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Document Collection or other?

GlennF

Hi all....new to M-Files so please bear with me.....I have an existing collection of documents and multi file documents sitting under a Virtual Folder.  I want to create a number of sub-folders under my Virtual Folder (titled by year) and then move all of the existing documents and multi-file documents under their corresponding sub-folder.  At first I thought that creating a Document Collection would be the answer, but when I move one of these documents or multi-file documents under the Document Collection, it does not actually move the document or multi file document, instead it just creates a pointer, meaning the original stays in its original location in the Virtual Folder.  I want the document or multi file document to actually move, not just create a copy/pointer.....I hope this makes sense and I hope there is an easy way to do this?

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    Generally you want to try to move away from the concept of folders, and instead think about how you can use the metadata on the existing objects to drive how things appear in certain ways.

    It sounds like you have a view configured that shows objects within certain groups.  I'm not sure exactly what that might be, so let me create a fake scenario.  Let's say you have a view named "Documents by class" that shows all documents (object type = document), with a grouping by class.  In this scenario you would see a "folder" named "Documents" and, inside it, "folders" for each of the classes in your system and, within each of those, the documents of the appropriate class.  These folders aren't really folders, but they are instead effectively a set of items that match your search conditions, grouped according to the logic; in this way documents don't just appear in one place, but could appear in many different views according to whatever logic you need in the organisation...  So the sales department could see documents in one structure, the project-delivery department in another, etc...  All by creating searches and groupings that match what the different departments need.

    Now let's say that you want to alter the view so that purchase orders appear a bit differently.  All of your purchase orders have a property called "Purchase Order Date" which contains the date that they were raised.  In this scenario you can go into the Documents "folder" and right-click on the "Purchase Orders" grouping, then customise it.  Here you can create a set of additional groups that are applied just for purchase orders accessed via this grouping.  So you can add a new grouping by the "Purchase Order Date", using the "Year" component of it.

    If you save all of this and go try it again you should see that the "Documents" view, and the groupings for all other class, work the same way as they did.  The Purchase Orders one has a different icon, though, because you've customised it (effectively you've replaced it with a sub-view, but let's not go down there just yet).  When you go into the Purchase Orders view you should see a list of years and, when you go into each one, the Purchase Orders for that year.  As you add a new Purchase Order for a new year, a new grouping appears as appropriate.

    Does that help?

    (By the way: document collections are cool too, but they do something different)

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