🛡️ Data Shield — User Guide

Data Shield is a Speckle Automate function that helps you keep your model data clean, safe, and share-ready. Whether you're sending models to clients or collaborators or just tidying up before archiving, Data Shield has your back.

✨ What Data Shield Does

Data Shield scans your Speckle model for parameters you’d rather not share and takes care of them for you. It creates a fresh, sanitized version of your model while keeping the original intact.

Why you’ll love it:

• Privacy Protection — Say goodbye to accidentally sharing sensitive data.
• Data Compliance — Stay on the right side of data protection policies.
• Confident Collaboration — Share models without oversharing.

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Shield Modes

We know one size doesn’t fit all, so Data Shield offers three modes to suit your style:

Prefix Matching

Best for: Simple, predictable naming conventions.

Remove parameters that start with a specific prefix.

Example: Want to remove everything starting with secret_? Just set that prefix, and Data Shield will do the rest.

Setup:

• Add your prefix (like internal_, private_, or secret_)
• Toggle strict mode for case sensitivity (on or off — your call)

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Pattern Matching

Best for: Wildcards, regex fans, and complex patterns.

Get fancy and use *, ?, or full regular expressions.

Examples:

• client_* matches anything that starts with client_
• ?_internal matches a_internal, b_internal
• /^(secret|private)_.*$/i matches parameters starting with secret_ or private_, ignoring case

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Anonymization

Best for: Keeping the structure and hiding the details.

Automatically detect email addresses inside parameter values and anonymize them.

Example:

No setup is needed. Just select and go.

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How to Use Data Shield

1. Set up your automation:

   • In your Speckle project, head to Automations
   • Click Add Automation and choose Data Shield
   • Set your trigger model

2. Configure your mode:

   • Choose Prefix, Pattern, or Anonymization
   • Add your prefix or pattern if needed
   • Toggle strict mode if you want case sensitivity

3. Run it:

   • It’ll run automatically when a new version is published — or you can manually run it

4. Check results:

   • Shielded models show up under the processed/ branch
   • You’ll get a run report showing what got cleaned
   • Highlighted changes can be seen directly in the viewer

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💡 Tips & Tricks

• Test first! — Run it on a small test model before going full production.
• Start simple. Use prefix matching for clear conventions, pattern matching for complexity, or anonymization for safe sharing.
• Regex pro tip:
  • Wrap your regex in /
  • Add i for case-insensitive matching
  • Use ^ (start) and $ (end) for tighter control

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📚 Example Workflows

→ Prepping for external sharing

• Use pattern matching with /^(internal|private|confidential)_.*$/i
• Run before sending out models
• Share confidently!

→ Anonymizing client data

• Select the Anonymization mode
• Run on any models with contact details
• Use sanitized versions for demos, public decks, or sales pitches

→ Stripping out project-specific baggage

• Prefix matching with something like projectX_
• Clean your models before turning them into templates

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🛠️ Troubleshooting

• Not matching anything? Double-check your pattern or prefix.
• Case mismatch? Try turning off strict mode.
• Only partly sanitized? Some complex models might need multiple passes.
• Errors? Check run logs in the automation report for clues.
• Next Gen vs Legacy: While v3 data objects are supported, if you're using non-Revit v2 objects, you might experience varied results. Please report any issues.

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🤔 Still stuck?

No worries — we’ve got your back.
👉 Post your questions in the Speckle Community Forum and someone from the team (or one of our awesome community members) will help you out!