Attachments received via Email

[Shamaila.Yousaf]

I was little hesitant in asking this....but here goes! 

Is there a possibility of having the option for the attachments received via email to be uploaded directly to Document Manager (without having to save & upload).

 

Thanks in advance.

[James Ainsworth]

Hi Shamaila,

Thanks for your post.  That is an interesting idea.  We do have some scheduled work that provides a plug-in to Document Manager on a request that will help manage a link between select documents on a particular request.  Maybe looking at some automation might be a next step.  One of the challenges with emails and their attachments is when there are logos and other images that have been used in someone's signature.  I'm not sure how we would be able to control these from being added to Document Manager.  Maybe this automation should only be available for doc, pdf, xls, type files and not include images.

Regards,

James

[Shamaila.Yousaf]

Thanks @James Ainsworth.  There are occasions where this would be a benefit for us. 

I'll refer back to this post sometime in the near future.

 

Regards

[Gerry]

@shamaila.yousaf

Can I just clarify, are you asking to do this automatically, or are you asking for an option to click on a file attachment and choose an "Add To Document Manager" option? I am thinking that latter but I just want to make sure we have clarity around what you are asking for?

Gerry

[Shamaila.Yousaf]

@Gerryit would be the latter. 

I have been advised by a colleague that there is a limit/capacity of how many files can be saved to it?

 

Regards

[Gerry]

Hi,

Thats what I thought.  @James Ainsworth thats the clarifiation I think you was looking for.  

In terms of the number of files that can be saved to document manager? No there is no practical limit, the only limit is disk space, your instance includes 30Gb, you can subscribe for more space and there is no practical limit to the amount of storage space we can provide you. 

Gerry

[James Ainsworth]

Sorry @shamaila.yousaf, another clarification if that is ok... Would you like this ability to add/save an attachment from the actual email (in the email view) into document manager (before it is added to a request)?  Or are you wanting to be able to take an attachment on a request which was received by email and add/save it into Document Manager?  Hope that makes sense.

Many thanks

James

[Steve Giller]

I haven't had this discussion yet (and I'm off from next week for quite a while so it won't happen soon) but based on what I've read around the forums from various customers I get the impression that there are a few common misconceptions about Document Manager.

Firstly that it is a good place to store "stuff" - my understanding is that it is best used to store documents that are regularly updated, probably on a schedule, that would benefit from versioning and require accountability for changes made.

Secondly that there is some way that the Hornbill Platform can recognise the difference between an email attachment and a signature logo or other image etc. - this would be wonderful but the reality is that they're all attachments, they're just presented in different ways to the viewer.

Finally that cloud storage is some kind of bottomless pit of storage, rather than it being (in simplistic terms) someone else's Hard Drive!

 

What people seem to want is Hornbill to automagically recognise "attachments" and upload them, compare them to existing uploads, and if they're newer versions to update the existing attachment. I think we're a good few years away from that, especially if they keep turning off the neural networks every time they show a bit too much intelligence  

[Gerry]

Steve,

Yes document manager is oddly as the name implied designed as a tool to help you "manage" "documents" and as you rightly point out file attachments are more often than not transitory by nature. Some documents you might want to move out of email and into something where it will be managed.  The suggestion above was for an option to "Save Attachment To Document Manager" which I think is a perfectly reasonable addition, I really like the idea of making the system smart enough to know that a file attachment us a newer version of something you previously stored in DM and for it to give you an option to update DM with a later revision, that would be pretty awesome  but as you say its not exactly simple. 

As for cloud storage, it absolutely is for all practical purposed limitless, the only limit is how much you want to spend on keeping the stuff you store.  That is of course also true for normal IT/on-premise storage although users never quite see it like that - Office/Exchange is the same, no one cares about how much storage they use so long as they can keep their documents and emails forever, do not have to spend any time managing or taking responsibility for them and so long as they don't get held accountable for and/or have to pay for the storage they consume.  

Some people have a bit of a love-hate relationship with document manager because it basically highlights these things.  Being extreme about it, a document takes time to create and therefore has an intrinsic value to your organisation, if it does not then why would your organisation pay money to allocate time to allow you to create it. If it has value, then it probably also has a lifetime value, so by definition that document must be owned (i.e. someone needs to take responsibility for it) so it can be reviewed, maintained and at some point when it no longer has value can retire the document.  If the document does not have any intrinsic value then why does it exist or why do we spent time moving it around or waste money consuming compute and storage resources keeping it.  All too often a document gets created, passed around in email for a while and put into the graveyard we all know as a network share, where everyone involved in the creation of the document washes their hands of the responsibility of managing it, while IT are left accountable for storing it forever in the slight off-chance that someone might need it three years from now.    We build document manager to help organisations manage at least some of their important documents., building a library of knowledge is important, those knowledge documents are arguably some of the most valuable an organisation can hold and also relaly need to properly maintained, I think thats what Document Manager enables you to do really well. 

I know thats quite an idealistic view and probably quite impractical for a lot of cases but even if 10% of the junk that is floating around IT systems were better managed companies would save a whole ton of money. 

[Shamaila.Yousaf]

No problem @James Ainsworth - having both the options would be great! I agree with my esteemed colleague  @DeadMeatGF (Steve) that we need to get together as a team and discuss and agree how we make use of the DM feature. 

Another interesting point that Steve mentioned was how to establish of the attachment is a log / picture or an actual attachment well the Service Desk Team use the 'Additional Information' section within the email (docked toolbar) to identify whether the attachment is a log or a file etc so maybe we can have the option to Select or Deselect so the attachments saved to the DM are those required and not the logos. The DM has the useful feature to renew the document at a particular time but I have to admit I have saved other things such as our processes as well as other documents which are for my use only.

I appreciate we have access to other cloud storage places but I would prefer that we make use of this feature to keep everything within Service Manager - again it's a discussion to have our end.

On another note, just thinking on top of my head here could we not implement an archive system of some sort to declutter DM.  I am sure there are many others like me who like to keep their cloud systems decluttered and not use it as a 'dumping ground'.  The documents that I would like to save would only be for a short time and each time we save it would be against a particular collection and a review date can bed sent to ensure we retire/delete accordingly.  

Am I also correct in thinking that any documents set as 'retired' also contribute to the capacity? - if you catch my drift?  

Thanks all for your contributions and all your input.