S6 103: Working with Libraries and Smart Blocks

Hi, this is Chris from Knowledge Architecture. I'm going to introduce you to the basics of working with libraries and smart blocks. Libraries are great tools for building central repositories of large collections of files such as standards, presentations, training videos and stock images. Let's take a closer look at that standards library. You can see that I have a search bar, filters, Saved views. This library is grouped by a custom field called CSI Division. I can sort the library and I have a grid layout as well as a list layout and several tools to help me manage my library. I'll come back to all of this in detail, but first let's talk about creating and building out a library. I'm actually going to build the standards library we're looking at now from scratch so you can see how it's done. I'll start by navigating to the Projects and Practice community and then opening the Content Outliner. I'll open the Standards and Codes section and click Add and then select Add Library. I'll skip the About Texts since we'll be covering all of that and more in this video. And when I do, you'll see that I have three types of libraries to choose. Document libraries, Video libraries, and image Libraries. Image libraries are optimized to contain images, Video libraries are optimized to contain videos, and document Libraries are more generic and can hold any type of supported file. I'll choose Document Library and click Next. I'll name this library Standards Library and click Finish. You'll notice that my library is in draft mode to start. This allows me to build my library in private, knowing that library items will not be visible to end users until I publish the library. I'LL click on the Library Options Ellipsis to begin adding documents to my library. You can see that I can upload from my computer or drag and drop. I'll choose Upload from Computer and upload our fire suppression standards. My documents are now uploading to synthesis as well as generating thumbnails and document previews. If I click on the ellipsis for any of the documents, you'll see I have the option to edit the title of the document, preview it, or delete it. I'll keep the titles as they are and click Finish. And now you'll see that my 15 documents are in the library. You might remember that the fully built out version of the Standards library I showed earlier had two CSI Division and Standard type and that I had grouped on CSI Division. I can replicate that functionality by adding custom fields into my library. To do that, I'll click On the library options Ellipsis and select Add Custom Fields. I'll call my first custom field CSI Division, which is a standard way to categorize standards. You'll see that I'm also asked to select a synthesis field type. If I click on that dropdown, you'll see I have a wide range of field types to choose from, including checkboxes, dates, two types of dropdowns, Select Multiple Values and select one Value Employees, Long text, numbers, projects, and Short text. For this field, I'm going to select the default, which is Dropdown. Select one Value and click Next. I'll add my first CSI division, which is 21 fire suppression, and then hit Return to add my next one and the next one, and then the rest. Before I click Finish to add my custom field, I'll point out that there are additional configuration options available under More Options. These configuration options vary based on the custom field type, but often include items like formatting, alignment, and field status. I'll click Finish to add my custom field. You can see that I have successfully added CSI Division. Now I want to add the second custom field, which is Standard Type. I'll click Add Field, name it Standard Type, and once again select Drop Down. Select one value as the field type, and click Next. I'll add my three standard types, Schedule, Specification and Detail, And click Finish. Great. I have now added two custom fields to my library. Now let's put them into action. In order to use the custom fields with filters and grouping, I need to populate them for each document. I can do this one by one, or I can do it in mass. I'll start by doing it for one document and then show multiple. I'll click the Document Options Ellipsis on my first document and select Edit Custom Fields. The CSI division is 21 fire suppression and the standard type is Schedule. I'll click Apply. If I want to populate multiple documents simultaneously, I'll select them all one at a time. Or simply click Select All. You can see that a new button appears in my library for bulk actions. The default bulk action is Download, but if I click the caret next to it, I can also edit custom fields for all 15 documents, move them to a different library, or delete them. I'll select Edit Custom Fields. I'll start by populating the CSI Division column and then move on to the standard type. I can edit these fields one at a time, or I can use Command C and Command V to copy and paste the values between fields. Or I can grab a value using the square in the bottom Right of the field and drag to Popul. Now I'll populate Standard Type. And click Apply. Now