Summary
"Files" are documents such as PDFs (e.g. contracts) and images - to be distinguished from records and Document Pages. They are typically called "files" in the context of Portals, and "attachments" when in the main Planhat app (your Planhat tenant)
You can start with an attachment/file associated with a Company in your Planhat tenant, and share it from e.g. a Company Full-Page Profile into that Company's associated Portal ...
... or you can upload a file directly to a Company's Portal, and it will be added to the Company record within Planhat too (as an attachment)
You control the files access of External Users (End Users) via the "File Download / Upload Access" workflow permission in External Roles, and the "Update" data model permission for the Company model in External Roles
Who is this article for?
Planhat users managing Portal permissions (External Roles) for their organization
Planhat users using Portals - e.g. who might want to share files to individual Portals associated with Companies they manage
Series
This article is part of a series on Portals:
Files (attachments) in Portals ⬅️ You are here
Article contents
What are files?
"Files" in Planhat are also called "attachments". Here we are referring to documents (not to be confused with Document Pages) such as PDFs, which you upload to Planhat to be associated with a particular Company (customer or prospect). A typical example of this is a contract.
📌 Definitions and resources
Files (PDFs and images etc.) are separate from "records", which are the items of data within Planhat data models, such as Assets, End Users and so on.
You can read about how to share records to Portals in our separate article here.
Outside of Portals (i.e. in the main Planhat app), you can see these attachments/files in Data Explorer and on individual Company Profiles - examples of each shown below.
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📌 Important to note
The "Attachments" part of a Profile can be included in both Full-Page Profiles and the more condensed Preview format - but it's not always included in every one. In fact, you (as a Planhat admin) can design and customize the layout of Full-Page Profiles and Previews within the "Data Model" Global Tool, specifically the "Profile" tab (with the relevant model selected - in this case, Company). If you can't see the "Attachments" panel when looking at a Company Profile, check the relevant Profile Template.
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Within each individual Portal (i.e. each Portal created for a specific Company - an organization that's a customer or prospect), you will find files/attachments within a specific area of the Portal called "Files", accessed in the top left of the Portal, as shown in the example screenshot below.
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The files shown in a specific Portal will be files (attachments) associated with that Portal's specific Company.
How to view files in Portals
To view a file in a Portal, navigate to the "Files" tab as pictured in the screenshot above, and then simply click on a file name to open it up in a preview modal.
From this, you can click "Open in a new tab" if you'd like to open it in a new tab of your browser.
Similarly, you can click the ellipsis symbol (3 dots) for each file to have options to "Open in browser" (in a new tab), or "Copy link" (which also opens the file in a new tab if you open the link / paste it in your browser).
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How to add files to Portals
🚀 Tip
The maximum file size is 50.0 MB.
Files can be added to Portals in two main ways:
You can upload files when you're within a Portal (belonging to a particular Company), adding them here directly
Note that this also adds the file as an "attachment" on the associated Company record in your Planhat tenant (i.e. the main Planhat app) - so you will see it on Profiles (Full Page and Previews) if attachments are part of their layouts as specified in Profile Templates
You can share files that are part of Company Full-Page Profiles or Previews (where "Attachments" is part of the layout - as we discussed above) - i.e. make them available in the relevant Portal
Note that Company attachments/files in Planhat aren't automatically shared to the Portal of that Company without you actively clicking to share them to the Portal - for data security reasons, you choose which of these Company files you would like to make available in the Portal
Let's take a look at each of these options in further detail.
Uploading a file from within a Portal
To add a file (attachment) directly from within a Portal, begin by clicking on "Files" to go to the files screen (if you're not already there).
Near the top, you'll see a box containing an "Upload File" button, and the text "or drop files to upload".
Here you can either:
Click "Upload File" (or anywhere in the box - shown by the green rectangle above), and it will open up a file picker where you can choose a file from your computer to be uploaded. Select the file you want, and click "Open" to upload it to the Portal
Or, if you want to "drag and drop" files here to upload them to the Portal, click on the file and hold, and put your mouse in the box (the green rectangle above), and the text there will change to "Release to upload files" - do this and the file will be uploaded
📌 Important to note
Uploading a file to a Company's Portal will add that file to that Company record in your Planhat tenant. This means you will see the file as an attachment on the Company Full-Page Profile (if the Profile Template layout includes "Attachments"), etc., as previously discussed.
Uploading a file from a Profile
The second method of uploading a file/attachment to a Company's Portal is by selecting an attachment that's already in your Planhat tenant and choosing to share it to the Portal.
Let's take a look at a typical example, with a Company Full-Page Profile. Here's one with "Attachments" in the sidebar. You can see from the purple "Portal" logo in the top right of the Profile that this Company has an existing Portal.
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To share a particular attachment to this Company's Portal, click on the ellipsis symbol (3 dots) next to the name of the attachment in question, and click "Share on Portal".
If you now look in that Company's Portal, you will see that the attachment has been added to the "Files" section. (If you already have the Portal open in another browser tab, you may need to refresh it to update it and show the file.)
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You can also remove a file/attachment from a Portal via a Profile. Simply click on the ellipsis again, and select "Remove from Portal".
