DocumentTracker

What is a DocumentTracker?

A DokuMate DocumentTracker is an Excel table that lists all documents contained in a selected local or SharePoint folder and its sub-folders. Once created, using the DocumentTracker split button (see below), the DocumentTracker firstly allows you to:

• view and edit the title page metadata (e.g., title, date, revision number, status);
• rename documents by changing the file name either manually or by using the Standardize File Names feature, which derives the file name from the document metadata;
• move documents by changing the folder names; and
• update all documents with one click on the Apply Changes button.

Next, you can manage the DocumentTracker itself, which means you can:

• refresh the DocumentTracker to reflect changes made to tracked documents by clicking the Refresh button;
• connect the DocumentTracker to a different local folder (e.g., if you received a local Document Tracker from a user having the same local folder under a different local path) by clicking the Connect button;
• delete a DocumentTracker by clicking the Delete button;
• undo edits made to the DocumentTracker by clicking the Undo Changes button;

Next, you can perform various operations on the tracked documents, such as:

• run various automated operations from the Cleanup menu on all tracked documents;
• open tracked documents in their respective applications (e.g., Microsoft Word) without leaving the DocumentTracker, by just clicking the Open split button (see below);
• perform search-and-replace operations in all tracked documents, using the Define, Search, and Replace menus and selecting various options (e.g., Track Revisions) in the Search and Replace group; and
• for contract documents, find or format references, defined terms, and capitalized terms, using the References, Defined Terms, and Capitalized Terms menus.

A DocumentTracker can be created for:

• folders on your local machine (incl. Dropbox folders synchronized with your local machine, for example),
• SharePoint Online folders, and
• cached SharePoint Online folders.

For cached SharePoint Online folders, the Cloud Files feature accessible through the corresponding menu provides functionality for synchronization, version control (check-out and check-in), and cache management.

How do you create a DocumentTracker?

To create a Local DocumentTracker, i.e., one that tracks a local folder, simply click on the table icon of the DocumentTracker split button shown below.

To create a SharePoint Online DocumentTracker, i.e., one that tracks a SharePoint Online folder, click on the label "DocumentTracker" (not on the table icon), which will bring up a menu from which you can then select "Insert DocumentTracker for SharePoint Online Folder".

If you look at the menu above, you can also create the Local DocumentTracker by clicking on the corresponding menu item. Clicking on the table icon does the same thing and requires fewer clicks.

Lastly, you can create a DocumentTracker for a cached SharePoint Online folder, if you have previously created a DocumentTracker for a SharePoint Online folder and chosen to cache the file contained in that folder locally. How you do that is described further below.

How do you create a Local DocumentTracker?

After having clicked on the table icon or the "Insert Local DocumentTracker" menu item, you will see the following dialog, which asks for key configuration parameters.

• DocumentTracker Template. This template defines which document properties should be displayed in which column order in the DocumentTracker. Selecting the right template is important if you added specific, data-bound content controls to your documents that should be displayed and editable. You can either select a specific Word template (e.g., the one used to create your Word documents) or the active Excel workbook. To make changes to the document properties that are displayed and editable in the DocumentTracker, click the Edit Document Properties button.
• Tracked Root Folder. The DocumentTracker lists all documents contained in the Local Folder Path and its sub-folders.
• DocumentTracker Options. You can activate the following options (although you typically want to leave them unchecked):
  • Run Unit Tests on documents included in the DocumentTracker. This performs certain predefined quality checks on the documents.
  • Enforce unique document identifiers. This makes sure you use unique DocId values in your documents. As DocIds serve as a unique key for the documents, this prevents you from accidentally having duplicate values.

Once you have specified everything as desired, click OK to have DokuMate create the DocumentTracker. DokuMate will open all Microsoft Office documents and read metadata from those documents. For other types of documents, DokuMate will pick the metadata from the file name, which will only produce the desired results, however, if you follow the file naming convention as used by DokuMate when standardizing file names.

How do you create a SharePoint Online DocumentTracker?

After having clicked on the "Insert DocumentTracker for SharePoint Online Folder" menu item, you will see the following dialog, which generally asks for the same configuration parameters as the corresponding dialog for a Local DocumentTracker. The Tracked Root Folder is specified differently than the local folder and you have additional options in the DocumentTracker Mode group box.

