3.1 Adding documents

3.1.1 The standard method

3.1.2 The ActiveX drag and drop uploader

3.1.1 The standard method

When you are ready to share your documents with your colleagues, you should upload them to Business Collaborator. You can add any kind of electronic file to Business Collaborator, e.g. MS Word documents, CAD drawings, MS Excel spreadsheets, image, sound and video file formats and Adobe PDF documents. Simply create the document in the application of your choice and then upload (add) it to Business Collaborator.

To add a document using the standard method, go to the Business Collaborator location where you wish to upload the file. Click  Add  |  Document  to bring up the Document upload form. In order to upload a document from your local computer into Business Collaborator, there are 2 essential steps:

1. Select the file to be uploaded by clicking on "Browse" and finding the local file which you wish to upload - select it by either double clicking or clicking "Open" in the "File Upload" window.
2. Click on "Upload document". (Until you click on this, you have not made any changes on the Business Collaborator server.)

This will add your document to the selected location in Business Collaborator.

In addition, you may also:

• Specify the format of the file (the MIME type) you are uploading (e.g. MS Word, Adobe PDF). The MIME type is used to determine the icon which is presented for each document. It is also used when you download the file - to identify the appropriate application to open. The MIME type is normally set automatically when the document is uploaded from a PC. However, you may need to set the MIME type explicitly when uploading a document from a Mac. (If it is set incorrectly or not set at all, it can be changed - see section 6.7.)
• Choose a different name for the document from the one you have used locally. Remember that Business Collaborator is a shared file system and so the name used should make sense to other users as well as yourself. (Business Collaborator does not impose limits on length or format of the document name.)
• Add some text describing the nature or purpose of the document. This text will appear along with the document name and so provides additional information for people viewing the document listing.
• When user-defined metadata is available, an additional checkbox will appear on the upload page. On checking this box, users will be permitted to specify additional, customised metadata for the document - see Section 13 - Metadata.

Uploading several documents at once is discussed in section 3.1.2 and section 6.5.1.

Note 1

Naming conventions:

• you should avoid filenames in Business Collaborator which contain the characters &, /, % and spaces as these may cause problems when the document is downloaded to other systems. Instead of spaces in names, these could be replaced by the _ (underscore) character.
• if your colleagues use local computer systems with filenames restricted to 8 characters followed by a suffix of three, you should observe this convention when entering a file name - the Business Collaborator document name is used as a default file name when the file is downloaded.

Note 2

If you upload a document to a folder that already contains a document with the same name and MIME type, that earlier document is overwritten (replaced). To prevent overwriting a document:

• define suitable access rights for the document (see section 4.6), or
• put your document under version control (see section 3.7), or
• use the ActiveX drag and drop uploader (see section 3.1.2) which will prompt you about whether or not to replace the document.

3.1.2 The ActiveX drag and drop uploader

The ActiveX drag and drop uploader makes it very easy to add one or more documents and folders to Business Collaborator in a single action. The ActiveX uploader allows you to upload folders that contain a hierarchical structure of folders and documents whilst maintaining its structure within Business Collaborator. To use the uploader, simply select one or more folders/files from your Windows Explorer or desktop and drag them onto to upload them into the current location.

While the drag and drop operation is being carried out, a dialog box will appear to inform you of the numerous operations being performed by the uploader before the folders/files are uploaded onto the BC server. These operations are outlined below:

1. It checks if the folder on the server already contains one or more of the folders/files you are uploading (in this case, you are prompted if you want to replace these files),
2. It compresses the uploading files (to reduce upload times).
3. The folders/files are placed on the server.

The ActiveX uploader will be available by default (unless you chose not to use it when completing the Welcome screens the first time you logged on - see section 2.1 ). If you cannot see the drag and drop upload - as shown in Figure 3.1-1 - you should check that your preferences are set to use it:

1. Select  User  |  Edit Prefs 
2. In the All Interfaces section of this form look for the Use ActiveX uploader checkbox and select this.
3. (optional) Choose whether you wish to add descriptions as you upload each document by selecting the "Add descriptions to files " checkbox.
4. (optional) Choose whether you wish to close the upload window once it has finished uploading by selecting the "Close the upload dialog when upload complete" checkbox. (We recommend that you set this option to speed up your use of the system, since once the documents have uploaded the current view refreshes to show your new files in place.
5. Click on "Store these preferences" to proceed to confirm your drag and drop selections.
6. The drag and drop uploader will be downloaded to your computer only when you are in a location that can accept document uploads.
7. You will be asked if you would like to install and run "Business Collaborator ActiveX Uploader Control" distributed by QuantiSci limited. Choose "yes" to accept.
8. (optional) Some configurations of Windows will require you to install some Microsoft Visual Basic components. Proceed as follows.
9. (optional) You will be asked if you would like to install and run "Microsoft Runtime" distributed by Microsoft Corporation. Choose yes to accept - the drag and drop uploader will not function without it.
10. Finally, to ensure the ActiveX control works properly you may have to restart your computer.
11. If you are unable to install the ActiveX control, this may be because of the permissions which are set on your local computer. You should contact your IT support provider for assistance.

Figure 3.1-1: The Drag and Drop icon, illustrating that the ActiveX uploader is in operation.

If you selected to "Add descriptions to files", you will be required to provide a description for each document during upload. You are allowed to leave the description blank if you desire. By selecting the "Give the same description to all following documents" you can choose to add one description to all your remaining documents to be uploaded.

Note

The drag and drop uploader will only work on Microsoft Windows PCs running versions of Internet Explorer that support ActiveX technology.