Adding documents

1. Frontend

There are three methods for creating documents and uploading files from the frontend of your site, depending on the use case and workflow that you require.

1.1 Adding documents one by one

Logged-in users with upload permissions can click the Add document button located at the top when browsing categories from the frontend. A click on this button will open a new document form.

This workflow is intended for users that know where to upload files, i.e. they are managers or owners of a certain category. 

For more info about the different permission settings that can influence the workflow check the permissions section of the documentation.

1.2 Adding multiple documents in batch

Logged-in users with upload permissions can click the Upload toolbar button for uploading multiple files at once. A click on this button will open the file upload window for batch creating documents.

The file upload window allows you to upload multiple files and batch create documents for them on the fly. You can specify the title for each document and the category the document should be created into. You can also set the owner for the documents and choose to clean up the titles.

The owner field present in the upload form will always be visible on the backend document forms by any user that is able to add documents. On the frontend, the user must be additionally listed as a DOCman manager in order to see the owner field while batch uploading documents.

For more info about the different permission settings that can influence the workflow check the permissions section of the documentation.

1.3 Submitting documents

You can setup an accept documents block which may get added to either a post or a page. 

This block allows any visitor or logged-in user to submit files to your site depending on the permission settings you have set.

This workflow is primarily intended for users who are submitting files for review and have no idea about your category structure and where the file should go, e.g. dropbox workflow. These documents are then reviewed and moved to the rightful location for publishing.

It is possible to automatically publish the submitted document or be notified through email when a document is submitted.

2. Administrator

There are three methods for uploading files and creating documents from the administrator interface of your site.

2.1 Adding documents one-by-one

This workflow is identical to steps 1.1 and 1.2 presented above. You should only ensure that you have a category already created for adding documents inside and that the user is granted upload permissions for him to be able to create documents.

2.2 Adding multiple documents in batch

Navigate to DOCman > Documents in Wordpress backend sidebar and then click on the Upload toolbar button to open the multiple file upload window.

3. The document form explained

When you add a new document you will be presented with the following screen.

3.1 Title

Add your document title in this field, you can click on the icon next to the title to select an icon from the default list or add a custom icon.

3.2 URL slug

The URL slug field allows for defining the URL that will point to the document download link.

3.3 Category

Select the category for your document. Only categories on which the current user can upload documents into will be visible in the category selector. This applies for both front and back user interfaces.

Learn more about  categorizing documents.

3.4 File

You can upload (or drag and drop) a new file to associate with your document or you can enter an URL instead, to link to a cloud based file, such as a file stored on Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc ... 

Learn more about  linking to cloud files.

3.5 Description

You can enter a description for your document in the WYSIWYG editor. The description will be shown on the listings page if you use a list layout. 

Learn more about block types and layouts.

The description is also indexed by the built-in Document search engine and can be used to find documents more easily. 

Learn more about  searching documents.

3.6 Publishing and ownership

You can set the following information for your document:

• Whether or not your document is published or unpublished (draft)
• The create date for your document
• The user that owns the the document.

The owner field will always be visible on the backend document forms by any user that is able to add or edit documents. On the frontend, the user must be additionally listed as a DOCman manager in order to see the owner field while adding or editing documents.

Learn more about owner and permissions and how ownership affects the actions that can be executed over owned documents.

Additionally a document can be scheduled for future publication:

• The date on which your document should start publishing on. If left blank the document will be published immediately (assuming the document is published).
• The date on which your document should stop publishing on. If left blank the document will not be unpublished and will always be published (assuming the document is published).

Learn more about scheduling documents.

3.8 Featured Image

You can upload an image to use as the document's featured (thumbnail) image.

The web option is only available to Business or Agency subscribers that have our Joomlatools Connect service enabled on their sites. You can use web search to select a stock image.

If you have access to Joomlatools connect you can also automatically generate a featured image for non-image file types (pdf, audio, tiff, ...), or from very large images.

3.9 Audit

The audit panel lets you see at a glance how many times your document has been downloaded and which user last modified it.