Creating Schemas for Offline Documents

In many instances organizations may choose to not scan or import all of their files into the document management system due to time constraints, file type, size, location or any number of reasons but would like to be able to manage those files via the system.

One of the most dynamic and powerful ways to have "offline" documents available to those working "online" is to create document schemas for the offline files. These schemas are associated with metadata fields that describe the file, the location of the file and any other relevant data about the files that is helpful for users to identify and locate documents that are kept in locations other than the document management system.

NOTE: Offline schemas are not meant to hold actual documents. The "files" associated with offline schemas are only pointers to the documents.

To create a schema for offline documents

1. Create a new schema and select the Offline Document schema type.

2. Create metadata fields for the offline documents. The following metadata fields are examples for offline documents:

• Offline location — The location of the offline document such as Library, Cabinet #4, or Storage Facility Name. It is advisable to have multiple drop-down menus or a dynamic drop-down menu to organize your various record storage rooms and the locations within each room.

• Type of Document — The document type such as book, video, map, blueprint, or DVD.

• Comments — Comments about the offline document.

3. Associate the metadata fields with the offline document schema.

Version 0 Switch for Offline Documents

When documents of any document type (electronic document, electronic record, or offline document) are added to the Library, the first initial version is set to version 1.

For documents that are Offline Document types, you can set the initial version to be 0 instead of 1. In order to set the initial version to 0, you need to set the value to 0 in the Library Manager > web configuration file on the server.

This could be useful for organizations which use the process of Document ID/Number Reservation. Adding an Offline Document with version 0 would create a placeholder for the future electronic document version (yet to be created); however, the document ID will be issued by the system and can be used as a reference when creating the electronic version. For example, the document ID could be stated on the title page of the Microsoft Word document. By checking out the offline document and then checking back in with “Convert to Electronic Document” option enabled, the first version (version 1) of the document will be added to FileHold repository using the same document ID (initially created for the off-line document stub).

To set the offline document version to start at 0 instead of 1

1. Log into the FileHold server using the administrator username and password.

2. Navigate to C:\Program Files\FileHold Systems\Application Server\LibraryManager for Windows 2008 server or C:\inetpub\wwwroot\FH\FileHold\LibraryManager for Windows 2003.

3. Open the web.config file using an editor such as Notepad.

4. In the <appSettings> section, enter the value of 0 for:

<add key="InitialOfflineVersion" value="0" />

5. To set the offline document version back to 1, change the value above to "1".

See also:

Creating Schemas

Document and Version Control Numbers

Adding Groups and Users to Schemas

Adding Metadata to Schemas

Schema Workflows

Custom File Naming

Auto-filing

Event Schedules