Locking Folder Structure

With many available interfaces and drag-and-drop convenience, a user may inadvertently move a folder, drop it into another folder, or otherwise alter your file structure away from what your workflow or team requires. Logging and interface flexibility make those mishaps easy to correct, but when a team relies on the integrity of your folder structure, you can take it a step further.

Use the Lock Subfolders folder setting to lock the folder structure from the present folder down through all subfolders, depending on the option you choose. The options let you lock some portions of your folder tree while leaving other portions unlocked. File operations continue as normal, but creating, moving, renaming, or deleting any folders or subfolders is prevented. Folders remain where they are, named as they are, including all subfolders.

Options for Lock Subfolders Setting

The Lock Subfolders folder setting has three options, depending on what your organization needs.

Lock structure of folders in this folder and also in their children is the most restrictive choice. It prevents any folders from being created, deleted, or renamed in this folder or any of its subfolders. Choose this option when you have a folder tree that you want to duplicate in multiple places on your site.

Lock structure of folders in this folder but not in their children prevents structural changes to the immediate children subfolders only. If you have an integration that requires the existence of a specific folder to hold processed files but allows for archive folders to be created each month within that processed folder, this option supports that arrangement.

Lock this folder's existence only, but not any folders inside it prevents changes to one specific folder without restricting any of its subfolders. This option prevents even administrator users from accidentally making changes that could derail an automated process.

To remove the restrictions entirely and reset a folder to the default, choose Allow users to create, rename, and delete any folders in this folder.

The folder structure lock applies to all users by default, including site administrators. Users who have admin access to the folder can change the behavior in the folder's settings, and site administrators can completely bypass the locks.

Overriding Locks on Subfolders for Site Administrators

If you want your site administrators to make structural changes on locked folders, enable the Allow site administrators to bypass the locks on subfolders setting from Data Governance -> Restrictions in the web UI. Once enabled, site administrators can create, move, rename, or delete folders and subfolders within any locked folder on your site.

Conflicts with Create User Folders Here Behavior

When you configure a folder as the location for new user folders to be automatically created, the Lock Subfolders setting does not prevent the new folders from being created.