure Custom Fields

Step-by-Step Guide

Define your audience segmentation strategy

1. Identify the different audience groups that need segregated content access (e.g., "CompanyA", "PartnerOrg", "Internal", "External").

2. Determine whether you need explicit tagging (all articles tagged) or selective tagging (only restricted articles tagged).

3. Document your content governance model for who will manage audience assignments.

Create the “Target Audience” custom field

1. Navigate to Settings > Custom Fields in your Document360 admin panel

2. Click Add Custom Field

3. Configure the field with these settings:

   1. Field Name: "Target Audience"

   2. Field Type: Select MultiSelectDropdown to allow multiple audience assignments

   3. Apply To: Select Articles (and Page Categories if needed)

4. Add your audience values as dropdown options (e.g., CompanyA, PartnerOrg, Internal, External)

5. Set the field as optional if using selective tagging, or required if using explicit tagging

6. Click Save to create the field

Configure content with audience metadata

1. Open any article that needs audience-specific visibility

2. Scroll to the Custom Fields section in the article editor

3. Select the appropriate audience(s) from the Target Audience dropdown

4. Save the article

5. Repeat for all articles requiring specific audience targeting

Articles without a Target Audience value can be treated as generally visible or restricted based on your governance model.

Implement API integration in your external platform

1. Use Document360's content retrieval APIs to fetch articles:

   1. Get a document article by URL path

   2. Get an article by URL

   3. Get article settings

2. Extract the custom_fields object from each article response

3. Read the Target Audience field value

4. Map audience values to your external platform's user groups or organizations

5. Apply filtering logic during content indexing or search

Build a dynamic content structure

1. Retrieve and index all articles from Document360

2. Filter articles based on the authenticated user's organization or group

3. Build category navigation dynamically based on visible articles

4. Hide categories that contain no visible articles for the current user

Use cases & scenarios

Multi-company policy management

A parent organization has subsidiary companies that need access to shared general policies, while also maintaining company-specific policies that should remain segregated. Using Custom Fields, shared policies can be tagged with multiple company identifiers, while company-specific policies are tagged with only the relevant organization.

Department-specific documentation

An organization needs to provide different documentation sets to departments such as HR, Legal, and Communications. Each article is tagged with the appropriate department(s) in the Target Audience field, and the external platform filters content based on the user's department membership.

External partner access

A company shares certain documentation with external partners while keeping internal procedures private. Articles are tagged as "Internal", "External", or both, allowing the external platform to show appropriate content based on user type.

FAQ

Troubleshooting

Warning

1. Changes to Custom Field configurations may require updates to your external platform's integration code and content re-indexing.

2. Removing audience assignments from articles immediately affects visibility in your external platform — ensure proper change management processes are in place.