Configure views in your library

A view is a page which displays a set of documents from your library. You can define properties and filters to sort the documents. These filters can be based on the nature of the library, workflow states or other settings that may be relevant for users.

Learn more about views: Use views in your AODocs libraries.

This article explains how to:

Automatically generated table of contents

 

Note: Read Create and manage views in your library for details on how to create, delete and manage existing views in your library.


Access the view configuration

1. Open the library administration interface and select Views. The list of views opens.

Learn more: Create and manage views in your library.

2. To access the view's configuration page, you can: 

  • click a view name
  • open the More actions menu and select Edit settings

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Define the general settings for views

Select the required options:

  • Open view: click to access the view.
  • Document class: click the button next to the class name to access the document class configuration page. 
  • View URL: a URL is created automatically when you create a view.
    • Click Copy to clipboard to copy the URL and share it with your users.
    • If required, manually modify the URL.
      Note: To get the embed URL, which is used to embed the view in a web page, read Get the Embed URL of views.
  • Visibility: define who can see the view in the library homepage.
    Activate the Use restriction switch and define the visibility of the view:
    • To a specific group: select which Google group has access to the view.
    • To a specific role: select which role has access to the view. The list of roles is configured in the Roles section in the library administration interface.
      Important: Don't select a role that's based on a person property, as these roles don't have a specified list of members. Learn more: Create and configure custom roles.
    • Nobody: select to hide the view from your user's library homepage and from the drop-down selector in views – users can access the view only via its URL.

Important: The Visibility option hides the view link for all users except those you specify. It doesn't affect the visibility of any documents on your domain.

Tip: Avoid putting a visibility restriction on the default view. If the default view is not visible to everybody, when a user without access to the default view runs a search, the search is applied in the first view in this user's list of views.

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Configure the layout of views

Select the required options:

  • Number of documents per page: use the drop-down list to select the number of documents to display per page.
    Notes:
    – By default, the number of documents per page is 20.
    – This setting applies only to standard views. The new version of views has an infinite scroll – learn more: Scroll documents in your view.
  • Information to display in the view: use this option to select which properties will be visible in the columns of the view.
    Note: By default the properties Title, Last update and Last update author are selected.
    Tips:
    – Select Has evaluation error to display a column with boolean switches indicating whether documents have calculation errors in conditional logic.
    – Select Invalid values to display a column with boolean switches indicating whether documents have data validation errors.
    – Select Incomplete to display a column with boolean switches indicating whether documents have mandatory properties that aren't filled in. 
    • Click the Add button to enter select mode. Select the properties you want to display as columns in the view and deselect those you want to hide.
      Tip: You can also use the Select all/Unselect all checkbox when in select mode.
      Note: In the list of properties, if a custom property has the same name as a system property, the system property is displayed with (System) next to it. 
    • Click the Close button in the blue banner to return to view mode.
    • To remove properties, click the cross next to their name.
    • To change the order of the properties, drag and drop them when in view mode.

Note: In standard views, this list defines the order of the columns displayed in the view, and users can't change the order. In the new version of views, this list defines the default order of the columns, but users can customize the display of columns

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  • Select criteria to sort by: use the drop-down lists to select a sort criterion and define whether it's displayed in ascending or descending order.

Note: By default, the documents in your view are sorted according to this criterion, whether or not a column showing the corresponding property is displayed in the view. 

  • Target page for documents: use these options to define the document behaviour when users open documents from the view. 
    • Documents open on their: 
      • AODocs document page: select this option so documents open on the Properties tab of the AODocs document page. Learn more: The AODocs document page.
      • Document's attachment in Drive: in Team Folders and Secured Folders, select this option so documents open on their attachment in the Google document editor. Learn more: What are attachments?
      • First attachment (if it exists) in Google Drive: in Document Management libraries, select this option so documents open on their first attachment in the Google document editor.
        Note: If a document has no attachments, the document opens on the Properties tab of the AODocs document page.
    • Documents open in: 
      • Current tab: select this option so when users open a document from the view, it opens in the same tab as the view. 
      • New tab for each document: select this option so when users open a document from the view, it opens in a new tab. If users click another document name from the view, each document opens in an additional tab.
      • Same tab for each document: select this option so when users open a document from the view, it opens in a new tab. If users click another document name from the view, each document opens in the same tab as the initial document.

