Sharing Content

You can share folders and files in your Cloud Drive folder with other people, both inside and outside your network, by sending them invitations to access the folders or files.

The invitation is sent by email and includes a URL, which when clicked allows the invitee to view or edit the folder or file from anywhere over the internet. Upon clicking the URL or path, invitation recipients are granted read-only or read-write access to the shared folders and files.

There are two ways to share files in your cloud drive with other people:

• To share files with team members, external users, or entire groups, use the Collaborators feature. See Collaborating on Files.
• To quickly share with broad audiences, or over public mediums such as LinkedIn or Twitter, use Public Links. You can define whether the link recipients are able to respond by uploading edited files back to the shared folder. See Making Content Public.

Collaborating on Files

You can invite co-workers, external users, or groups of users to collaborate on a folder or file with you. Collaborators will receive an email notification inviting them to collaborate on the project. They can then view or edit files in the project and add files and folders to the project, depending on their permissions.

To share a folder or file:

1. Make sure that the folder is synced wit the CTERA Portal:

   • In Windows File Explorer, right-click the folder on your computer to share or that contains files to share and select CTERA Agent > Sync this folder.

   Or, to share a parent folder in the cloud drive:

   1. Open CTERA Agent Settings window.
   2. Click Main > Cloud Drive in the navigation pane.
      The Cloud Drive page is displayed.
   3. Click the button for the parent folder of the folder you want to share and click Share With Others.
      

   The CTERA Portal is displayed in your browser with a sharing window for the folder or file.
   

2. Select whether to invite a single user or group .

3. Enter the user or group to invite: an email address, user name, or user group name. Users that you frequently share with will be auto-completed after you type only a few characters of the name or email.
   

4. You can manage the collaborator permissions.

   • Click and choose the relevant permission as No Access, Preview Only, Read Only or Read/write.

     Note

     This icon changes depending on default permissions level. For example, the preview icon is displayed for the Preview Only permission level.

     When you share a folder, all the files in the folder inherit the folder permission. If you share individual files in the folder, and change the permission to override the inherited permission, including to mark some files as No Access, the files are still accessible via the parent folder. The override permissions only apply when attempting to access the file as a separate share. Preview Only share recipients are able to view the file using the CTERA Portal’s integrated document preview server. Users with this permission are unable to download, copy, or print the file.

   • Configure an expiration date for the collaborator, by clicking .

   • Remove a collaborator, by clicking and then Remove.

   • For external users defined by email, define authentication settings such as email verification for increased security, by clicking . The user receives a verification code and must use this code within 30 minutes before it expires.

5. Configure project settings by clicking and select the options you want:

   • This is a team project – The folder is a team project. The folder is displayed in co-workers Shared with Me folder without your name. The storage used for this folder is taken from your storage allocation, unless the folder is requested from an administrator to use team storage, as described in Collaborating on Content Without Using Your Storage Quota (Team Projects).
   • Allow team members to reshare this folder/file – The folder or file can be reshared by other team members. If you do not want this folder or file reshared with additional people, clear this check box.
   • Allow team members to sync this folder – The folder can be synced to the computer of other team members. This option is only available for top-level folders.

6. Click SAVE.

After sharing a file, the collaborator icon changes: .
After sharing folder file, the folder icon changes: .
An email is sent to the collaborators inviting them to access the file. Emails are also sent to Active Directory group members that are included in a collaboration.

• If the email recipient has a CTERA Portal account, a team member, clicking the link in the invite goes to the item in the CTERA Portal. If the user is not logged in to the CTERA Portal, a login window is displayed. Otherwise, the file or folder is displayed.
• If the email recipient does not have an CTERA Portal account, an external user, clicking the link in the invite opens displaying the file or the folder in a browser.
  Selecting the shared folder or file and then clicking the share icon opens the Share window, where you can change the settings. An additional option is available to resend an invitation, by clicking and then Resend.

