Close a file

Suppose you handle containers and use the container number as your reference, or you deal with trucks and their license plates. These references may come back at times; even if a container travels the world for months when it returns to your facility, you might want to treat the box as a new shipment.

This is when closing a file becomes relevant.

What file closing does

When you close a file, this is a complete record. You will continue to be able to use, find, and share this file. However, as new snaps/forms come into that same reference, these will be moved into an entirely new file. This way, you can use the same (container) reference for two or more separate shipments.

Enable file closing

To enable file closing, an Admin needs to set the permission to your users on the "Permissions" tab under the Company Settings. On this list, the Admin will find the "Files can be closed" permission. To allow file closing, click its checkbox and grant the permissions to your users (e.g. to all roles):

And Admin may also give permission to users to Re-open a file, if that is suitable to your company's operations.

That set, now there are two ways to close a file: manually and automatically. Let's see how!

Closing a file manually

Closing a file is simple. Once it's enabled on your company Permissions settings, you can click the "lock" icon next to the file reference:

Confirm to close this file: 

That's it!

You can also close a file from the menu of that file, by clicking the "..." button on your right:

Or, on your Files page, you can select one or more files and, when clicking on the "With selected" option, choose to Close the files in a single click.

Enable automatic file closing

a. Automatically closing after days of inactivity:

As a SuperAdmin, go to "Company settings", and on the "General" tab locate "Auto close file after x day(s) of inactivity":

With this setting, you can fill in the number of days after which we can close the file automatically. For example, if you enter 7, we will close it after 7 days of inactivity on the file. Using 0 will close the file each night, overnight.

Remove the value to disable file closing (it will show the infinitive sign when you do).

b. Automatically closing after the completion of a workflow

Let's say you have a workflow that records the final steps of your operation. Once these steps are completed, you can consider your process finished, as nothing else will happen to that particular shipment, for example. You can add an Action to your workflow that will automatically close the file upon the completion of these steps.

Re-opening a file

As simple as closing it, to re-open a file, simply click on the "lock" icon again. This also require the enablement of the permission to do so.