Note: This setting applies only to standard views. In the new version of views, documents always open in a new tab.

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Configure how to search for information in views

Configure the browsing options in views

Search in attached files:
In Document Management libraries, select this option to make the checkbox displayed next to the search bar active by default. 

Browsing panel:
Use these options to select whether or not to display a browsing panel in the view and define the browsing options if a panel is displayed.

Note: The browsing panel options apply only to the standard version of views. The new version of views currently has no browsing panel.

  • No browse by: if you select this option, no browsing panel is displayed in the view.
  • Folder: select this option so users can browse through the folder structure in the browsing panel.

Important: In Document Management libraries:
– to configure Browse by Folder, you must first enable folders in your document class.
– if you enable folders in more than one document class and then configure Browse by Folder in views for these classes, the folder structure is shared by the classes. Learn more: Configure folders in your document class.

  • Include documents from subfolders: select this checkbox so when users navigate through folders in the view, they will see all the child documents in the selected folder without seeing the child folder structure. For example, if you select the root folder, the view will display all the documents in the library.

If you don't select this checkbox, when users navigate through folders in the view, they will see the child folder structure and the child documents of the selected folder. This behavior is close to the behavior of standard file explorers.

Note: You must first select the Folder browsing option for your view to be able to select this checkbox.

  • Category property: select this option so users can browse documents by category in the browsing panel. Use the drop-down menu to select the category. Learn more: Create categories.
  • Do not display outdated category values: select this checkbox so users can't find documents with outdated values.

Note: You must first select the Category property option for your view to be able to select this checkbox.

  • Document class: select this option so users can browse by document class in the browsing panel.

Note: You must first select the Display documents from other classes checkbox in the Pre-filter documents based on properties section to be able to select this option.

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Configure filters in views

You can configure filter criteria so users can refine a query and filter documents more precisely.

Under Select filters

  • Click the Add button to enter select mode. Select the properties you want to define as filters and deselect those you don't want.
    Tip: You can also use the Select all/Unselect all checkbox when in select mode.
    Notes:
    –You can't create a filter for integer or decimal properties; they don't appear in the list.
    – In the list of properties, if a custom property has the same name as a system property, the system property is displayed with the text (System) next to it. 
  • Click the Close button in the blue banner to return to view mode.
  • To remove properties, click the cross next to their name.
  • To change the order of the properties, drag and drop them when in view mode. 
  • Activate the Expand filter panel switch to show the filter panel by default in the view.

Note: This setting applies only to standard views. The new version of views displays filters below the search bar with a drop down menu to select criteria – learn more: Filter your views.

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Pre-filter your documents in views

You can define characteristics that documents must meet to be listed in your view. End users don't see that documents have been pre-filtered; they only see the documents that match the criteria. 

  • Display documents from other classes: select this option to display documents from other document classes in the view.
    Note: Only the system properties of documents from other classes will be displayed. Documents from other classes will not have the same properties as those configured for display or as filters in your view.
  • Show checked-out documents: use the drop-down menu to select which document versions are displayed in the view. 
    • Default mode: displays the draft version of checked-out documents if the user has access to the draft version and displays the main version of documents if the user doesn't. Documents that aren't check-out are also displayed.
    • Published: displays the main version of checked-out documents. Documents that aren't check-out are also displayed.
    • Draft only: displays the draft version of documents if the user has access to the draft version and displays no documents if the user doesn't. Document that aren't check-out are not displayed.
  • Display only documents matching: define the filter criteria documents must meet to be displayed in the view; you can filter by system properties, custom properties and classes. 
    • Select whether documents need to match all of these criteria or any of these criteria.
      Note: You can combine filters and choose to display only documents matching all of these criteria or any of these criteria.
    • Click Add criteria and define a new filter.
    • Click Save
    • To delete a filter, lick the Delete button. 

