Uploading and changing documents

BSCW lets you upload a local file to a folder as a document on the BSCW server. If you use a Web browser with integrated file uploading functionality (e.g. Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari), you need no additional software to upload documents.

If you have to upload large documents or a great number of documents regularly, you should consider using one of the BSCW upload helpers available (for details see 13.5 BSCW upload helpers).

For uploading documents via your browser,

•      select  File    New    Document  in the top menu.

You can change all the information about a document by

•      selecting action  Change    Properties  in the action menu of the document.

Both actions essentially use the same action form consisting of four sections:

o  General: Specification of local file for upload (omitted when changing properties), name, tags and description.

o  Document Review (managers only): Definition of a review process for the document that differs from the process valid for the documents of the current folder (see 12.3 Document review).

o  Automatic Versioning (managers only): Definition of versioning options for the docu­ment that differ from the options valid for the documents of the current folder (see 8.3.6 Automatic versioning).

o  Attributes: Specification of metadata attributes for the document.

General

•      In the ‘General’ section, select a file for uploading from your local file system using the [Browse…] button in the ‘Local file’ field. The name of the file selected is auto­matically copied into the field. The name will be used by BSCW as the document name unless you enter a different name in the ‘Name’ field. Choose a telling docu­ment name, so the other members of the work­space will know what the document is about.

The file extension used to indicate the file type on some platforms should be kept in the document name, be­cause it facilitates the recognition of the file type when the do­cu­ment is downloaded again by other members of the workspace: the BSCW docu­ment name is the default local file name!

Note: Starting with BSCW version 5.1, document and folder names may only use a re­stricted character set in order to ensure a better compatibility with the naming con­ven­tions of the different operating systems (e.g. when downloading a BSCW archive). When creating a new folder, you will be notified of an invalid name (e.g. containing one of the following characters \ * : ? / < > | "). In this case you have to correct the name before you can create the folder.    
Invalid names of existing documents or folders from an older BSCW version are only changed when you duplicate folders or documents (e.g. by copying) or when your BSCW administrator arranges for all invalid names to be made valid.

•      You may enter freely chosen keywords in the ‘Tags’ field to characterize the new documents. These tags may be used in searches. Several tags are separated by blanks. There is no dis­tinc­tion between upper and lower case in tags.

•      In the ‘Description’ field you may enter a description of the document’s contents or instruc­tions for its use.

•      You may provide an assessment of the docu­ment’s qua­li­ty by selecting one of the ratings offered. You may also rate the document later or change your rating using action  Change    Rate . BSCW shows all ratings in the document’s info page; the median of all ratings is shown as an icon in the ‘Rating’ column of the document entry (with only two ratings, the average rating is taken).

•      The correct file type of the document is normally recognized by Web browsers and automatically assigned (default setting). You can also specify the file type yourself by selecting a file type from the menu offered. Should the correct file type not be offered, you can enter the according MIME type (standardized designation of file types on the Internet) manually. The info page of a document shows its MIME type.

Similarly, a possible encoding ap­plied to the file is detected correctly in most cases. Occasionally you may need to specify the encoding in the respective field. You may change file type and encoding later on, using action  Change    Properties  in the action menu of the document.

Attributes

•      In the section ‘Attributes’ you may specify metadata attributes for the new document. These attributes may also be used in searches. The default attributes are arranged in two groups. The first group contains category and priority; these attributes are indi­cated in folder listings in which the document appears, when the respective columns are activated via  View    Columns  in the top menu. The second group of attributes is used for docu­ment classi­fication according to the Dublin Core standard (see 3.9.1 Metadata profiles); with these at­tributes you may add further values by clicking on the add icon add.

Later on, you may also define your own attributes, which are summarized in a new or changed metadata profile and assigned to the document (for details see 3.9.1 Metadata profiles).

•      Hit [OK] to finally upload the new document or to commit the changes you made.

Attention: If you upload a document to a folder, that already contains a document with the same name and the same file type, the existing document is replaced by the uploaded docu­ment. To prevent overwriting of a document

•      select action  Access    Set Lock  in the action menu of the document to set a (re­mov­able) lock.

If a document is under version control it cannot be overwritten by uploading a document with the same name and file type; instead, a new version of the docu­ment is created.

Note: When you upload documents to a shared workspace that you do not own, the uploaded do­cuments will belong to the owner of the workspace and not to you, the creator. The disk space used by these documents is added to the disk quota of the workspace owner. When disk space control (‘quota system’) has been activated for your BSCW server, the upload of large do­cuments by members of a workspace may lead to prob­lems for the owner (violation of the disk space limit). Because workspace owners are in general also workspace managers, they can of course destroy large documents, should problems arise. If disk space control is ac­ti­vat­ed for your BSCW server, select  File    Info  in the top menu of your home folder to inspect the disk space used by all objects that you own.