Create Encryption Keys

To create encryption keys within your Enterprise Server, you will need to log into your Enterprise Server and click on 'Organisation: #your Org Name#' at the top of the left hand pane.

Now click the 'Encryption Keys' tab in the right hand window and click the 'Create' button as shown below.

When the user interface opens, give the key an appropriate name, choose which algorithm you wish to apply to it (i.e. AES, Blowfish or 3DES) from the drop down list and then click the 'Add' button.

We generally advise that you create a common denominator encrytion key such as an 'All Staff' encryption key, simply so that sensitive information can be freely shared within an organisation. Once the common denominator has been created, you can create more specific keys such as a 'Management' key, an 'Accounts' etc. 

Create Encryption Key Groups

Once you have created all of your Encryption Keys, you will then need to create your Encryption Key Groups, to do this click the 'Encryption Key Groups' tab and click the 'Create' button. When the user interface opens, give the team an appropriate name. We generally find that the best practice is to name your Encryption Key Groups to mirror your team names, simply so that there is transparency with which users have access to which encryption keys.

Once you have created all of your encryption key groups, you will then need to assign encryption keys to the encryption key groups. To do this, you can either double click an encryption key group, or highlight the encryption key group in question and click the 'Details' button.

This will then display that encryption key group's details window, from where you can add additional keys to that key group by clicking the 'Add' button as shown below.

At this point, you will be presented with all the encryption keys which are not currently assigned to that Encryption Key Group. You can either double click the required encryption key(s) or highlight the required encryption key(s) and click 'OK'. The keys will then be added to the Encryption Key Group.

Assigning Keys and Key Groups to users

Once encryption keys and encryption key groups have been created, they will need to be assigned to users. This process can be done in one of two ways:

• the first would be to assign a common key to all users
• the second would be to assign a specific set of keys to specific teams or users.

The second will require you to first add users or import users from Active Directory. For more information on how to do this, please see our knowledgebase article on how to add users into the Enterprise Server.

In the first instance, to assign a common key to all users, you will need to click 'Users' in the left hand pane and then in the right hand window, click the 'Encryption Key Groups' tab and then the 'Join Group' button as shown below.

This will then open a user interface which will display all of the encryption key groups you have created. At this point, you can either double click the relevant encryption key group or click the relevant encryption key group to highlight it and then click the 'Join' button.

If you add multiple encryption key groups to 'Users', all encryption keys will cascade down to all subsequent teams you create or that are imported from Active Directory, with all users having access to those encryption keys.

If you have already created or imported your users, a Key-File update will need to be performed so that the key can be posted to the cloud and the key can be picked up by the end user once an Enterprise Sync has been performed on the client.