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What is Group Policy?

Group Policy is a feature in Microsoft Windows that provides centralized management and configuration of operating systems, applications, and users’ settings in an Active Directory environment. This is particularly useful in enterprise settings, where maintaining uniform configurations across multiple machines is critical.
Prefer working with the registry directly? If you would rather configure Draftable Legal by editing the Windows Registry instead of using Group Policy, see our Draftable Legal registry configurations article. It covers all available registry keys, values, and paths in detail.

Obtaining the administrative templates

Group Policy is supported by Draftable irrespective of installation mechanism. The only difference between installation mechanism is where the administrative templates are installed to (and may need to be copied from into the administrative store). The administrative templates are found in the GroupPolicy folder under the product installation path. For the default EXE installer, the administrative templates for the installed version are in:
For Machine-Wide MSI installations, the location of the Group Policy templates will typically default to:
An easy way of determining the location of the Group Policy folder location is to right click the Draftable Legal application shortcut on the desktop, open properties and select ‘open file location’.” Alternatively, you can always access the latest Group Policy templates from our knowledgebase article here.

Installing the administrative templates

To install the templates, copy all files/folders in the GroupPolicy folder to the following location on the system(s) from which Group Policy will be managed:
You could perform the following alternate methods of installing administrative templates, by either:
  • If your organization maintains a Central Store, copy the administrative templates to the Central Store’s network path.
  • Import custom and third party partner ADMX templates using Microsoft Intune.
You will also need to copy the .adml files from the GroupPolicy folder in Draftable Desktop and paste these into the en-US folder within the PolicyDefinitions folder in C Drive:

Editing the policies in the Group Policy editor

Once the administrative templates are installed, the Draftable Legal policies can be found in Group Policy editor under:
  • Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Draftable
  • User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Draftable
Some settings may only be listed under one of the two scopes if they’re not supported on the other.

Policy settings

Version compatibility: Each policy listed below includes the version it was first introduced in. Use the ADMX/ADML templates that match your installed version of Draftable Legal. Policies marked Pre-25.1.0 have been available since before version 25.1.0 and are supported in all currently documented versions. For a full history of changes between versions, see the Group Policy Changelog.
Breaking changes across versions: If you are upgrading from an older version of Draftable Legal, be aware of the following changes that require action:
  • 25.2.0: The iManage HTTP Listener policies were renamed to generic names (“Enable local HTTP Listener” and “HTTP Listener Communication Port”) to support broader DMS communication scenarios. When upgrading from pre-25.2.0, use the renamed port policy. To disable the listener, use the corrected 26.10.1 policy or the registry fallback in the HTTP listener guide.
  • 25.5.0: The “Custom Status Tags” policy was moved to a new location in the ADMX templates. Existing policies must be reconfigured after upgrading.
  • 25.10.100: The “iManage On Premises Server URL” policy was removed and replaced by “iManage endpoints (CSV)”, which supports multiple iManage endpoints as semicolon-separated HTTPS URLs. See Configuring Multiple iManage Tenancies for details.
  • 26.4.0: The “Show Bulk Compare Option” policy was removed. Bulk Compare is now always available and no longer requires a Group Policy toggle.
  • 26.6.200: The “Enable SharePoint Heavy Usage Mode” policy was removed from the ADMX template. Current versions of Draftable no longer use this setting because Draftable loads SharePoint sites in pages. You do not need to take any action.
  • 26.10.0: The InitialComparisonOutput registry value, which some organisations set directly to choose the comparison type users start with, is no longer read. Use the new Default comparison type policy instead, with Default comparison type enforcement set to Enforce (locked) if it must also reach users who already have a saved default. See Setting a default comparison type.
The policies are organized into four ADMX template files:
  • Draftable.admx - Base category definition (parent container only, no policies)
  • DraftableDesktop.admx - General desktop application policies (applies to both Draftable Desktop and Draftable Legal)
  • DraftableDesktopLegal.admx - Legal edition-specific policies (DMS integrations, redline profiles, output options)
  • DraftableInstaller.admx - Installation-related policies

Priority of Group Policy settings

Unless otherwise noted, the order of precedence from highest priority to lowest priority is:
  • User Policy (set in User Configuration)
  • Computer Policy (set in Computer Configuration)
  • User Setting (set by the user through the UI or by the user manually editing the registry)
If no policy setting exists, the user setting is used.