Tip: You can create a filter based on the current logged-in user to display only documents corresponding to this user. To do so, select the person based filter and select Equals to the User who opens the view.

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In the example above, only documents that were created after 1 January 2018 and that have a value set for the Retention ID property will be displayed to end users.

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Comments

27 comments
  • I setup my view to Display documents from other classes. Workflow's State from other classes is displayed as expected. I also setup Pre-filer for a specific Workflow's State. It is only filter documents for primary class, not for other classes. Is Workflow's State one of the system properties? Is pre-filter doesn't work for system properties of documents from other classes?

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  • Hello Trish,
    Indeed, the pre-filter for a specific workflow state will only work for the workflow of the class associated to the view. I believe what you try to achieve is to get a view to use it with AwesomeTable. There is a way to combine several spreasheets in one to run an AwesomeTable on it. I can guide you on how to configure it.

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  • Thibault, this is great that I can do this. Appreciated. Thank you so much.

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  • Is there a way to display workflow action/transition comments made by the validator in a view? For example, a workflow action notification is sent to an approver. He clicks the action button to take him to the submittal site. He enters a comment and clicks submit for the approval. Then that comment can be displayed somehow in the view similar to any document property.

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  • Hello Tim,
    Thanks for your feedback. I suggest you log a Feature Request on our community so other clients can review and vote for it: https://support.aodocs.com/hc/en-us/community/topics/200132124-AODocs-Feature-Requests
    Cheers

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  • Hi, is there a way to setup one view for the several document classes?

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  • Yes, you'll need to select the option "Display document from other classes" under the Display section of your View configuration.
    Keep in mind that the column and filters can only be the ones belonging to the class associated with your View.

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  • Hello,
    Is it possible to create a view with the same structure for everyone but that would display only the documents that are attributed to each person based on their property?
    Basically, I have a document class "bank accounts" that I should be only viewable/editable by the related responsible person. I do NOT want that person to be able to view the accounts which they are not in charge of.

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  • Great question Arnaud!
    There are actually two ways in AODocs to achieve that.
    1. The first one is by setting permissions on the documents (for example at the Class level) using a role that is person-field based. This way the permissions on the documents can be very completely different from one document to the other while only allowing the person in the document to see the file. Then, you simply need to have a view that the users referenced in these person fields can access and the view will only display the files each user has access to.

    2. With the incoming update of the Views configurations, you will be able to configure a view with filters on dynamic parameter such as "@me" meaning the user currently connected in the interface. You will be able to use this to pre-filter a view based on a person field and only display the documents that match the email address of the user currently connected.

    Keep in mind that the latter does not manage the permissions of the underlying documents. So you should perhaps use a combination of both.

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  • Good afternoon. I wanted to create a presentation and display all archive documents in it. For each document class, I have an archive property of a logical type. If it is true, then the document should be in this view. However, I only see documents of the associated class with this view?

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  • Currently, if you create a multi-class view, the pre-filters of the view will only apply to the documents of the class associated with the view. You can follow this workaround to create fully customised views that can even span over libraries: https://support.aodocs.com/hc/en-us/articles/360027613531-Refresh-the-data-in-your-exported-spreadsheet#h_0c553daa-e965-4bc1-af7c-ddcf790a5781

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  • The dynamic filter using "@me" is useful. Is there one for dates as well? So if i need a filter to show documents that have passed a date dynamically, there doesn't seem to be be a way to do it. Eg i want to compare a document set date against today's date, is there a filter to apply in the filter to do that?

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  • Indeed, the @me is very usefull. With the next version of AODocs, you will be able to use dynamic dates pre-filters when you configure a view. So for instance, you will be able to have a view displaying the list of contracts expiring in the next 30 days. Stay tuned for the release here: http://eepurl.com/cGPC7v

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  • How can I add more fields in "Select the information to display in your view"?

