Collections

Laserfiche offers several ways to locate and organize your documents that are separate from the repository folder structure. You can star documents and folders for quick access later on, create personal collections that contain documents you have selected based on whatever criteria you find useful, or view a list of documents that you recently opened. Though they list documents and folders, collections are not part of the repository folder tree. Instead, they're virtual folders, collecting documents based on your criteria and not affecting the foder structure of the repository.

Starred Documents and Folders

You can star a document or folder that you want to quickly find again in the future. For instance, you might want to star a document that you frequently need to reference, or to star your own inbox folder for easy access. To star a document or folder, in the right pane of the Folder Browser, click the star icon next to the document or folder name. Alternately, right-click the document or folder and click Add Star/Remove Star.

Starred documents and folders will be displayed in the Starred list in the upper left corner, in the Collections section. A star will also display next to the document name in the Folder Browser list. Stars are specific to you; other users will not be able to see which documents you have starred.

To remove a star, click the star next to the document or folder name again to toggle it off, or right-click the document or folder and select Add Star/Remove Star.

You can use directed agents to add or remove stars on documents. To do so, specify the document or documents you want to apply or remove the star on, and then write a prompt indicating what documents to star or unstar.

Example: Henry wants to star all documents on which he is listed as an author. He selects the contents of his personal folder, opens Smart Chat in agent mode, and uses the prompt "Add a star to all documents on which I am listed as the author." The agent presents him with a list of documents to be starred. When Henry confirms the operation, the agent adds a star to those documents.

Recently Opened Documents

The Recently Opened Documents list in the upper left corner under Collections displays the documents that you opened most recently.

Personal Collections

Personal collections allow you to collect documents based on any criteria that you want. This can be useful when you want to organize documents in ways helpful to you, but you can't reorganize the relevant folders because you don't not have the necessary rights, or because the folder structure cannot be changed because security, records management, or processes rely on it.

Personal collections are specific to a user, and will not be visible to other users in the repository. This allows you to freely create whatever collections you want, without worrying about cluttering the repository for other users. In addition, since collections are not a part of the folder tree, adding entries to them has no effect on the document's folder location. Any user can create collections; adding a document to a collection requires the Browse entry access right for that document.

To create a collection in the Repository Web Client, open the folder browser and select Collections in the upper left. Select the Add Collection button () and provide a name for your collection. It will be displayed under the Collections list in the folder browser. To remove a collection, select it and select the Remove Collection button (). Note that this will remove the collection from your list, but will not affect any of the documents within it.

To add entries to a collection, first select the entries you want to add. Select the More Actions button, point to Add to Collection, and select a collection. You can also select New Collection to create a collection and add the selected entries to it. To remove an entry from a collection, navigate to the collection you want to remove it from, select the entry, and select the Remove from Collection button (). This will remove the document from the collection, but the document will still remain in the repository in its folder location.

Example: Mia frequently references documents found in several different folders in various parts of the repository. She wants to create a collection that brings them all together for easy access. First, Mia creates the collection "Reference" in the folder browser. She then identifies the documents she frequently refers to, selects them by browsing and searching, and adds them to the collection. She can now easily locate the documents in the "Reference" collection when she needs them, without moving them in the folder tree or creating shortcuts.

Using Directed Agents with Collections

You can also use directed agents to add or remove entries from collections. This allows you to dynamically select documents to add to the collection. To do so, you can first select a set of entries and open Smart Chat in ask mode. You can then ask Smart Chat to list entries in the selection that meet your criteria. Once it returns results, you can switch to agent mode and ask to move the specified documents into a collection.

Example: Sam has a personal collection called "Widget Co." Since his team's "Projects" folder contains documents pertaining to all his team's projects, he wants to add documents specifically about Widget Co. to his collection for easy reference. He navigates to the "Projects" folder and opens Smart Chat in ask mode, then uses the prompt "Find all documents in this folder that pertain to the Widget Co. project." Smart Chat returns a list of documents that it has identified as being related to that project. Sam then switches to agent mode and uses the prompt "Add the documents listed to the collection 'Widget Co.'" Smart Chat returns a list of documents that pertain to that project for his review. Sam then confirms that he wants to add those documents to the collection, and the agent does so.