SeaFile (External Document Sharing)

Transcription

1 SeaFile (External Document Sharing)

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction Create user account Seafile Overwiew Personal - Libraries Personal - Starred Personal - Personal Wiki Personal - Messages Personal - Devices Personal - Contacts Share Admin Create / Manage a Project in SeaFile Step 1: Create a Group and Invite Members Step 2: Create new Library and share Library with Group Step 3: Upload files to Library Access to Libraries for Project Members... 12

3 1 Introduction A common requirements in projects is the need to create a collaboration space where project members can store and exchange common documents. For internal projects (i.e., projects where all project members are own employees), the Community feature provided by the company intranet is the preferred solution to this problem. However, if the project includes external project members (for example, from a different company or from a university), these people usually cannot access the company intranet. Previous approaches to address this requirement include FTP directories, but they fall short in functionality and usability. Other approaches include public Cloud services (Dropbox, ), but they do not adequately address the data privacy requirements. For these reasons, CorporateIT has decided to offer a new service SeaFile. This manual does not cover all advanced functionalities offered by SeaFile, but instead explains how to setup a project for typical requirements. To learn more about the advanced functionalities of SeaFile, please refer to

4 2 Create user account Each user needs a user account to access SeaFile. If a user is a member of more than one project, he still only needs one account. Users can self-register at ( Signup ). The address they enter will become their SeaFile username. Alternatively, a project manager can invite other project members to join SeaFile using the same form or from within a project in SeaFile (see later chapter). After creation of a user account, each user can login to Seafile via

5 3 Seafile Overwiew 3.1 Personal - Libraries After successful login, the user is presented with his personal SeaFile start page. With the creation of a new user, this user will automatically have a My Library which he can use to store personal documents. Note the three sub-navigation tabs Mine, Shared, and Group Mine: List of all libaries which are owned by the user (i.e., typically, libraries which the user has created himself) Shared: Libraries from other users which have been shared directly to this user Group: Libraries from other users which have been shared to a group where this user is a member of 3.2 Personal - Starred (to be documented) 3.3 Personal - Personal Wiki Each user can create a Personal Wiki to archive knowledge. To enable a Personal Wiki, the user clicks on the Settings icon next to Personal and activate Personal Wiki. Note: You can also create a project-related Wiki in a similar way by clicking the Settings icon next to a group name (see chapter below).

6 3.4 Personal - Messages (to be documented) 3.5 Personal - Devices (to be documented) 3.6 Personal - Contacts (to be documented) 3.7 Share Admin Under Share Admin, you can find a list of your libraries, folders, files, and links which you have shared with other users.

7 4 Create / Manage a Project in SeaFile In this chapter, we illustrate an example how the project manager matthias.bender@<somedomain>.<tld> sets up a collaboration space for a project SeaHU and gives access rights for this collaboration space to a number of other users (project members). 4.1 Step 1: Create a Group and Invite Members To simplify the administration of a project, it is recommended to create a group and assign all project members to this group. To do so, Matthias clicks Groups in the top navigation and then New Group to create a new group SeaHU.

8 If required, Matthias could also create separate groups (SeaHU_Members, SeaHU_SteeringCommittee) to share separate libraries with different groups of people. Next, Matthias clicks on Admin in the left-hand navigation bar to add further members to the project. He adds the addresses of all people who he wants to include into this group. Those people who do not have a SeaFile acocunt already will automatically receive an notification with instructions how to create a SeaFile account.

9 4.2 Step 2: Create new Library and share Library with Group If Matthias is not already within the context of the project SeaHU, he clicks Groups in the topbar navigation to enter the group. From the context of a group (note the SeaHU label shown on top of the left-hand navigation!), Matthias clicks on New Library to create a new library General Project Documentation.

10 Libraries which you create from within the context of a group are automatically shared with all group members. If you don t want to share your library with all members of the group, you can alternatively create a library from your personal start page and only share with a subset of people. However, this is not the recommended procedure! Instead, in this scenario, it is recommended to create a separate group for this subset of people (like Project_Managers ) and create a new library in the context of the new group Project_Managers. If desired, Matthias can also create directories within a library to further organize the documents. All directories within a library will automatically be accessible to all people that have access to the library itself. If you want to share certain documents only with a subset of project members, it is highly recommended to create a separate group and a separate library shared with this group (as described above). Use directories only to organize / structure content within a library.

11 4.3 Step 3: Upload files to Library Within a library, click Upload. There are two different options to add files to the dialog which appears Add Files button Drag&Drop files from your Windows Explorer

12 Don t forget to click Start All (or Start to upload individual files) to really upload the files! Connecting the library directly to Windows File Explorer by mapping it to a drive letter (using WebDAV technology) is currently under investigation, but not yet fully supported. 4.4 Access to Libraries for Project Members When a project member (i.e., a user invited by the project manager as described in section 4.1) logs in to SeaFile, the user will see the library shared with the group to which he belongs on his personal start page.

13 The project manager who created the library will not see the library within the Group section, but within the Mine section (even though being a member of the group).