The Inbox

The FileHold Desktop Application’s (FDA) Inbox is designed to streamline the importing of many documents into the library by removing the bottlenecks associated when adding and classifying files en masse. The Inbox is a queue or list of files that have not yet been copied to the FileHold Server.

The Inbox is specific to each user's FileHold Desktop Application (FDA) on their workstation and user account profile unless you share your Inbox.

The Inbox is the first category visible in the library structure. The Inbox acts as a staging area for documents that are queued for processing on the client machine prior to being sent to the Library. All documents in this list remain on the client machine at the same location when they were added to the inbox until they are sent to the library. Files located in the Inbox will only be ready to be sent to the Library once they have both required metadata (tags) values entered and a destination folder associated with each file.

The Inbox is specific to each user's Desktop Client on their workstation and on their Windows\Domain user account profile therefore other users cannot see what is in your Inbox unless you are sharing a workstation.

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Users can quickly add all the files from a network folder, local computer, Watched Folders, Manage Imports, scanned documents, or external hardware such as a USB stick. The inbox is the only place in the system where required fields are only a suggestion as you can save your metadata entries even when required fields are not complete. You will need to complete the required fields before sending the document to the library.

Inbox view

The inbox has several special columns that are not available in most other views.

The Status column lets users know if more information is required before the file can be sent to the document management system or if there is an error.

• Set Metadata is a link to open the metadata panel for the specific file.
• A status of Info Required indicates that the required metadata or a destination has not been set.
• Once all the required information is set, the status changes to Ready to Send and the file can then be uploaded by clicking the Send or Send All (used when multiple files are ready to be sent to the Library). The documents are then sent to their destination folders and are removed from the Inbox.
• Scheduled to Send indicates that the document is waiting for other documents to be transferred first.
• When the status is Sending, the file is being transferred to the server.
• File Not Found indicates that the local file was deleted from the workstation after it was added to the inbox, but before it was sent.
• Failed could indicate a number of issues. If you hover the mouse over the text, more information may be available. The error can also be found in the trace log. There are some common issues.
  • The document repository's configured space is full. Check with your system administrator.
  • A secondary validation failed. For example, if you have an extender or plug-in installed to check if a document with the same name has already been added.

Coming From shows the location on your local machine where the file will be sent from. This file must remain in this location until it has been sent to the library. If you are adding an offline document, coming from will be Offline Document.

Going To is either the location in the library where the document will be sent or Set Destination which is a link to open the dialog to select a location in the library. The destination could be set by a watched folder, manage import, auto-filing, or directly by the user. When auto-filing is used to set the destination it may appear in normal text when the location exists and is available to the user. If the location is green, it does not exist and will be created automatically by auto-filing. When it is red, it does not exist and it does not exist or the user does not have permission and it cannot be created. Instead of a red location, an error message may be displayed. If the user hovers over the message a longer message may be available. For example, "This folder does not yet exist in the library and will not be created because destination creation has been disabled in the auto-filing configuration.".

Finally, Progress shows the transfer status of the file when it is being sent to the server. Generally, you will only see the progress bar when you have a very large file or you are sending a large number of files. This is the same progress bar that can be seen in All Files in Transfer. When the transfer is complete, you will see the completion time in place of the progress bar. 

The Inbox can be sorted by document name, type, coming from, or going to by clicking on the column header name. The columns can be sorted in ascending or descending order by clicking on the arrow button next to the header name.

You must be using the FDA to use the inbox. This feature is not available on the web or mobile web clients.

Inbox operations

The following table describes the functions of the Inbox:

Function	Description
Image	Allows selection of files from outside the document management system to add to the inbox.
Image	Creates an offline document in the inbox ready to prepare to add to the library.
Remove from Inbox	Removes the selected document(s) from the Inbox.
Edit Metadata	Allows you to enter the metadata for the selected documents. Select one or more documents to be filed under the same schema and click Edit Metadata. You will be able to set one or more metadata fields to the same value and automatically lookup values for multiple documents at one time where configured. You can get to the same place by clicking the icon to open the metadata panel and pressing the Edit button.
Edit Destination	Allows you to select the destination folder for documents. Select multiple documents to be filed under the same folder and click Edit Destination. You can set the destination to the same folder. If your library panel is open to the destination folder, you can simply drag and drop the selected files to the folder as an alternate method to set the destination.
Send	Sends a single document to the Library. The metadata and the destination must be set in order to send a document to the repository.
Send All	Sends all documents that have set metadata and destination to the library. There are options to change the behavior of the inbox in the user preferences dialog including automatically sending documents to the library and automatically opening the selected document in the viewer and related options for handling working and deleted documents.
Auto-File	Automatically determines the correct folder location for the documents according to the auto-filing rules set on the schema. An administrator needs to enable this button and the assigned document schemas must be configured with auto-filing templates or scripts.

Shared Inbox

Documents in the Inbox can be shared between users on the same computer. Sharing your Inbox allows others to file the contents of your Inbox on your behalf. For example, if there is a dedicated scanning station with several people scanning documents to be added into FileHold, all users who can log into the Windows environment of that scanning station will be able to file all the scanned documents in the Inbox. This is because the Inbox is shared between all the users who can log in with a Windows user account.

You can set whether you want to share your Inbox in the Connection Options window. Note that if you change this setting, it won’t take effect until you log off and then log back in.