How to selectively share documents or soft link nodes?

[eleutian]

Hi All,

We have an outside vendor that I want to give read (consumer) access to for a portion of folders and files within a particular site. I realize that I can invite this user to the site as a consumer, but I can't find a way to only allow them to see just the folders and files that I want them to see. I initially tried setting permissions on only those specific folders and files through the repository browser permissions interface, but unless the user also has access to the parent nodes they can't ever get to the children. Is there a way to do this?

My next thought was to simply create a new site that only contained the folder and file nodes that the user should have access to. However, I don't want to duplicate all of this data in the new site. This would eat up storage space and potentially cause versioning issues. Instead, I basically want to create a "soft link" (like in *nix) in the new site to reference the original nodes. It seems that at one time Alfresco did have a "copy" and "paste as link" function, but I can't find that any more. Is there a way to do this? Does anyone know of an add on or other tool to accomplish my goal?

We're using Alfresco Community 4.0e on a Win 2008 server. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

–Eleutian

[niketapatel]

Hi

I believe, alfresco still has "paste as a link" action in explorer. I am not sure for this community version.

Other, You may use "Links" page of your site.

Add direct link of contents/folders for which you want to give read permission to your vendor.

When user travers link of sub-folders, user would be able to see contents of that folders.
But I think if user clicks on parent folder on which user doesnt have permission, that would give error.

Hope this help!

[eleutian]

Thanks much, Niketa. I was looking for the paste as link function under Share, but with your tip was able to find it in Explorer under the "shelf" side navigation area. Unfortunately, there still seems to be a problem! When I copy a folder from the original site and paste it as a link in the new site it doesn't show up for consumers of the new site unless they ALSO have full access to the original site. To be specific, here's what I did:
1. Created site A and uploaded documents.
2. Created site B.
3. Went to site A in Explorer and selected copy on a particular folder.
4. Went to site B in Explorer and chose to paste as link.

Now, the scenario is as follows:
1. Using Share, If I access site B with a user account (staff) that also has permissions to site A then I can see the linked folder in B and follow it back to the source material in site A.
2. Using Share, If I access site B with a user account (partner) that does not have permissions to site A then the space or folder containing the link displays the message "No items" on a red bar, which usually means that there's a problem with one or more items in the space.
3. I even tried setting permissions directly on the source folder in site A (via Repository browser) for the partner user account, but the link item is still not displayed to the partner in site B.
4. If I give the partner user permissions to site A (at the site level) then the link to the source folder in site A does display for the partner user in site B.

This is quite frustrating! I just want to selectively share content with someone without having to actually duplicate the content. It seems that a permissions-based system such as Alfresco would be able to do exactly that, but we're just running into walls at this point. Any additional help or suggestions would be much appreciated!

[niketapatel]

Sorry for late response.

Your link is not working , it looks like may be due to breadcrumb.
Folder Link that is getting generated is like - http://localhost:9090/share/page/folder-details?nodeRef=workspace://SpacesStore/110ce655-d468-4855-8...

When user/partner is trying to access this detail link of folder or document, detail page has breadcrumb and partner doesnt have access on parent folder so its giving error.

You might have to customize breadcrumb display or you can check newer version 4.2*.

Example Folder - Sites/StaffSite/Document Library/TestA/TestB

If user/partner doesnt have permission on StaffSite but have permission only on TestB then in newer version it allows partner/user to access atleast TestB folder.

Hope it helps!

[soniav]

Hello,

I have exactly the same problem. I want to open a specific folder to a partner (without any permissions to others folders), and I don't find a way to do it.

Did you find an aswer with the version 4 ?

Thank you.