Planning offers two primary document storage options, by organizational unit or by Planning item. This article will review document storage options for Plan items.

Two fields can be added to any template to provide document storage for Planning users. Depending on how an institution chooses to make use of its Planning site will inform how they implement these fields.

If you would like to see these or other fields added we encourage you to speak with your site administrator.

Unit Documents

In the screenshot below you will see that the Student Affairs organizational unit has a folder labeled "First Year Experience Documents" with two pdf files inside of this folder within the unit's respective Documents area, see this article to learn more about how the Documents area works.

Many institutions will use Documents as a central repository for various files used throughout their processes, such as an Excel or CSV file that contains data which supports a specific initiative. Having such a repository is a great way to keep a department(s) information organized and available to be linked with Plan item in a seamless way. If an update occurs to the file within the documents area it will update throughout the application. For example, if a newer version of a file is available and you would like users to use the latest version without going through their items and relink to the new file, simply choose the option to replace the current file and anywhere that file was referenced across the site will be updated accordingly.

Before Planning users are able to link a file from their respective unit's Document area the Site Administrator will need to enable the appropriate fields. If you are a site administrator for your institution and would like to learn how to do this, please review this article. If you are not a site administrator and believe such a feature would be valuable for your institution we encourage you to speak with your site administrator.

Linking Document Files

If your site administrator has enabled the fields needed to attach files from your unit's Documents area within a given template you should see a section that looks similar to what is shown in the screenshot below. The linked and plan item file sections only appear beneath the Large Rich Text Box and Sources fields. These field labels may be titled something different, as site administrators have the option to choose field language based upon the nomenclature of the institution.

Again, depending on the setting chosen by your site administrator you may see an option to link files from your Unit's Document area and/or the option to attach a file directly from your desktop.

 

Choose Files

Upon clicking the "Linked Document" option a popover menu will appear which lists all the folder and files within your specific unit's Document area. You may choose a single file to connect to your plan item or multiple by holding the control button.

 

If a selected file lives within a folder, the folder will be displayed with the individual file listed inside, as shown below.

 

Attaching a Local File

If your site administrator has enabled the ability to attach files directly to a plan item you will see a section within either the Large Rich Text Box and/or Sources field(s) labeled "Plan Item Files."

In the screenshot below you will see a secondary area below Linked Documents labeled "Plan Item Files." Plan item file storage provides users the ability to add folders and files that are only accessible to the given plan item.

This option differs from Linked Documents in that it is meant for a one time use. If a user attaches a file to the Plan Item Files area and would like to reference it in another item, that user would need to manually upload that file from their desktop to the secondary item. If that file changes and needs to be updated, the user would then need to go to both plan items, delete the current document and re-upload the revised version.

In circumstances such as this we advise users to make use of the Documents area and the ability to link documents to plan items, as updating or changing the document there will be much quicker and involve less manually work on the users part.