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  • These fields are picked up from the Document Class fields. If you want to add more you first need to configure them: https://support.aodocs.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000051523-Create-and-configure-custom-properties

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  • Is there a way to force the View to display the full name of a Category entry instead of the short name? I want to use a .shortName in a calculated field but I'd like to see the full text in the View. Is that possible today or should I raise a feature request?

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  • Category short names are actually designed to be used in views only. So that would go against it original purpose. Can you please post your use case in the community for us to better understand what you are trying to achieve with the calculated fileds and category short names?

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  • I have several categories, let's say "Product Line", "Material", "Country". I use the short names in a calculated field, together with the sequence ID and Title to create a document ID, e.g "PO-PB-UK-0001 User Manual". So I need to create a short name for a category item. But in my view, ideally I'd have the category full names visible because most people don't know the short name. So in Material, instead of having "PB", it would display "Lead", or instead of "M" it would read "Modified Bitumen" etc which is more meaningful to the average user.

    There's a workaround of creating another calculated field and using a calculation to give the readable name, and displaying that in the view instead of the actual category, but I wondered if there was a simple switch somewhere already that could toggle between the long name and short name in the category view to keep things simple.

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  • Hi Matt,
    In your use case, does that mean you would like your users to see "Modified Bitumen-Lead-United Kingdom-0001" in the Document ID field?
    If that is the case, I confirm you would need a second calculated property for that.
    An alternative would be to add the properties used in the formula (Material, etc) as displayed columns in their views. Also, in the new (Beta) version of the View page, users could also add those columns themselves.

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  • No the document should display the aggregated property like "PO-PB-UK-0001" using something like

    ProductLine.ShortCode + "-" + Material.ShortCode + "-" + Country.ShortCode + "-" + DocumentID

    But then in the Views I wanted users to see "Lead" in the Material column rather than seeing "PB". But it seems that by creating the ShortCode (to use in the aggregated formula above) this means that the full readable name cannot be displayed in the View.

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  • Hi Matt,
    You are right. Short names were initially designed to be displayed in Views to save on screen estate.
    It is not possible to display full names in Views currently. You would have to use another field as you mentioned.
    You can submit a feature request here if you think that capability is missing: https://support.aodocs.com/hc/en-us/community/topics/200132124-AODocs-Feature-Requests

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  • In the pre-filter options for a view is there a way to have and/or combined.
    e.g I want a view that shows (items in a state X) AND (user is in role A OR role B)

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  • Hi,

    I can't seem to filter using a numeric field. I doesn't appear in the list of properties available. I would like to filter by value higher than ### or lower than ###. Is it possible ?
    Thanks.

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  • Hi Margo,
    It is not currently possible to filter on numeric fields in Views. This capability will however be introduced in the new Views (accessible in Beta for now), in the near future (when they go out of Beta).

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  • Hi,
    In my class I have a person property to enter a Google Groups address and I would like to pre-filter my view based on this property. If I use the "User who opens the view" option there is only the "equal to" but not the "contains" operator.
    I would like to make sure that the person who opens the view is part of the group mentioned. Is this a feature planned soon?

    EDIT: After contacting the support team i turns out that AODocs doesn't check if the "user who opens the view" is a member of a Google Group.

    I have submitted a feature request.  Feel free to vote for if you are interested in this feature.

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  • "if you enable folders in more than one document class and then configure Browse by Folder in views for these classes, the folder structure is shared by the classes."
    We should be able to choose if we want the folder structure to be shared through classes or not.
    I find that shared folder structure makes aodocs really confusing to be used. It would be a lot more convenient and user friendly to be able to have a distinct folder structure by class.

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  • Hi Morgane,
    I confirm that there is no alternative to the shared folder structure at the moment.
    You can submit a feature request here if you think that capability is missing: https://support.aodocs.com/hc/en-us/community/topics/200132124-AODocs-Feature-Requests

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