Draftable Desktop policies

These policies are defined in DraftableDesktop.admx and apply to both Draftable Desktop and Draftable Legal editions.

These policies are defined in DraftableDesktopLegal.admx and apply only to the Draftable Legal edition.
The Enable local HTTP Listener policy works with the 26.10.1 templates (revision 2610.1) on Draftable 26.10.1 or later. With older templates, the policy has no effect. Import the 26.10.1 templates, then configure the policy again. Set it to Disabled to turn off the local listener. Alternatively, set the registry value below directly, for example through Group Policy Preferences. Restart Draftable after applying the setting.
Registry fallback: disable the local HTTP listener
To apply the setting per user, use HKCU:\Software\Policies\Draftable\HttpListener with the same value name, type and data. Restart Draftable after applying the setting.
Renamed in 25.2.0: The HTTP Listener policies were previously named “Enable local iManage HTTP Listener” and “iManage HTTP Listener Communication Port”. They were renamed to generic names to support broader DMS communication scenarios. If upgrading from pre-25.2.0, use the renamed port policy. To disable the listener, use the corrected policy or the registry fallback above.
Removed in 25.10.100: The “iManage On Premises Server URL” policy was removed and replaced by “iManage endpoints (CSV)”. If you were using the old single-URL policy, migrate to the new CSV format using semicolon-separated HTTPS URLs.
The Enable VSTO Add-In (Outlook) policy works with the 26.10.1 templates (revision 2610.1) on Draftable 26.10.1 or later. With older templates, the policy has no effect because it writes OutlookVstoAddInEnabled instead of OutlookVstoAddInEnabledSetting. Import the 26.10.1 templates, then configure the policy again. Set it to Disabled to prevent Draftable from automatically installing the Outlook VSTO add-in. Alternatively, set OutlookVstoAddInEnabledSetting (REG_DWORD) under Software\Policies\Draftable\Feature directly. See the Outlook registry fallback for the full registry block. Existing add-in installations are not removed by this policy.
You can hide the Compare Open button in the Draftable JavaScript add-ins for Office with the HideCompareOpenButton registry value. It is not included in the Group Policy templates, so set it with Group Policy Preferences, Intune or a script. See the registry configurations article.
These are global (application-wide) output settings. Most of them were lifted from individual Redline profiles to global settings in 26.6.0. For full registry value details, see the registry configurations article.
The Group Policy editor shows Include first page in Changed Pages Only output with the Supported on text “At least Draftable 26.9.0 (or later)”. Version 26.9.0 was not released to customers, so 26.9.1 is the first version that contains this policy. Similarly, Default comparison type and Default comparison type enforcement show “At least Draftable 26.9.0 (or later)” but take effect from 26.10.0.
For detailed configuration of redline profiles, see the Configuring Redline profiles within Group Policy article.
Changed in 25.5.0: The “Custom Status Tags” policy was moved to a new location in the ADMX templates. If upgrading from pre-25.5.0, reconfigure this policy.
The following policies have been removed from the ADMX templates. If you are running an older version, these policies may still be available in your templates.
iManage On Premises Server URL - Removed in 25.10.100, superseded by “iManage endpoints (CSV)”This policy has been replaced by the “iManage endpoints (CSV)” policy, which supports multiple iManage server endpoints as semicolon-separated HTTPS URLs. If you are upgrading from a version prior to 25.10.100, you must migrate your iManage server URL to the new CSV format. See Configuring Multiple iManage Tenancies for migration details.
Show Bulk Compare Option - Removed in 26.4.0Bulk Compare is now always available in the application and no longer requires a Group Policy toggle to enable. This policy has no effect in version 26.4.0 and later.
Disable Legacy Document Elements Warning Dialog - Removed in 25.5.0This policy was deprecated when the legacy document elements feature was removed from the application.
Enable SharePoint Heavy Usage Mode - Removed from the GP template in 26.6.200This policy no longer appears in the Group Policy editor from the 26.6.200 templates onward. Current versions of Draftable no longer use the underlying registry value (SharePointHeavyUsageModeEnabled) because Draftable loads SharePoint sites in pages. You do not need to take any action.

Installer policies

These policies are defined in DraftableInstaller.admx.

Using Microsoft Intune

Microsoft Intune is a cloud-based service provided by Microsoft that helps organizations manage and secure their devices, applications, and data. If you are using Microsoft Intune, you can use it to install Group Policy for Draftable Legal. Follow the Microsoft documentation for more information.