All project documentation needs to be stored and maintained in a single repository. PPO's Documents entity provides users with the ability to add documents and link documents to entity records such as Risks, Issues, and Tasks while keeping a history of previous versions of the document. PPO allows you to upload documents of any format.
This article covers:
- Adding or deleting a document;
- Copying a document;
- Removing the Physical File;
- Version control;
- Download the latest version;
- Download multiple documents;
- Uploading documents through e-mail;
- Uploading documents via the home page;
- Linking documents;
- Linked entities.
Adding or deleting a document
If your user group access had been updated to allow adding/deleting documents, you will see the Add button on the Document List page.
You will see the Delete action item when on a single document view page or if you select multiple documents on the Document List page as shown below.
Copying a document
If your user group access allows you to Add a document you will also have access to Copy a document. When using the Copy functionality, all the metadata of the specific document is copied over to the new record, however, the actual physical file will not be copied over and will need to be linked.
Removing the physical file
In PPO, you have the ability to either add a physical file or you can provide a link to an external document repository. It is important to note that one of the two must be populated.
If you have a Physical File as well as an External Link, you will see an Actions Menu item named Remove Physical File as shown below. This allows you to remove the actual Physical File (document) if you only want the External Link. Important: Having both might cause the 2 documents to become out of sync.
PPO enforces a maximum upload size limit per document, which is 50MB by default. There is no limit to the total document storage space used. You can either 'drag and drop' a document or select "click here" to find a document from your file explorer:
If you upload a document that exceeds 50MB, you will see an "Exceeds file size limit" validation error.
For more information about the document upload size, see the following FAQ.
Version control
PPO creates a history record every time a document is edited. Previous versions of a document will still be available from the Document History section on the Document View page.
To access and view previous versions of documents, click on the document history record, then either click on the physical file name of the history document to download it or select the Mail Document to Me item.
This functionality allows users to keep track of changes and versions and ensures that the latest version is always the active record.
Download the latest version
Users have a couple of options to download or view the latest version of a document from the Document View page:
Download multiple documents
To download multiple documents, navigate to the Document List page, select the documents to download, and select the Download action button:
If there is more than one zipped folder, or the size of the zipped folder is over 90% of the allowed request size (50MB) you will receive the following message and an email containing the links. Note that the link is only valid for 72 hours.
If the documents being downloaded are less than 90% of the allowed request size (50MB), the zipped folder will download directly to your device.
Additional information:
- This feature is available to all users who have view access to documents. For more information on assigning user group access rights, see the following knowledge base article.
Uploading documents through e-mail
You can save valuable time by uploading documents to PPO via e-mail.
Users can e-mail documents to documents@ppolive.com. PPO will match the users' e-mail addresses to their resource records and upload and save the documents. The document name will be used for the document title and, when the user logs into PPO, the document will appear on their Home Page under an Unclassified documents section.
The user can then select the document which will take them to the Document View page.
From the Document View page users can then click on the Edit Document button which will open the Document Edit page and allow the user to allocate the document to the project and complete the required fields.
Please note:
- Users can attach multiple documents to a single e-mail and each attachment will upload as a separate document;
- Users can CC or even BCC documents@ppolive.com when sending the documents to other people and PPO will still upload the document(s);
- If one document is e-mailed and the e-mail does not contain a subject, the document file name will be used as the document title.
- If one document is e-mailed and the e-mail does contain a subject, the e-mail subject will be used as the document title.
- If multiple documents are e-mailed at once and the e-mail does not contain a subject, the document file names will be used for the document title.
- The user’s internet service provider (ISP) / webmaster may restrict and place limits on the size of documents submitted and, in this case, the user will receive an e-mail from their ISP / webmaster notifying them that the e-mail was not successfully sent;
- Please remember that there might be a slight delay in PPO receiving the e-mail which is based on normal internet traffic and thus users should allow some time before expecting the document to appear on their Home Page;
- If you are a user on multiple instances with the same e-mail address on your resource record, PPO will reject the document and send you an e-mail indicating that the document upload failed as PPO will not be able to determine which instance to store the document on. Please note this does not apply to users who are loaded on both a live / production instance and a training instance; and
- This functionality is only available on subscription instances and thus does not work on training and evaluation instances.
Should you wish to view a report of all the unclassified documents on your instance, access the reports, select the documents entity and extract the Unclassified Documents report. This report will show you a list of all the documents that were uploaded via e-mail, but not yet classified according to project, type, status or any other required fields.
Uploading documents via the home page
You have the ability to drag and drop single or multiple documents on the home page as well as use the "Click here" option to add a single document.
Please note that drag and drop functionality is not supported on Internet Explorer.
Once you have added documents in the Upload document box, they will appear under the Unclassified documents section:
You can select the above documents to allocate them to the correct projects.
Additional information related to deleting unclassified documents:
- Users can delete their own unclassified documents via the home page regardless if their user group has access to delete documents.
- A user that has access to view other resources' home pages will also be able to delete the related users' unclassified documents should their user group have access to delete documents as well.
- If the user viewing the other resource's home page does not have access to delete documents, then they can't delete the other user's unclassified documents.
Documents can be linked to any entity in PPO. If a document is linked to an entity record, such as a Risk, the document will appear on the Linked Documents section on the Risk View page and using the Actions button you can edit, download or delete (if you have access) the linked documents.
To link a document to a project, resource or project related entity record, click on the add (+) button in the linked documents section of the edit page.
A new window will pop up showing the Documents List page. This allows the user to select a document or add a new document.
Once the document has been selected, the Link document button must be selected to link the document to the entity record.
To un-link the document, click on the Remove Link icon ("x").
Linked entities
Each document is explicitly associated with a project but, as described in the previous section, it can also be linked to any other item, for example a risk, which may or may not be associated with the same project. A document can also be associated with multiple items, across a number of projects. It is therefore useful to be able to see which items a document is linked to. This can be accomplished by looking at the Linked Entities section on the page, which will show you the project, the entity as well as the title of the item that the document is linked to. It further shows you who last updated the related item as well as when the item was last updated.
Should you require more information about the item the document is linked to, you are able to click on the item and drill-down into the underlying information.