Working with Shared Folders

Project items stored in shared folders can be modified within the shared folder by any users who have write access to them.

Note: Windows administrators may want to assign individual or group rights to control who has read access and who has write access to the shared folder in order to prevent un-authorized changes being made to shared objects (in particular procedures).

Additionally, shared objects can be dragged directly between shared folders that are accessible to a user.

There are four core actions that users can perform with shared folders:

To move a local project item into an existing shared folder, simply click on the local project item in the Overview window and then drag and drop it in the shared folder. If the object does not immediately appear in the shared folder, simply right-click on the shared folder in the Overview and select “Update Folder Contents”. If a shared item already exists in the shared folder, its name is appended with a “2” to distinguish it.

Note: When you move table layouts from your local project into a shared folder on an Arbutus Windows Server, it is a best practice to only move table layouts into the shared folder that use a valid server profile for that server.

Note: If local table layouts are moved into shared folder, the local data for that table layout can be moved into the shared folder so that other users of the shared folder have access to it. Analyzer will prompt the user whether to move the associated data file into the shared folder or not.

Note: Local procedures and workspaces can always be moved into (and between) any shared folders.

Moving or Copying a Shared Item into a Local Project Folder

By default, you can only duplicate a shared project item as a local project item. To make a copy of a shared project item from the shared folder, simply right-click on the shared project item in the Overview window and select “Duplicate”. This places a unique copy of the item in your local project folder which can then be modified.

To physically move a shared project item out of the shared folder, simply drag and drop the shared project item into your local project in the Overview. This action permanently removes the shared object from the shared folder and places it in the local project folder.

Moving a Local Table Layout into Shared Folder

You can move a table layout in your local project that points to a local data source into a shared folder. When the table layout is moved, you are prompted to see if you also want to move the local data source into the shared folder as well. Without moving the data, the other users of the shared folder would not be able to access the local data, only the table layout.

Note: Caution should be used when moving local table layouts into a shared folder because once local data is moved into a shared folder, dragging the table layout back into the local project will not restore the data from the shared folder to the local project folder.

Considerations for Moving Table Layouts

Table Layouts can be moved between local projects and shared folders (on a local or mapped network drive, or on an Arbutus Windows Server).

When a table layout containing relations is moved between a local project and a shared folder, or from one shared folder to another shared folder, the indexes for any relations are deleted and any relations are removed from the table layout. The details for the removed relation(s) are listed in the Notes tab of the Table Properties of the parent table for subsequent recreation.

Similarly, when a table layout for a refreshable data source is moved between a local project and a shared folder, or from one shared folder to another shared folder, the refresh tag is deleted and the table layout is linked to the flattened data with no reference to the source data. The moved table layout will no longer be able to be refreshed from the source data.

Note: Refreshable table layouts and table layouts containing relations are only maintained when a table layout is moved within the same root folder (for example from the root to a sub-folder within the root).

Managing Files and Folders within a Shared Folder

To manage the files and folders contained within a shared folder on an Arbutus Windows Server, use the Explore menu option in the Server menu. For more information see Exploring an Arbutus Windows Server.