No option for Law Firm

Workspaces. They’ve been around for quite a while and I’ve thought about doing a post on what they are since starting the blog. The aim being to try and easily explain the concept of workspaces and libraries within the Autonomy iManage WorkSite document management system (DMS). So basically removing the tech speak and explaining what they are in “real life” terms. I was going to title this post “The Dummies guide to Workspaces”, but apart from possibly getting sued for copyright infringement I figured the concept of Workspaces and libraries are terms that to be fair aren’t that easy to grasp. So, here it is. Let me know in the comments if it hits the mark.

Let’s start at the top. That green blob in Outlook under FileSite or the application called DeskSite on your desktop. The document management system (DMS) itself, think of this as your firm. In a paper world this is where everything is stored. DMS = Your firm

The Office = The DMS

Now inside your office or firm you can have many of Filing cabinets. This is the place where your documents are stored. In the DMS these are pretty much what are known as the libraries. Library = Filing cabinets

You can group these in logical ways just like filing cabinets, a row for Litigation, a row for Real Estate or maybe you just have a bank of cabinets for all the firms clients. It’s exactly the same for your libraries in the DMS. You might have one way of grouping them, you may have many. e.g. Litigation Library = Litigation filing cabinets

Filing Cabinets = Libraries in the DMS

Right what’s in the cabinets? Yes, files and typically lots of them! In the DMS this is known as a Workspace. Workspace = File

Workspace = Matter File

Your firm will probably have hundreds or thousands of these files. Some of which you’re working on, some of which are just stuck in the filing cabinets (let’s not touch on those in archive today!). How do you organise those you’re working on? This is where your desk comes in! Your desk, the place where you put your files. In the DMS this is like the list of files under “My Files” (you may have it labelled My Matters or My Woirkspaces). My Files/My Matters/My Workspaces = Your desk

My Desk = My Files/My Matters/My Workspaces

This list can be changed by removing files or adding new ones. Remember though you’re just using these files, they aren’t just yours. Update them and all the office can see the updates. To add these in the DMS you would use a search to find the workspace (file) and add it to your My Files, in the real world you would go and get it from the filing cabinet and put it on your desk. Same concept.

Back to the file. Within the paper file you can arrange the documents with tabs and/or folders. Within the workspace (file) in the DMS  you can do the same. Tabs = Tabs, Folders = Folders

Tabs and Folders

Within tabs you can store folders, within folder documents and emails.

Finally that thing called “Subscribe” what on earth is that? This is basically the ability to look at your colleagues desk and see their files!

For those that struggle with the concept of workspaces, hopefully that will make some sense. From here you can read on and learn about how you can apply security to these workspaces (files) (worksite security pt1 and worksite security pt2).

A return of the WorkSite hints and tips series to end 2009!

Following a question today I found a neat way of adding a shortcut to another folder from within your matter file. This is pretty straight forward when you think about it within WorkSite, but it’s worth noting as it’s always handy to be able to link to a folder of documents from within your electronic file (e.g. to link to common client documents within a client folder from within each matter file relating to that client).

This is what you end up with (where Client Documents is located in another file, i.e. the shortcut):

Shortcut to a folder within a matter workspace

To do this all you need to do is the following:

• Right Click on the Tab (Matter Management in the above example)
• Select Add Shortcuts

How to add a shortcut to a folder from within a matter workspace

• In the resulting pop up, browse to your required folder.
• Then single click on the folder (i.e. highlight it, not go into the contents of it)
• Click Select
• That should be it, the shortcut should be added 

Given the relevant access rights (see explanation of WorkSite security here and here) you can also add shortcuts to folders at a Workspace as well as Tab level.

It’s about time I put up a post for another in the WorkSite Tips & Tricks category. This one is a couple of suggestions for helping manage your My Matters list (or My Workspaces, My files etc)

• Use categories : rather than have one long list of shortcuts to matters, use categories to organise them into logical units (e.g. clients etc). This is a simple to do, right click on My Files and select New>Category. In the example below I have a “Group” workspaces category and then a list of my workspace shortcuts and another category which has all the IT workspaces.

One of the annoyances of the FileSite app is the inability to remove >1 shortcut at a time, to tidy up for example. But there is a way to do this:-

• To quickly remove shortcuts from My matters, rather than doing the right click delete many times, choose Add shortcuts…  From here you can go into your My Files and multi‐select shortcuts within this dialog, then delete all old workspaces in one go.

So yesterday we went through how the security is structured across the workspaces, tabs, folders and documents. Now let’s look at how it’s applied.

Each item in WorkSite can have a default security. This applies to everyone accessing the folder, document etc. This the the “Shared As” option in properties.

You can set the “shared as” to:

• Private – setting to this means by default any one but the creator/author won’t be able to see the workspace, folder, document etc
• View – you can see it but access would be read only as would any property information/meta-data on the item
• Public  – you can see the workspace, folder, document etc and edit them and their property information/meta-data

The easiest way to maintain security is to simply secure at this level. However there may be occasions where you need to secure at more advanced levels for different groups/people etc

This is where the ACL (Access Control List) comes in.

