Updates to the User Experience associated with My Files, Collections, and Shared Spaces are coming later this year to create a more consistent and collaborative experience. As a preparation to that, in the coming weeks, we will unlink the connection between My Files assets and the Shared Spaces or Collections they are added to. While this is a small update, it is laying a foundation for many more exciting features in the future.
How it works today
Today, when users add My Files assets to Collections and Shared Spaces, those assets are “soft copies” that point back to the same source file within My Files. Their linked nature means that when the asset is deleted in My Files, the deletion will be reflected in the Shared Space or Collection it was added to.
Hard copies to remove the linked nature
With this upcoming change, when users add content to a Collection or Shared Space, a hard copy of that asset will live there, instead of a soft copy linking to My Files. This means, when a user deletes an asset from their My Files, it will not delete the asset in other locations the asset has been added to, like a Shared Space or Collection. The workflow and interface will not change, only the underlying behavior. This ensures there are no scenarios where files disappear unexpectedly from Collections and Shared Spaces.
The reason behind this change is that the linked nature of these assets makes it more difficult to foster internal collaboration and build presentations. For example, imagine a sales rep, Tom, adds a My Files asset to a Collection and shares that Collection (not possible today, but a planned feature update) with his colleague Jim. Jim may update that asset, and it will then have ramifications in all the other Collections and Shared Spaces Tom uses that asset in. It could set off an unexpected chain reaction that could disrupt Tom, his presentations, and customer shares.
Preparing your users
Once this change is live, there is no specific action required as an admin, however, we recommend encouraging users to update their Showpad app to the latest version for iOS, Android, or Windows Legacy. When a user visits Collections on an old version of iOS (version 7.7 or older), Android (version 4.7 or older), and Windows Legacy, they will not be able to view My Files assets that were added to those Collections. To make the assets available to view they will need to use the Update Content option on their app each time new My Files are added to a Collection, or simply update their app.
More to come
Stay tuned as we continue to build on this with more exciting updates!