Although we have gone through an example above with a Full-Page Profile, the same applies with Previews (concise Profiles), if you have "Attachments" within the layout (Preview Template) applied to that Company.
🚀 Tip
When looking at attachments on Profiles, you will still have the option to "Share on Portal", even if that Company doesn't have a Portal yet. If you click to share to the Portal, you will find that the attachment will be present as a file in the Portal if you create one later on.
How to manage files in Portals
There are a number of actions you can carry out on files in Portals, in addition to simply opening them to look at.
Labels
You can optionally apply a label to your Portal files, to categorize them. You create your own custom labels, and you can apply multiple labels to each file if you like.
To apply a label, or create a new one, click on the relevant cell in the "Labels" column (either showing a "-" or one or more labels), to open up the menu shown below, where you can use the checkboxes to select one or more labels, or click "+ Add label" to create a new one. You can assign a color to each label to make the different categories even clearer.
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Downloading files
There are two ways you can download files from Portals.
Firstly, if you put your mouse on the row of your choice of file, you will see a download button appear - this is a quick shortcut to download the file.
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Alternatively, if you click on the ellipsis symbol (3 dots) on the left for your chosen file, you will see a range of options, including "Download".
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Renaming and deleting files
Additional actions you can carry out from the ellipsis menu include "Rename" and "Delete".
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It's really important to note that renaming or deleting a file here actually renames or deletes the file for that Company in your Planhat tenant (in Profiles etc.) - it does not just rename it in or remove it from the Portal.
If you simply want to remove a file from a Portal but keep it in Planhat on the Company record, you should use the "Remove from Portal" option within the Planhat app itself. You can select this when viewing attachments (files) on a Profile, as we went through earlier in this article (or you can even do it from Data Explorer with "Attachments" selected as the model, as shown below).
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Access to Portal files for External Users
While so far in this article we have been writing from the approach of you as a Planhat "User" ("Internal User" in the context of Portals) managing Portals for your Companies (customers or prospects), of course Portals are designed to be collaborative spaces for you and your Companies, so files are in Portals as a way of sharing this content with them (and for them to potentially share data with you too).
📌 Definitions and resources
People from outside your organization who you add to Portals (corresponding to the End User model within your Planhat tenant) are called "External Users". Their access in Portals is governed by "External Roles". You can read more about these concepts in a separate article here.
You configure the permissions of External Roles, and decide which External Role is applied to each External User, to control access to files in Portals - so it's not as simple as every External User in a Portal has full files access.
There are two permissions to be aware of here.
Workflow permission - "File Download / Upload Access"
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The "File Download / Upload Access" workflow permission controls whether the "Files" tab of a Portal will be visible/available to the External User at all.
For example, if this is with the permission enabled ...
... then this is the same Portal viewed by the same External User with that permission turned off:
With this permission enabled for a Role, the relevant External Users will be able to see and download files in their Portal.
Data model permission - "Update" for Company model
While the "File Download / Upload Access" workflow permission enables External Users with that External Role to see the "Files" part of their Portal, it does not in itself give full access.
If you want External Users to be able to upload their own files to their Portal - not just view the files that you and your colleagues have uploaded - then you should also enable the "Update" permission for the Company data model in their External Role.
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To illustrate this, here's an example Portal viewed as an External User with an External Role with the workflow permission enabled and the Company Update data model permission also enabled:
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And if that Company Update data model permission for the External Role is not selected (i.e. is unchecked), this is what the External User would see instead:
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The reason you need the Company Update data model permission to upload a file in a Portal is that adding a file here also adds it as an attachment to the Company record within your Planhat tenant, as we discussed earlier in this article - in order words, it updates the Company.
Other limitations
While Internal Users (i.e. you and your colleagues using Portals) can edit and remove any file in a Portal, External Users (your customers/prospects using Portals) can only edit and remove files they have uploaded themselves.
For example, this screenshot shows options available for an External User for a file they have uploaded themselves ...
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... whereas the following screenshot, viewed as the same External User in the same Portal, shows that the External User doesn't have the option to rename or delete a file that they haven't uploaded themselves.
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Impersonating External Users
If you would like to double check what a specific External User sees in a Portal, it's easy to "impersonate" that End User. You can use this technique for investigating their experience with other Portal components too, such as Portal content (Sections and Pages).
To impersonate an External User, start by opening up the relevant individual Portal (associated with a specific Company), and clicking on "Portal Settings" in the bottom left. (Note that only you, as an Internal User, will be able to see this - External Users in the same Portal will not have this option.)
Within the "General" tab, you'll see the "Impersonation" feature at the bottom.
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In the dropdown menu, you can choose one of your External Users of that Portal to view the Portal as. (Tip: if you can't see any External Users here to select, go to the "External Users" tab of these Portal Settings and make sure you that the relevant End Users have been added to the Portal as External Users.)
Once you've selected your choice of External User, the "View Portal" button will be activated. Click this, and it will open up the Portal as if viewed by that External User, with a banner at the top informing you of this. You can click around within the Portal to explore the Portal, and click "Exit view" to come out of this perspective.
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