Adding Files to a Document Library

This article covers the following topics to help you get started adding files to your Document Library:

1. Granting File Permissions and Roles: Determine who can add, view, and update files. Doing this before adding files ensures that only those you wish can access your Document Library.

2. Adding Files: Add specific types of files and their associated metadata to your Document Library.

Granting File Permissions and Roles

You should carefully manage who can add, view, and update files. You can store files of all kinds for various purposes. For example, you may have one set of files intended for only specific site members and another intended for everyone, including guests. You can use Roles and Permissions to control access to Document Library files. The Document Library’s folder permissions also help you organize files.

Follow these steps to create a Role for managing files in your site’s Documents and Media:

1. Open the Menu () and navigate to Control Panel → Users → Roles.

2. Select the Site Roles tab (or Organization Roles, for an Organization Role) and then click the Add button () to begin creating a role.

3. Give your Role a name and a description, then click Save.

4. Select your Role’s Define Permissions tab. In the Role’s permission definition screen, navigate to Site Administration → Content → Documents and Media. In the General Permissions section, select Access in Site Administration and click Save.

   

   Figure 1: It's often helpful to define a role for specific users to access Documents and Media from Site Administration.

5. Assign this Role to the Users that should manage media. For more information on this and other topics related to Roles, see the documentation on Roles and permissions.

Using the Add Menu

Follow these steps to add files to your site’s Document Library:

1. Open the Menu (), click on your site’s name, and navigate to Content → Documents and Media. The Documents and Media screen appears and displays the Documents and Media library’s Home (its root folder). As you add files and folders to the Document Library, they’re listed here.

   

   Figure 2: The Documents and Media's *Home* folder starts empty. But the Add menu lets you upload and add all kinds of documents to the library.

2. Click the Add icon () and select the type of document to add to the Document Library. You can add documents, folders, and shortcuts much like you would on a desktop file system. You can even configure access to an entirely different repository. The Add menu’s options are described below.

3. When you’re finished selecting the file to upload and filling out any document type fields that are necessary, click Publish.

Folder: Create a new folder in the app’s file system.

Shortcut: Create a shortcut to any document that you can view. You can set permissions on the shortcut to specify who can access the original document via the shortcut.

Repository: Add access to an external repository. See the store types documentation for more information.

Multiple Documents: Upload several files at once. You can apply a single description and document type to all the files. You can also categorize and tag the files, and assign them default permissions.

Basic Document: Upload a single file. By default, basic documents aren’t described by any metadata sets.

The remaining items in the Add menu are default document types described by a unique metadata set. When you add a document belonging to a document type, a form appears that lets you pick the file to upload and enter the data defined by the document type’s metadata set. For example, the Contract document type is used to describe legal contracts. By default, contracts are described by fields for the effective date, expiration date, contract type, status, legal reviewer, signing authority, and deal name.

Any custom document types that have been defined also appear in the Add menu.