Uploading a file to a community

Add a file to a community to share it with community members.

The type of files that we can share depends on the type of community to share the files with. A public community can contain only public files, and a restricted community can contain either public or private files.

A special case for adding files to a community has to do with adding files to Community folders. The following rules apply:

• Only files owned by the community can be added to Community folders.
• Files shared with the community cannot be added to Community folders and will show an error.

• We cannot add a file from the desktop directly to a Community folder.

• A community-owned file can only exist in one Community folder. If add a community-owned file to folderA, then later add the same file to folderB, the file will only show in folderB and is removed from folderA.

Follow these steps to add a file to a community.

1. Right-click a file name from Windows Explorer and select IBM Connections > Add to Communities. Alternatively, we can drag a file from Windows Explorer or from the desktop and drop it into the File folder for the target community, or paste a file to the same destination.

   Dragging a file or pasting a file into a community directly uploads the file into the community instead of sharing it with the community.

2. If we connect to more than one site, select the site to which to upload the file.

3. Type the name of the community, and then select it. Or click the arrow icon next to the Community field and select a community that we are a member of.

4. Choose one of the following:

   • Upload to community to upload to a selected community. Choose this option if you intend to share a file only with members of the community.

   • Upload to My Files and share with community. Choose this option to share with colleagues who are not members of the community as well as sharing with community members.

5. (IBM SmartCloud only) If we choose Upload to My Files and share with community, we are offered an option to share the file with people outside of the organization.

6. (IBM SmartCloud only) Choose to encrypt the contents of the file.

7. Click OK to upload the file. When you open the activity in Connections, the file is in the community.

   A file shared with or uploaded to a community inherits the visibility of that community. For example, if the community is public all files within the community are also automatically public.

Results

To add a file to a community that already displays in the Connections navigation pane, expand the community list so we can see the Files folder for the target community and drag in a file to upload it to the community.

Parent topic:
Uploading files