Making Content Public

You can create a public link to any synced folder and file and share the link with anyone. Clicking the link provides access to the folder or file in the CTERA Portal Cloud Drive. You can also send email The file cannot be a Caching Agent stub. If the file to share is a stub, open it first.
To create a public link:

1. Make sure that the folder is synced wit the CTERA Portal.
   • In Windows File Explorer, right-click the folder on your computer to share or that contains files to share and select CTERA Agent > Sync this folder.
2. In Windows File Explorer, right-click the folder or file on your computer and select CTERA Agent > Copy public link.
   The Copy Link window is displayed.
   
3. Configure the link.
   • In the Share as drop-down box, configure the file permissions as Preview Only, Read Only or Read/Write.
     Preview Only share recipients are able to view the file using the CTERA Portal’s integrated document preview server. Users with this permission are unable to download, copy, or print the file.
   • Configure an expiration date for the link, or accept the default expiration, which is after 3 months.
4. Click Copy Link.
   The link is copied to the clipboard and you can paste it in a message. The link has the format: https://portal_address/invitations?share=7b424ee4a3c49bfa00b3

Understanding Conflicts When Sharing Files

The CTERA Portal keeps track of who has made updates to the files and when, detects file conflicts when updates occur simultaneously, and resolves those conflicts. The changes made in the most recent update are always saved to the original file. Other changes are not lost, but are saved as versions of the original file, with a filename to reflect the date and time of the changes.

The name of the conflict file is the same name as the original file with the date the conflict file was created. For example:
File in CTERA Portal: ExampleFile.txt
Conflict file in CTERA Portal: ExampleFile - Conflict On 2017_04_09 17_09_58.txt

When Is a Conflict Generated

A conflict is generated in the following situations:

• when more than one CTERA Agent is connected to the CTERA Portal and syncing to a shared folder. Any file created locally by a user and saved in the shared folder is synced to the CTERA Portal and then from the CTERA Portal to the every user sharing the folder.
  • When users simultaneously edit the same file.
    For example, when the user who created the file continues to edit it while a second user opens the files and also edits it. After the second user saves the file locally, it is synced to the CTERA Portal and saved as a conflict file.
  • When a user is offline when editing the file.
    For example, when a user goes offline after syncing the file locally and then edits the file offline. If another user then edited the file while connected to the CTERA Portal, when the offline user goes back online and syncs the edited file to the cloud, this file has the last changes synced to the CTERA Portal file and is the file that is saved. The edited file made by the other user, while the file was edited offline, is saved as a conflict file.
    Note

    If no other users edited the file while the file was edited offline, the CTERA Portal detects that not only is the edited version newer than the one on the CTERA Portal, but also no changes were performed by other users; therefore, the edited file is saved in the CTERA Portal without a conflict file.

  • When a user deletes a file being edited by another user.
    For example, a user is editing a file and a second user deletes the local copy of the file, removing it from the local PC. When the edited file is saved, it is synced to the CTERA Portal and then back the local PC from which it was deleted. A conflict file is not created.
  • When a user renames a file being edited by another user.
    For example, a user is editing a file and a second user renames the local copy of the file. When the edited file is saved, it is synced to the CTERA Portal and then back the local PC from which it was renamed. The renamed file is also synced to the CTERA Portal and then from the CTERA Portal to the every user sharing the folder. Each user and the CTERA Portal now has two copies of the file: with the original name and the last updates and with the new name, without the last updates.
  • When a user deletes a subfolder containing a file being edited by another user.
    For example, a user is editing a file and a second user deletes the local copy of the folder which includes this file, removing it and the file from the local PC. The action is synced to the CTERA Portal deleting the folder and its files from the CTERA Portal and then from the CTERA Portal to the every user sharing the folder. When an attempt is made to save the edited file, there is no folder in which to save it and it must be saved to a new location. If the new location is a shared folder, it is then synced to the CTERA Portal as is any new file. A conflict file is not created.
  • When a user deletes a root shared folder.
    The root shared folder is synced back to the user’s local PC. A conflict file is not created.