This is additional security information to the basic default security “shared as” setting above. And for the groups/people named in the ACL it will override the default “shared as” setting (e.g. if the document default “shared as” security is “View”, but I am added to the ACL with Read/Write access. Everyone else will be able to get read only access apart from me who will have write access – the author/creator will of course still have write access too)

In the ACL you can add individuals or groups of individuals and assign the following access levels (remember these will supersede the default level for those individuals/groups!)

• Full Access – This allows full access to the document and full control over properties/meta-data and also the security (including for the folder, workspace etc)
• Read/Write – full access  to the document, but limited control on properties/meta-data and no ability to change security (including for the folder, workspace etc)
• Read – as it says, just allows to read documents, properties/meta-data etc
• No Access – again as it says (remember unlike Windows where you could see the folder even if you couldn’t gain access to it, in WorkSite No Access = it’s invisible)

There are a few things worth pointing out about Groups and Individuals in terms of adding to the ACL.

• Groups are extremely useful for workspaces that contain hundreds of documents and have security that changes regularly. This is because you can amend the security without having to refile everything (the refile action has to go through each document, folder etc and change the properties and security. On a large file this takes time!)
• However the downside of Groups is that users of the FileSite or Desktop clients cannot add or remove people from them. This has to be done using the database administration tool.

So before you determine your security think carefully about the following to help determine the best security to apply:

• potential size of the file (number of folders, documents etc)
• frequency of change of individuals access requirements
• degree of control the end user will need in maintaining the security

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OK now you hopefully understand a bit more about the default security and ACL. Let’s step back to how folders and documents inherit security from the parent folder, tab or workspace. Basically what we’re going to look at is limiting or opening up security within the workspace.

So remember the option to inherit or not?

Limiting access to sub folders or documents is easy. 

You set the top level (e.g. your workspace) as open a security setting as is acceptable e.g. Public (remember this is the “shared as” default security, not in the ACL).

You can then uncheck the inherit security on the folders you wish to secure more tightly, then either change the default “shared as” security (e.g. to “View”) or add a specific ACL to those folders.

However the real difficulty is when you want to apply a more open security to sub folders. i.e. opening access to wider audience in a sub folder that at the levels above.

So say your top level (e.g. your workspace) is Private (again remember this is the “shared as” default security, not in the ACL) and maybe it is also secured in the ACL to a group or individual. In WorkSite you can only open sub folders or tabs to people specifically listed in top (i.e. workspace) ACL!

When you think about it this is logical as if you have no access to the top level you couldn’t see the workspace, so how could you expect to see a folder within it?

This isn’t so bad, but the big gripe is that it only lists Groups, not people contained in those Groups!  i.e. the workspace is secured to View in the ACL to the IT group, then you want to allow me to have read/write access to a sub-folder. Unless I am named in the ACL as an individual as well you won’t be able to pick me at a lower level even though I’m in the IT Group!

Individual documents though are a little different. These can be opened up to either Groups or Individuals that are not listed in the top level (i.e. workspace) ACL. I guess this is logical as you could search for the document by it’s document number?!

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Finally a quick note on Roles, just for completeness. These though really aren’t essential to understanding security from a WorkSite user perspective. So if your brain is full or fried stop reading now!

In the background your WorkSite administrator will assign users of the WorkSite system to “roles”. These are settings that basically allow some overriding “security” to be applied that a user cannot amend. It will always apply to all workspaces, tabs, folders and documents etc. So your actions available within the system will depend on the role you are placed in.

Roles apply to more specific functions, like the ability to actually create a workspace or be able to physically delete documents etc. An example of a role setting is shown below:

Matter Centric WorkSite security on the face of it can seem over complicated. But once you get the hang of it you can pretty much make it work well for any security requirement. This post will go through some of the basics.

First off a quick recap of the main components of WorkSite:

• At the “top” level you have your Workspace – think of it as your fliing cabinet for the matter
• Below that you can have tabs – think of the logical dividers in that cabinet to split up your content
• Either below a tab or in a workspace are folders – think paper folders full of a specific type of paper document in your cabinet
• Then in the folders are your documents, emails etc

In WorkSite you can add “meta data” to your workspace (this is data that describes the workspace, so typically your client number, matter number, practice group etc). You can also secure a workspace to individuals or groups of individuals.

The tabs, folders or documents in the workspace can inherit that security (this can be changed for individual folders or documents if required).

If you know that some documents have had security changed and you want to re-apply the security from the workspace downwards then you use what WorkSite calls a “refile” action.

"Refiling" – applies the profile and security information downwards to folders and documents from the workspace (you can also refile from a tab or folder level if required)

As mentioned above you can set up folders not to inherit security. This is done with a simple checkbox on the properties of the folder (see below)

So when you refile either a workspace or tab you would get the following message. This allows you to avoid replacing security information for folders you set up not to inherit.

So if you do not want to pass the security down to folders set not to inherit, then leave the checkbox unchecked.

You can also chose to refile from the folder level downwards. For folders you get a similar option to pass down the security, but also an additional option asking whether you want to “re-inherit” the security from the above tab/workspace (see below).

So if you do not want to pass the security down to sub-folders set not to inherit, then leave the first checkbox unchecked.

If this folder does not inherit security and you do not want it to change to inherit. Then leave the second checkbox unchecked.

Part Two will be published tomorrow…