Document Manager Overview
Document Manager Overview
The DreamTeam Document Manager provides sophisticated and rich interactivity with Documents in the Salesforce.com repository. Using the familiar metaphor of an Outline control, on top of a virtual centralized Database (Salesforce.com), DreamTeam Document Manager makes robust Document Management easier then managing files on your desktop. Moreover, the productivity increases over "email and hope" approaches to document creation are dramatic.
By adding these capabilities to the Salesforce implementation (vs. a stand-alone product) Team Document Management becomes a natural extension to the Salesforce experience.
Recorded Tutorials
The links below take you to record-and-playback movies that cover many common questions about the Document Manager.
How does document versioning work?
How do I upload and download documents?
How do I upload or download an entire folder tree?
How do I create sub-folders and re-parent folders?
How do I launch and edit documents?
How do I grant user security?
Document Manager Views
The DreamTeam Document Manager displays an intuitive, familiar view of Folders and Documents. To help you find and use the documents you care about, you can configure Document Manager views..
The Document Manager lets you see, at a glance, all of the Folders and Documents in your Document repository. Documents are displayed with icons indicating the type of each document. On the left, you can choose which Project Folders to view. You can also associate applications with types of files, control security settings and see a list of launched documents.
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Intuitive buttons at the top right of the DreamTeam Document Manager let you choose to all Folders or just the Folder associated with a specific Project. You can also collapse or open all Folders in the view.
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Document Manager Entities
Within DreamTeam Document Manager, there are three primary entities to keep in mind:
| Folder - A Folder is a collection of Documents and/or subfolders. You can create an arbitrary depth of nested subfolders, but it will be easier to find Documents if you keep the Folder hierarchy as simple as possible. |
| Document - An Document is a file of any type. Documents can be uploaded to Document Manager from a URL or your local filesystem, and they can be downloaded from Document Manager to your local filesystem. |
| Version - DreamTeam Calendar Manager lets you create, edit and store multiple versions of any Document. This lets you track changes to Documents throughout Project lifecycles. |
Document Manager Activities
Within DreamTeam Document Manager, you can
- Create, delete, upload and download Folders and subfolders.
- Upload, download, and replace Documents.
- Launch Documents on your local machine, using the Documents' native programs to view and/or edit those Documents.
- Version and save multiple versions of Documents.
The following sections will walk you through the steps required to work with DreamTeam Folders and Documents.
Security Settings
Any time you attempt to upload or download a Folder or Document or to launch a Document, DreamTeam Document Manager will check your security settings. If you have not already granted permission for the activity you have begun, DreamTeam Project Manager will launch the Security Settings dialog. This dialog lets you separately define security permissions to
- Launch applications to view/edit Documents
- Read files on your local system in order to upload Folders
- Write files on your local system in order to download Folders
Working With Folders
The New Folder button lets you create a new top-level folder, while the Make Subfolder button lets you make an existing folder a subfolder of another existing folder.
The Folder Properties dialog shows you creation and modification dates for a Folder. You can also change a Folder name as well as make a Folder read only from this dialog.
Uploading and Downloading Folders
DreamTeam Document Manager allows you to upload entire folders, including all of the files contained in those folders, from your local filesystem. Alternately, you can download an entire Folder from DreamTeam Document Manager to your local system.
In both cases, Document Manager will launch a dialog that lets you browse your local filesystem to choose the folder to upload or the location to which to download a folder.
Working With Documents
DreamTeam Document Manager offers a rich interface for working with the Documents associated with your Projects.
The New Document dialog lets you upload a file from your local filesystem or from a URL. You can give the Document a name, determine which folder to place the Document in, even give the Document a text Description and a set of search keywords.
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Note: You can hold down the control key and click in the URL text entry field to automatically select a local network file as the link. Other users who have access to this network can share the file through the salesforce.com document interface. This is useful for sharing files internally, but external users across the Internet will not have access to the file. |
From the Document Properties dialog, you can change any of the properties you originally specified for a document, including moving the Document to a new Folder.
One of the key features of DreamTeam Document Manager is versioning. This feature lets you make edits to existing documents and store multiple versions of the same Document so that you can track changes throughout a Project's lifecycle.
The Make Version dialog lets you manually control Document versioning by specifying that one Document is a version of another existing Document.
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You can search within the DreamTeam Document repository for a specific Document by clicking the Find Document button. Search options include document name, description, creation or modification date, author name or keyword search.
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Launching Documents
DreamTeam Document Manager lets you work with Documents using the native applications for those Documents. For example, if you launch a Microsoft Word document, then DreamTeam Document Manager will automatically launch Microsoft Word on your local system. Once again, you can control this feature via the Security Settings dialog.
The Launched Documents dialog shows you the Documents you are currently editing. This dialog will appear whenever you launch a Document, and again when you close the launched document. You can choose to replace the original Document or to make a new version of the Document with your edits.
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Team Communication Overview
DreamTeam brings rich Groupware capabilities to salesforce.com in the form of Notification and Threaded Discussions. These features let you communicate, share ideas, and stay in touch with team members throughout and across projects.
Notification
From within Document Manager, you can easily access DreamTeam Notification, either via the Notification button on the left side of Document Manager or via the paper airplane glyph in the top right corner of the Folder Properties dialog.
DreamTeam Notification offers a quick, easy way to send email or create salesforce.com tasks between Project team members. Search for team members by Name, Organizational Role, Project or Skill Type. Specify Subject, Priority, Status and Text. DreamTeam Notification lets you choose between (or use both) email and salesforce tasks.
Threaded Discussions
From within Document Manager, you can also access DreamTeam Discussions, DreamTeam's built-in threaded discussion mechanism. The Discussion button on the left lets you start a discussion topic or add a comment to an existing topic. You can also select Threaded Discussion from the right-mouse menu for any Document.
DreamTeam Discussions, attached to Documents or Folders within your Project, add the richness and interactive quality of threaded, multi-person discussions to project management.