Hi
I am new to daylite and evaluating it to be a multiuser system. As a mortgage broker I attach several scanned docs. as pdf to a client's account. The pdf appear only as a link to the outside folder from where I originally dragged it. Deleting the pdf from the outside folder looses the link and the data is lost from the contact record. My concerns: 1.Manually managing outside folders of documents appears inefficient? 2. How would a multiuser system enable my staff to add to the pdf docs and manage the data off-line then update online subsequently?
Thanks Brian

Hi Brian,

Please take a look at the following articles:

About File References

A file reference is a link to an external file or folder. You can add file references to contacts, organizations, projects, opportunities, and groups in Daylite. When you add a file reference, Daylite remembers the link and not the content of the file.

You can attach a file from your computer as a file reference or link a URL from the web as a web reference. Additional information about your file and web references can be stored as a note. Daylite maintains a record of the file and web references you have attached to an item in the Activity tab of the Detail pane.

If you want multiple users to access a file, you should store the file on a shared drive or folder.

Adding file references

A file reference is a file attachment that can be added to single or multiple Daylite objects of the same type (e.g., several contacts at once). You can add file references to contacts, organizations, projects, opportunities, and groups in Daylite. The purpose of linking file and web references is to store important files related to your Daylite objects right within that object for easy access. Both file references and URL's can be linked to your Daylite data.

To add a file reference
Select the Daylite object(s) to add a file reference.
Choose Actions > Add File Reference.
A new window opens.

To add a file reference, choose File Reference in the Kind pop-up menu.
Click Choose File.
The Finder opens.

Go to the file you wish to link. Click Open.
Enter any additional information as a note.
Click OK.
Daylite adds the file reference to the selected Daylite object.

To add a web reference
Select the Daylite object(s) to add a web reference.
Choose Actions > Add File Reference.
A new window opens.

To add a web reference, choose Web in the Kind pop-up menu.
Enter the name and location (i.e., web address). Note: Enter the web address completely, including the web protocol. For example, http://www.google.ca.
Enter any additional information as a note.
Click OK.
Daylite adds the web reference to the selected Daylite object.

A record of the file and web references is available in the Activity tab of the Detail pane of the selected Daylite object.

HTH

For the most use (because of simple convenience), Daylite should have a preference that allows the admin to set up a shared space for all users. And when a File Reference is created, it should automatically grab the stated file and place a copy onto the shared drive.

Whether or not it is a Move or Copy should be set in preferences. Since undocking laptops is always an issue, logic should be set up to determine whether or not the referenced document should be copied to the remote/undocked laptop when a sync is performed.

I am familiar with the mortgage industry because of my previous role in a document management company. A key concept that we built into our software is the notion of "Document Sets (DocSets). It was based on the notion of checking in/out documents. And since different types of mortgages had different and yet very specific documents that were required, we would define different DocSets for each kind.

A benefit is that you could tell at-a-glance whether or not your required documents were all there or what you still needed. I've been pondering looking into Forms to see is something similar could be built out of them. I think that the key is the aforementioned automatic central document storage and the ability to set the links inside a form.

quote:

Originally posted by Brian Belanger:
Hi
I am new to daylite and evaluating it to be a multiuser system. As a mortgage broker I attach several scanned docs. as pdf to a client's account. The pdf appear only as a link to the outside folder from where I originally dragged it. Deleting the pdf from the outside folder looses the link and the data is lost from the contact record. My concerns: 1.Manually managing outside folders of documents appears inefficient? 2. How would a multiuser system enable my staff to add to the pdf docs and manage the data off-line then update online subsequently?
Thanks Brian

It would be really cool if you could attach PDFs by dragging them into the contact or task - sort of like Yojimbo (which is an OK app but it has its pluses). To prevent the attachments disappearing, they would be stored somewhere the user doesnt normally inspect/delete files from. (i.e. a database or library folder)

Just a quick note that might be relevant here. You can actually store PDFs directly in a note and have them saved directly in DL's database. Of course, there are some downsides, e.g. database bloat, etc., but there are times when this can be preferable to a reference. For example, I normally create a client file on the server and then link that file to a project. However, some matters may only have one or two simple documents associated with a project, in which case I simply create a note and drop a PDF in the note.

Don't take this suggestion as my vote against more advanced document management features in DL, as in fact quite the contrary is true. I happen to think that this is one of the areas that could really take DL to the next level if it were implemented correctly. However, I just thought this less-than-obvious feature might be helpful in this context.