To select a SharePoint Online folder as the Tracked Root Folder, you have to specify certain SharePoint-specific pieces of information, most of which you can find in typical SharePoint URLs as displayed in your browser (e.g., "https://dokumate.sharepoint.com/sites/TestTeamSite" for the site itself):

1. SharePoint Domain. This is the qualified domain name (e.g., "dokumate.sharepoint.com"), which, for SharePoint Online, consists of the Office365 tenant name (e.g., "dokumate") and the "sharepoint.com" domain. If your desired SharePoint Domain is not already in the list, you must enter the name and hit the TAB key. If you entered a new SharePoint Domain, DokuMate will present an Office365 login dialog.
2. SharePoint Site. This is the URL path segment (e.g., "sites/TestTeamSite") of the SharePoint site, which can contain multiple document libraries. If you have appropriate access rights, DokuMate will list the available sites once you have entered or selected the SharePoint Domain in the previous step. If you don't see any SharePoint Sites in the list after a short while, you don't have the permission to list the sites and, therefore, must enter the SharePoint Site yourself. In that case, you should pick up the information from the URL.
3. SharePoint Library. Once you have entered or selected the SharePoint Site, DokuMate will automatically populate or update the list of SharePoint Libraries of the selected SharePoint Site. You should not have to enter the SharePoint Library yourself. Just pick the desired SharePoint Library from the drop-down list.
4. SharePoint Folder. Once you have selected the SharePoint Library, DokuMate will provide an up-to-date list of the folder paths from which you should select the desired SharePoint folder to be tracked.

In the DocumentTracker Mode group box, you can specify the following options:

• Cache. This will make DokuMate store the cloud-hosted files on your local machine for offline access. The cleanup and search-and-replace operations, for example, will then be performed on the local copies, which is more efficient in case you want to perform multiple operations on those files. You have the option to push your changes back to SharePoint or create a DocumentTracker for a cached SharePoint Online folder at a later point in time.
• Check out. This checks out the files contained in the Tracked Root Folder before they are downloaded and stored on your local machine. This way, you prevent other users from making changes to those files while you are changing them on your local machine. You can check in those files after you have pushed your changes back to SharePoint.

As for the Local DocumentTracker, once you have specified everything as desired, click OK to have DokuMate create the DocumentTracker. DokuMate will retrieve all documents from SharePoint, open all Microsoft Office documents, and read metadata from those documents. For other types of documents, DokuMate will pick the metadata from the file name, which will only produce the desired results, however, if you follow the file naming convention as used by DokuMate when standardizing file names.

How do you create a DocumentTracker for a cached SharePoint Online folder?

After having clicked on the "Insert DocumentTracker for Cached SharePoint Online Folder" menu item, you will see the following dialog, which generally asks for the same configuration parameters as the corresponding dialog for a Local DocumentTracker. The Tracked Root Folder is selected from the drop-down list of SharePoint Folder URLs.

The drop-down list contains the URLs of those SharePoint Online folders for which you have cached file metadata and contents. You create cached file metadata and contents by checking the "Cache" option when creating the DocumentTracker for the SharePoint Online folder.

How do you change the DocumentTracker columns?

To change the document properties, or columns, displayed in the DocumentTracker, click the Edit Document Properties button shown above. This will bring up the following dialog, which lets you add, delete, reorder, edit, and select document properties to which content controls in Microsoft Word can be data-bound.

• The Content Control Tag column displays the tag names (e.g., docId) used to identify the content controls in Microsoft Word. They are used as the local name portion of the qualified names (e.g., dp:docId) of the XML elements used for storing the data values (e.g., "[ID]").
• Using the checkboxes in the Tracked column, you can select or deselect the document properties to be included in the DocumentTracker. In the example above, all document properties except for thirdParty are selected.
• Using the checkboxes in the Grouped column, you can define whether the corresponding Excel column will be grouped under the last preceding column that is not grouped. For example, the docRevisionNumber, docAuthor, and docStatus columns will be grouped under the docDate column. This way, you can expand and collapse columns to quickly show more or less information.
• The Value column displays the values of those document properties as they exist in the template or document you selected. For templates, those are the default values used in documents created from those templates.
• The various buttons should be self-explanatory.