Working with the briefcase

Briefcase actions are only available in the user levels Advanced and Expert. If necessary, choose one of these user levels via  Options    Level  to be able to use the briefcase.

In order to have a folder synchronized with your local computer, a link to this folder must be put into the briefcase:

•      Select action menu  to Case  in the action menu of a folder or workspace in order to have this folder or workspace synchronized with your local computer. The folder itself remains unchanged at its original location. You cannot put single documents into the briefcase, but only whole folders.

To remove a folder from the briefcase and consequently exclude it from synchronization,

•      open the briefcase, e.g. by selecting  GoTo    Case  in the top menu and

•      select action menu  Delete  in the action menu of the folder concerned.

The BSCW briefcase has a local counterpart, the local briefcase folder on your local com­puter. After successful synchronization, the local briefcase contains the same documents and folders as the briefcase on the BSCW server. The location of this local briefcase folder and some other options concerning synchronization are specified as follows:

•      Select  Options    Synchronization  in the top menu bar.

•      Enter the (changed) location of the local briefcase folder as a path in the local file sys­tem into the respective field.

•      Check the option ‘transfer document versions into case’ to also have the versions of ver­sioned BSCW documents transferred to your local briefcase folder. The versions of a document docname will be placed into a subfolder docname.versions of the local briefcase folder. Note that by default only up to three of the latest versions of a docu­ment are transferred. If you are not happy with this restriction, contact your system administrator. If this option is not activated, only the current version of a versioned BSCW document is transferred to the local briefcase folder during synchronization.

•      Check the option ‘expand document names by default extension’ to have document names expanded by standard file extensions when transferred to the local briefcase folder. A BSCW document docname of MIME type ‘Adobe PDF’, e.g., will be trans­ferred to the local briefcase as docname.pdf.

You need not create the folder for the local briefcase, it will be created automatically during the first synchronization.

Note: When you use the action  Options    Synchronization  to change the location of the local briefcase, the old briefcase folder will not be taken into account when the next syn­chro­ni­zation takes place, and documents changed in the old briefcase will not be trans­ferred to the BSCW server. To prevent any loss of data you should change the path to the local briefcase fol­der only after a successful synchronization. You may want to delete the old briefcase folder from your local computer. During the next synchroniza­tion, the new local briefcase folder will be created.

In order to synchronize the contents of the briefcase with your local computer, you proceed as follows:

•      Open the briefcase, e.g. by selecting  GoTo    Case  in the top menu.

•      Select action menu  Synchronize  in the context menu of your briefcase. Alternatively, you may click the synchronizeicon in the shortcut bar.

•      A new window opens, indicating the progress of the synchronization process. First, the necessary changes are calculated and shown in an overview ‘Select folders for synchronization’.

•      Select the folders you want to synchronize with the BSCW server and hit [Start] to start the synchronization process.

•      Depending on the amount of data stored in the briefcase and the number of changes in documents, the synchronization may take some minutes. Please wait until the progress bar has reached 100%.

•      When the synchronization has been completed, a list of the folders and documents which have been transferred is shown. The following icons are used:

info    Information about an action carried out during synchronization.

warning   Warning about an action carried out during synchronization.

error   An error occurred during synchronization.

briefcase download  A document has been transferred from the BSCW server to the local brief­case fol­der.

briefcase upload  A document has been transferred from the local briefcase to the BSCW server.

briefcase conflict  A synchronization conflict has been detected (a document may have been ver­sion­ed in BSCW).

•      You may then close the window by using the button provided.

During synchronization, documents may be transferred from the BSCW server to the local briefcase folder and vice versa from the local computer to the BSCW server. The following has to be taken into account:

•      Only folders and documents are synchronized, other BSCW objects such as notes, cal­endars or URLs are not.

•      Documents and folders in the BSCW briefcase, which are not present in the local brief­case yet, will be transferred to the local briefcase.

•      Documents and folders created in the local briefcase are uploaded to the according work­space in the BSCW briefcase during the next synchronization (subject to access control).

•      You must not create documents or folders at top level in the local briefcase, but only within the already existing folders. New top level folders must first be created in your BSCW briefcase using action menu  to Case . Otherwise you will get an error during synchroni­zation.

•      Documents and folders, which have been deleted within the BSCW system are deleted from the local briefcase during synchronization (given they have not been edited lo­cally). This also holds when documents or folders have been renamed within BSCW.

•      Documents from the BSCW briefcase which are already available in the local brief­case, but have not been changed there, are transferred to the local briefcase if they have been changed on the BSCW server since the last synchronization.

•      Documents from the local briefcase, which have been edited locally, are transferred to the corresponding folder in the BSCW briefcase. An already existing document on the BSCW server is processed as follows:

o  The document will be replaced if it is not under version control and has not been changed in BSCW.

o  A new version will be created if the document is already under version control.

o  If the document has been changed also in BSCW (conflict), a new document ver­sion will be created. If necessary, the document is put under version control first; the local document with its changes is uploaded to BSCW as the new ver­sion with an ac­cord­ing version comment. Such conflicts are also indicated in the result list.

To resolve a conflict, you must decide which document change has priority. If the change in BSCW has priority, you should delete the last document version in BSCW (this is the one from the local briefcase) and also delete the document from the local briefcase to prevent an­other conflict. If the change on your local computer has priority, no action is necessary in BSCW (the document changed locally corresponds to the current version on BSCW). To avoid conflicts you should lock documents in your BSCW briefcase if you plan to edit them locally.