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What are best practices for setting up the Document Center?

Considerations to Remember in the Document Repository

Also searched as: file storage, document uploads, file permissions, document management

The Document Repository gives you a convenient, customizable way to share — and restrict access to — community files, from covenants to meeting minutes. You can upload just about anything here, but it helps to understand how some aspects work under the hood.

 Duplicate Filenames

(also: file naming, cloud storage filenames, broken document links)

  • Documents are stored in a cloud-based file system, which internally uses long sequences of letters and numbers as filenames.
  • Unlike on your own computer, this means you can store more than one file with the same name in the same Document Repository folder.
  • This also explains why editing a file linked from a text-based widget on your website — and then uploading a revised copy with the same filename — breaks the link. The link points to the previous version, which is stored under a different internal name in the cloud.
  • Locally you always see the filenames you expect, but the system (which stores millions of files) needs more complex names behind the scenes.

 File Previews

(also: previewable file types, document preview, PDF preview)

You can preview certain file types directly in the Document Repository — and on a Documents-templated website page — without downloading them:

  • GIF
  • JPEG
  • PNG
  • PDF

Exception: If you link to a PDF file within a text-based widget on a website page, you won't get a preview — the file will download instead.

  • Animated GIFs uploaded to the Document Repository will preview with animation, and you can use the Image tool (in the toolbar above the edit window on any text-based widget) to add the animation to a website page.
    • Animated GIFs do not animate if added to a regular photo/image widget instead.
  • If a visitor's browser is configured to preview PDFs, the file will both preview in the browser and download.
  • Common file types that cannot preview include Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files — these use proprietary formats the Document Repository can't render.

 File Uploads

(also: upload size limit, storage limits, large file uploads)

  • You have unlimited total storage space for your Document Repository and other site content.
  • However, the size limit for any individual document is 15 MB.
  • Because of this limit, video recordings (e.g., board meetings) generally won't fit and also won't play natively on your website.
    • Best practice: upload videos to a video service (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.) and embed them on your site using the "Embed media from external sites" tool, available in the toolbar above the edit window on a text-based website page widget in Site Setup.
    • Most video services let you make a video unlisted, so only people with the direct link can view it.

 File-Permission Setups and Changes

(also: access permissions, folder restrictions, member-only files, admin-only files)

You can set access permissions for both folders and individual files.

Key rule: A folder can be less restrictive than the files inside it, but never more restrictive.

  • A publicly accessible folder can contain files that are Members-only, tag-restricted, or Admin-only.
  • A Members-only (or tag-restricted) folder cannot contain a file marked as publicly accessible.

In short:

  • The container (folder) must be the least restrictive element.
  • The contents (files) can be equally or more restrictive.

 

 Examples

| Folder access | File access inside |

|---|---|

| Public | Mix of public, Members-only, and tag-restricted files |

| Members-only | Mix of Members-only, tag-restricted, and Admin-only files |

| Public | All files public |

| Admin-only | All files Admin-only |

 

 Changing Existing Permissions

Because the system won't let a folder become more restrictive than its contents, you must change permissions in the correct order:

  1. Change the file privileges first.
  2. Then change the folder privileges.
  3. Change permissions on the innermost files.
  4. Change permissions on the folder containing them.
  5. Repeat for each level moving outward (subfolder files, then subfolder, and so on).

For nested folders (folder > subfolder > sub-subfolder), start with the files in the innermost folder and work outward:

If you skip a file or subfolder, the system will show a warning the next time you try to make a change.