Five ways ResourceSpace can help streamline your consent process

26th July 2023

Earlier this year, we published a beginner’s guide to managing consent. We wrote this with all of our customers in mind, particularly charities and non-profits. For many Digital Asset Management (DAM) users, consent management is top of the priority list. Whether you're looking for a dedicated consent management platform or simply trying to brush up on your data privacy compliance, we hope you find this article valuable.

ResourceSpace is relied upon by some of the world’s best known non-profit organisations and has lots of features to help with consent management, including:

1. Dedicated metadata fields
2. Direct linking of consent material
3. Expiry dates and automatic archiving
4. Permissions based on consent
5. Storing oral consent

Here are some of these features explained:

1. Use a dedicated metadata field for consent information

This could be as simple as adding a Yes/No option to each resource to confirm that consent has been gained. A metadata field such as the one below could also be used to make sure that the team responsible for the content has followed the right process for managing consent: 

2. Directly link consent material with the content it applies to

If you were using a traditional file structure to store your media content, you might include a consent form within the same folder. But a user could copy and paste an item or a selection from the folder and ignore the relevant consent document. The folder might contain hundreds of files, making it difficult to see the document. 

In ResourceSpace, the Consent manager plugin offers a dedicated area for consents to be recorded. A consent record, which can have a form attached to it, can be applied to as many resources as needed. Using the Related resources feature, you can also directly link a consent form to every file it applies to. This makes it extra clear to see what type of consent was used when a user looks at the resources. 

3. Set expiry dates to notify you if consent is due to be renewed or the material needs archiving, and automatically archive expired content

Metadata fields can be configured as expiry dates, which can be entered manually or automatically generated using a macro. An expiry date can also be configured using the Action dates plugin so that admin users will be notified in advance of the consent expiring: 

ResourceSpace can also automatically archive your content for you, removing it from circulation once the expiry date is reached.

4. Set permissions to prevent users from accessing material that doesn’t have the appropriate consent for them to use

If you were using a dedicated metadata field to track resource consent, the same field could also be set up as a filter to hide content from one or more user groups. Similarly, if you used automatic archiving as above, you can customise which groups have access to archived material. 

5. Store recordings of oral consent alongside the material itself

Using Related resources, any media of any type can be linked together in the system. There’s also the option to store files that relate to a single resource as Alternative files. So if you made a recording of consent instead of (or alongside) signing a form, you could ensure it stays connected to the media it relates to.

Each of these options not only streamlines the process, but also reduces the margin for human oversight - giving you and your users peace of mind!

Further reading and next steps

For a deeper dive into the features we've discussed, take a look at our Knowledge Base. And if you're curious about how nonprofits are leveraging these tools, check out our nonprofit user list and explore some of our case studies.