Folder Settings

This article describes some miscellaneous Folder Settings not covered in other topics.

Append timestamps to files

Use this setting to automatically append timestamps to the names of files uploaded into this folder. The simple interface allows you to specify how date and time information is appended to your file names. Chosen settings will also apply to all of this folder's sub-folders.

Automatically create new user folders here when users are created

This setting helps you automate user provisioning. Use the options in this setting to automatically create a subfolder here for each new user, along with the selected permissions. You can even limit this behavior by group membership so that users in different groups are automatically provisioned in different parent folders.

Site administrators often use this to give users a "Home" folder or create folders that apply to specific workflows. You can create as many of these as you need.

Limit uploaded files to certain file extensions

This setting restricts uploaded files to specified file extensions. Your chosen settings will also apply to all of this folder's sub-folders. This setting's default is as a file extension whitelist. If you leave this setting blank, then all file extensions are allowed as uploads to this folder. If you enter one or more extensions, only files with those extensions will be allowed.

You can also toggle this setting to behave as a blacklist rather than a whitelist. Set it to blacklist mode and enter the extensions that you would like to prevent from being uploaded.

Limit uploaded files to regular expression

This setting limits uploaded file names to a specified regular expression (e.g. ^[0-9].*$ will only allow filenames starting with a number). Your chosen settings will also apply to all of this folder's sub-folders.

When you have a workflow that requires both speed and accuracy of your staff users, and exists within the added complexity of a large folder tree, you can dramatically increase accuracy, making sure that the right files end up in the right folders, by setting regular expression rules to prevent files that do not fit the pattern from being uploaded.

Rename uploaded files

This setting renames the uploaded file names to a specified pattern (e.g. if the uploaded file has the name FILE-xyz-22313e.txt, you can enable this setting to rename this file automatically vendorname-2022.csv). This setting is useful when you want to completely rename all files upon upload, or remove or add timestamps in your file names, or convert upper case to lower case in your file names, or even to strip the part of the file name or to remove any unreserved characters from the file names upon upload.

Supported patterns to automatically rename the files upon upload:

• %Fp  - Original filename with extension, converted to lowercase and non ASCII characters normalized to ASCII to ensure widest compatibility
• %Ff - Original filename with extension
• %Fe - Original extension only
• %Fb - Original basename without extension
• And, regular time related patterns like YYYY, MM, DD, hh, mm and ss (check here for more supported time related patterns)

Your chosen settings will also apply to all of this folder's sub-folders. Automatic renaming of uploaded files saves time and improves accuracy when you have a workflow that requires file names to be in a specific pattern before processing takes place by any Files.com automations flow or even a third party integration or automation.