How Files.com Works

Files.com is a managed cloud file orchestration platform for moving, sharing, processing, and governing business files. It gives people a place to collaborate, lets external partners exchange files with your organization, and runs transfers between business systems. Files can live on Files.com or remain in storage you connect to it.

Files.com operates the service and its transfer infrastructure. Your team decides which storage to connect, who can access it, what work should run automatically, and how files should be protected and retained. A Files.com site brings those choices together through a shared file system, user accounts, connections, workflows, and activity records.

Consider a supplier sending invoices to your company. Its staff might upload through a browser, while its billing system sends files over SFTP. Your finance team reviews the invoices, then places the ones ready for processing in a designated folder. Files.com can transfer those files to your accounting system. People and automated processes participate in the same flow, with different access and responsibilities at each stage.

Files And Connected Storage

Files.com presents storage as files and folders. People can browse them through the web interface or Files.com apps, and applications can work with them through protocols and APIs. A user's permissions and organizational scope determine which part of that file system they can reach.

Some folders hold files in Files.com's native cloud storage. Others connect to an external location through a Remote Server Mount. A mounted folder is a way to work with files where they already live: operations through that folder act on the remote system, subject to the connection's capabilities and settings. Mounting a location does not create an independent copy of its contents.

A transfer copies or moves files between locations. For example, invoices could arrive in native storage for review, then be copied into a mounted folder on the accounting server. Alternatively, the finance team could access invoices already stored on that server through a mount. The storage arrangement is a choice within the workflow; using Files.com does not require moving all your files into its storage.

Files, Storage & Mounts explains these storage choices. Files & Folders covers the individual operations and settings. The underlying storage matters when choosing those features: a remote system's supported operations and available file information can differ from native Files.com storage.

People, Systems, And Access

User accounts represent both people and systems. Authentication establishes which account is connecting, while folder permissions determine what that account can do with files. For internal users, Groups let you assign shared access once and manage it through membership.

An external organization can be represented by a Partner, containing its human users and automated accounts. Partner Users inherit the Partner's permissions and are confined to its root folder. The supplier's staff and billing application can therefore have distinct accounts within one relationship, with access governed at the Partner level.

Some exchanges need no ongoing user account. Share Links give visitors browser-based access to selected files, and Inboxes provide a place to submit files without browsing the destination folder. Their access controls govern the visitor's interaction. For people working together on business documents, Sharing & Collaboration also includes editing and co-authoring.

Administrative authority is another part of access: it determines who can change users, connections, workflows, or site settings. Automation ownership determines the permissions used when an Automation runs. The account that uploads a file does not determine the permissions of an Automation responding to that upload. People, Systems & Partners develops the account model, while Access & Ownership explains these different kinds of authority.

Sites, Workspaces, And Child Sites

A site holds your Files.com configuration and resources. Every site starts with a Default Workspace, where you can organize folders, grant access, connect systems, and run workflows.

Additional Workspaces group related files, users, Partners, connections, and Automations around a task, functional area, project, or team. A supplier-invoice Workspace could hold the intake folders, supplier relationships, accounting connection, and delivery workflows. The same IT team can administer that Workspace and others, or administration can be delegated within each one.

Workspaces share site-wide settings such as single sign-on, security policy, domains, and branding. Child Sites provide separate sites under a Parent Site, each with its own configuration and resources. A subsidiary needing its own domain and authentication configuration could use a Child Site, with Workspaces inside it to organize its work. Parent Site Administrators retain administrative access to the Child Sites.

Sites, Workspaces & Child Sites explains what each boundary contains and what remains shared.

Connections And File Flows

A connection gives a person or system a way to reach files. Clients & Protocols covers connections to Files.com through its web, desktop, mobile, and command-line apps, protocols such as SFTP, and its APIs. In the invoice example, the supplier's billing system connects to Files.com to upload files; your finance team accesses them through the web interface.

A Remote Server connection lets Files.com access another storage system. It holds the connection information for a cloud service, file server, or other supported destination. A mount can make that location available as a folder, and a Sync can use it as a transfer source or destination. The On-Premise Agent connects storage on a machine you operate to Files.com. It can make that storage available to people through a mount and to automated transfers through the same Remote Server connection.

The connection method and the task are separate choices. An SFTP connection can upload or download; a mount can support a person's file access and an automated delivery. Connecting the accounting server makes it reachable. A workflow determines which invoices are sent there and when. Connections & File Flows develops this model across clients, Remote Servers, and applications.

Automated Work And Processing

Sync replicates files from a source location to a destination. It compares the two locations and transfers files according to its selection rules. This produces a separate copy that is refreshed when the Sync runs.

Automations run actions in response to file activity, a schedule, or another supported trigger. An Automation could copy each invoice placed in a ready-for-processing folder to the accounting server's mounted folder. The finance team's decision to place a file there supplies the human review step; the configured action performs the transfer.

Processing can also change a file's contents or prepare it for delivery. TransformScript converts structured data into another shape or format, such as a supplier's CSV into the JSON an application accepts. GPG encryption protects file contents for an exchange. The Automation & Flow reference explains how the transfer and processing features fit together, including which capabilities belong to each Automation version.

AI supports interactive and unattended work as well. The AI Assistant lets a person investigate activity or perform work through a conversation. AI Tasks run saved instructions on a schedule or file trigger, for work such as reviewing permissions or producing reports. Those tools complement workflows whose actions and conditions are defined by fixed rules.

Activity, Delivery, And Recovery

Logs & Reports record file activity, connections, workflow outcomes, and configuration changes. For the invoice flow, those records help establish whether the supplier uploaded a file and whether its onward transfer succeeded. Confirming that the accounting application accepted and processed the invoice requires evidence from that application as well.

A missing file needs a different check from a failed transfer. Expectations evaluate whether a delivery meets requirements such as arrival within a time window, file count, size, or contents. They can detect an absent delivery even when no transfer was attempted. Notifications report file activity, while Event Channels route operational outcomes to the people or systems responsible for responding.

Security settings govern authentication and allowed access, while Encryption covers transport protection and file-level protection. Data Governance covers where data is stored, how long it remains available, and how it can be recovered. Recovering an invoice from before an unwanted overwrite requires a retained earlier copy; an independent backup gives you a separate recovery location and retention policy. The Shared Responsibility Model explains which protections Files.com operates and which your organization configures.

Activity, Delivery & Recovery explains how to use this evidence and plan for missing or damaged files.

Choose Where to Go Next

Interactive Use explains how people access, collaborate on, share, and collect files. Automated Workflows explains unattended work, from choosing a transfer mechanism to handling failures. Solution Design brings them together in complete arrangements for teams, partner exchange, and managed file transfer.

The product reference provides exact settings and procedures for individual features. What's New records changes to the platform.