Thin Client - Strategies for sharing docs with outside customers/clients?

[Anonymous]

Starting the process of setting up Thin Client to allow access to other departments to get read-only access to our Vault Structure, however I'm trying to think about the best way to share with those outside the organization. Ideally we want them to be able to go in, see only released drawings/documents pertinent to their project, and download the files that we would normally send them via email.

I have some thoughts on how to accomplish via folder/file/object permissions, but I'm assuming there are a lot of companies already out there doing this, that would have some good advice/strategies for setting this up. Any feedback on this?

[upchurt]

Hello,

Thanks for reaching out via the forums for some ideas on using the Vault thin client to distribute files. By default only released versions are shared through the thin client. If you go to the thin client display settings as an administrator you should see these options for released files/items:

Besides this option the most common configuration we see is to have a vendor folder where the remote users only have permissions. You can also expliciting deny the vendor permissions permissions on any other lifecycle to prevent and unwanted access.

Let us know if you have any other questions or if you run into any blocks when trying to publish files through the thin client.

-Trent

[Anonymous]

Thanks. Going the Vendor folder route, the issue that I'm encountering is that if I want to add file links to where the actual files are, those don't show up in the thin client. The drawings are normally dispersed among many different folders, so I'm not sure that would be convenient for them to pick though all the folders to find them. But I also don't want to have to create copies of released files in another location in vault; I want them to be accessing live released data, not a copy of release data (which is what most places do via a network share of PDF and DWG files).

Does that make sense?

[upchurt]

Hello,

Thanks for the update and the follow up. It looks like you have run into a limitation of the thin client. Currently there is not a way to use file shortcuts within the Vault thin client.

I found that there is an Ideastation request for this ability here:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideas/show-copy-paste-shortcuts-on-web-client/idi-p/3679296

I went ahead and voted for this request and would encourage you to as well. These ideas go directly to our product managers.

For now I think the best option would be to setup the Vendors to access the files directly. Since they are logged on through the thin client then they would be accessing read-only by default.

-Trent

[upchurt]

Hello,

I wanted to follow up on this post and see how your thin client setup is going. Is there anything else we can help with?

-Trent