Control access to Stream Content with Stream Authentication

Learn how to use Stream Authentication to password-protect specific Streams in your Hub.

Before you begin

• Stream Authentication can be used with Marketing and Sales Streams, but does not work with Source Streams.
• To set up Stream Authentication on Marketing Streams, you need to be a member of the Account Administrators or Content Managers user groups.
• To set up Stream Authentication on Sales Streams, you need to be a member of the Account Administrators or Sales Reps user groups.
• This article is about Stream-level access control. For Hub-level access control, see this article.
• This feature is not available on all packs.

About Stream Authentication

Most Hubs are intended to be fully open, so that any visitor can access them. If you'd rather control who can get into your Hub, you have the option enabling Hub Authentication, which prompts all visitors to enter a password before they can view the Hub.

However, this all-or-nothing approach doesn't work for all use cases: sometimes, you want a hybrid option in which most of your Hub is accessible, and only specific Streams are gated off. If this is what you are looking to achieve, you can use Stream Authentication.

Here's a quick overview of how Stream Authentication works:

• When Stream Authentication is enabled on a Stream, any visitor who tries to access that Stream (or any content within it) will be prompted to enter a password, which we refer to as a "passphrase" for Stream Authentication. The Stream/content will be displayed only if a valid passphrase is submitted.
• You can specify multiple passphrases for a stream, which allows you to provide different passphrases to different visitors (or groups of visitors). This also means you can selectively revoke access to the Stream for particular users by disabling their passphrase.
• You can enable Stream Authentication on any Marketing Stream or Sales Stream, but it can't be used on any type of source Stream.

Enable Stream Authentication

Stream Authentication is configured on a per-Stream basis, and the settings for each Stream affect that Stream only.

When Stream Authentication is enabled on a Stream, only that specific Stream and the content inside will be protected, while all other Streams/Items in your Hub will still be publicly accessible. If an Item in a protected Stream also appears in other, unprotected Streams, it will still remain accessible when viewed through the unprotected Streams (accessing the same Item in the context of the protected Stream will prompt for a passphrase).

1. Log in to Uberflip and click on Hubs
   • If you have multiple Hubs, select the Hub that contains the Stream on which you want to enable Stream Authentication.
2. In the sidebar menu on the left, click on Content.
3. In the list of Streams on the right, click on the Stream that you want to protect with a password.
4. When you're viewing the Stream, click on the Authentication tab near the top.
   
   (If you do not see this tab, you may be )
5. Under the Authentication tab, switch the toggle under Enable Authentication to the on (green) position.
   
6. The change will be saved automatically, and will take effect immediately. Now, any visitor who tries to access this Stream will be prompted to enter a passphrase:
   
   

Add Stream Passphrases

The next step after enabling Stream Authentication for a Stream is to add at least one passphrase. No passphrase will be set by default, so until you add a passphrase, it will not be possible for anyone to access the Stream.

1. Navigate to the Authentication tab on a Stream where you have enabled Stream Authentication.
2. Click on the Add Passphrase button just above the passphrases table:
   
3. The Add Passphrase window will appear. Use the fields provided to type in a passphrase and a description, then click on Add.
   • Passphrases must be between 6 and 40 characters long, and must contain at least one letter (A-Z) and one number (0-9). Special characters are not required.
   • The description you provide for each passphrase is displayed in the passphrases table on the Authentication tab, and can be helpful for identifying the user for whom the passphrase was created.
     
4. Your new passphrase will be added to the passphrase list for this Stream, and will take effect on the Stream immediately.
5. You can repeat this process to add additional passphrases, if needed.
   • Adding multiple passphrases is useful if you want to provide separate passphrases to different users (or groups of users), so that you can revoke access for just that user/group later (by deleting the corresponding passphrase).

Manage Streams with Stream Authentication

To see more information about Stream Authentication on a given Stream, open that Stream and click on the Authentication tab. On this tab, you can view every currently valid passphrase for the Stream, along with:

• • The passphrase itself
  • Its description text
  • The Hub user who created the passphrase
  • The date when the passphrase was created
    

Edit and delete Stream passphrases

After you've added passphrases for a Stream on which Stream Authentication is enabled, you can also change those passphrases at any time, or delete any existing passphrase.

1. Navigate to the Authentication tab on a Stream where you have enabled Stream Authentication.
2. To edit a passphrase, hover your mouse over it and click on the Edit button .
3. To delete a passphrase, hover your mouse over it and click on the Delete button .

Disable Stream Authentication

You can disable Stream Authentication on any Stream where it is currently enabled at any time. When you do this, the Stream will immediately stop prompting visitors for a passphrase.

1. Navigate to the Authentication tab on a Stream where you have enabled Stream Authentication.
2. Switch the toggle under Enable Authentication to the off (grey) position.
   
3. The change will take effect immediately, and visitors to this Stream will no longer be prompted for a passphrase.

Additional notes

• Enabling Stream Authentication on a Stream will also automatically configure the Stream so that search engine robots are not allowed to crawl it. This will be reflected on the list of Streams (i.e. the Stream will show as no-index/follow). However, note that the toggle shown next to the No Robots Meta Tag setting on the Stream's Options tab won't change.
• If you want, you can override the appearance of the Stream Authentication login page to style it in any way you like by using Custom Code.
• If you enable both Hub Authentication and Stream Authentication at the same time, they will be in effect independently. In other words, entering the Hub password will not also provide access to any protected Stream: each Stream with Stream Authentication enabled will still prompt for a passphrase.
• Stream Authentication can also be enabled on Sales Streams via Sales Assist.