Store File Fields

Access to this product feature is dependent on your institution's Watermark agreement
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Store file fields can be associated with activity screens in Faculty Success to allow users to add supporting documentation to their activities in order to provide a more complete picture of their activities. Continue reading this article to learn more about this field type.  

Managing Store File Fields 

Store File fields can be added or removed from an activity screen to align with your campus' needs. To make these types of changes simply submit a Screen Revision Work Request noting the following:

• The title of the activity screen for which you want to modify the store file field for. 
• A description and reason for the requested change.

Once the work request is received, it will be reviewed and further updates will be provided through the work request. For more information on this type of request, see Submitting Screen-Revision Work Requests. 

Restrictions for Store File Fields 

The store file field has the following restrictions: 

1. File Type 
2. Maximum File Size 

File Type

Watermark places restrictions on file types uploaded to your Activity screens, preventing upload of the following file extensions:

• exe
• asp
• php
• jsp
• rar

If a file with one of these extensions is added to a file upload field, the upload will fail and the user will receive an error message that the file type is not supported. File type restrictions are in place to protect all users of the system.

Maximum File Size

The maximum file size is 100MB per file. This attribute may not be modified.

Adding Data to Store File Fields

Files can be added to Store File fields manually by users or to be selected on their behalf by users with the proper access to the Manage Data utility. Alternatively, if more than 20 files are being added then you should refer to Bulk File Imports for instructions on this can be done in bulk. 

Retrieving Stored Files

Once a file has been stored, authorized users can retrieve it in the following ways: 

• Retrieve a file from the data collection screen where the file was stored

  To do this, all a user needs to do is navigate to the record where the file was stored and click Download. A user will always be able to access their own files this way. In addition, a user in a security role with access to the Manage Data utility will be able to retrieve the files stored for the users within the scope of his security.

• Retrieve a file through a link in an ad hoc report that are not in CSV format

  Links to any files stored through a given Store File field will be included in an ad hoc report, as long as the field is included in those selected for the report in Step 3: Select the data to include through the "Create a new report" feature in Run Reports. If we have setup the Store File field as hidden, the field and links will only be included in an ad hoc report if the user has the Show Hidden Data option enabled for the security role that grants them access to the "Create a new report" feature in Run Reports.

  Note: It is possible to disable the inclusion of links to stored files in ad hoc reports. If you do this, the ad hoc report will still display the file name of the file stored, but will not include a retrieval link. To have this feature disabled submit a General work request noting this.

• Retrieve a file through a link in a custom report that are not in Excel format

  You can have custom report built to include links to files stored through specific Store File fields like "Full-text of this item". If we have built a custom report this way, a link to each file stored through that field by a user will be included whenever you run the report for that user's data. 

  How this would appear within the report is there would be a blue hyperlink for each stored document. The link would be clicked on and the file would be downloaded from clicking within the report, you don’t need to actually be in the screens themselves. Just a note that access to stored documents is also driven by security access, so if you emailed the report to someone and they clicked on the link to download the stored document, they would need to be logged in to Faculty Success and they would need to have security access to that user. This prevents the reports from being accessed by anyone.

  Some universities do want to use this functionality for other peer reviewers with faculty roles however. So in case that is of interest, we can create a custom security role that would allow faculty to access this report for other faculty- and only this report and attached documents, they would not be able to see anything else. To update a custom report to include a link to files stored through a Store File field, submit a Report Revision(s) work request noting where to display this link in your report.

Access to Stored Files

A user's Faculty Success security assignment governs the files to which he or she has access. In order to verify that a user retrieving a file has a security assignment that grants access to the file requested, he or she will need to have an active session for Faculty Success, in their default browser. If the user is not logged in, we will prompt them to authenticate.

Here are some details on the permissions that can grant a user access to a stored file.

Table 3: Access to Stored Files

If you are interested in making files stored through Faculty Success publicly accessible, consider putting the Mirrored Files feature in place. For more information, see Mirrored Files.