that I've created my custom fields, I'd like to show you what happens if I upload additional documents to this library. I'll upload our plumbing standards. Now. Once they are finished, I'll click Next and you'll see that I am prompted to populate the CSI Division and Standard type custom fields for these new documents. As it so happens, they are all plumbing specifications, so this will be easy. Using the Drag tool, I'll click Finish. Okay, so far I've created a new library, uploaded 25 documents, and categorized them using the two custom fields I created. Now let's talk about filtering, sorting, and grouping my library. In order to do that, I'm going to upload and tag the rest of my standards and meet you in the future with a completed library. Okay, we're back. You can see that I have 81 documents. Now let's start by looking at filtering documents using the Filter bar. You can see that I can filter on file extension or size by default, but what I really want my end users to be able to do is filter on CSI Division and Standard type. How can they do that? Well, right now you'll see that I can find those two custom fields under More, along with Last Updated Title and Updated by which are built in fields. I can configure what filters show up in the Filter bar by clicking on the Library options Ellipsis, clicking Edit Filter bar. You can see that I can switch filters, Drag to reorder, add additional filters, or remove filters. Now that I have my filter bar configured the way I want, I'll click Apply and you'll see that csi, Division and Standard Type are my new default filters for this library. Now I'll use those filters to narrow down my document library to find just what I'm looking for. As I add filters, you'll see that active filter buttons have been added to let me know what I'm filtering on, and then remove those filters if needed. I'm going to switch to the list layout so we can talk about columns. You'll see that the default columns in the list layout are Title, Updated by and Last updated. I've already customized my filter bar to show CSI Division and Standard type, but they aren't showing in the list and that's fine. I can have filters for columns I can't see, but I can also change what I see. I'll click on the Library options Ellipsis and select Edit Columns. What I'm seeing in this list are all of the built in and custom fields for this library. I'll enable CSI Division and then I'll enable Standard type. I can move them further up via drag and drop and you can see on the screen behind me that they are refreshing. I'll click Apply and you'll see that CSI Division and Standard Type have been updated. I'll resize the title column so I can see all of my fields. If I decide that I want to switch the order of columns, I can always do that and edit columns, or I can do it directly in the list. I'll swap CSI Division and Standard Type. And now that I'm looking at it, I'll swap them back and then open up Edit Columns to remove the Updated by column. And then resize my columns the way I want them. Perfect. This library is sorted by title, but if I want to change that, I can do so by clicking on column headers. Or by using the Sorting tool. In the Library toolbar. You'll see that I can sort by any column in the library, even if it isn't visible on the page. I'll choose Title and click Apply. If I want to group this library on a field, say CSI Division, I'll click on the Library Options Ellipsis and choose Group by. I'll select CSI Division and you'll see that reflected in the preview. If I click on more options, you'll see I have additional configuration options around how the groups are sorted, whether they are expanded or collapsed by default, and how many documents are displayed. The defaults are fine with me, so I'll click Apply. I'll click on the grid layout and notice that my library is grouped here as well. If I click on Library Options and then edit thumbnail settings, you'll see that I can change the size of my thumbnails to small or large, and also that I can crop thumbnails. I'm not going to apply a crop and I'll switch back to Medium and click apply. OK, so far I've created a new library, uploaded 81 documents, categorized them using the two custom fields that I created, edited the filter bar, configured my list layout, and now grouped my library. Now I want to save my changes to the default Global, View all documents and then publish my library. I'll click on the Library options Ellipsis and select Update Current View. I'll get a confirmation message that this view will be updated for all users, which is what I want, and click Save. I'll open the Content Outliner, Click the Options Ellipsis next to Standards Library and Publish My Library. Now if I open the Mega menu in Projects In Practice, you'll see the Standards Library I just created. If I decide that I want to change the configuration of this view in the future, perhaps by switching the default layout to List or removing the grouping, I can make those changes and then click on the Library Options Ellipsis and select Update Current View. I'm happy with the existing layout, so I'll cancel this, refresh the page, and get me back to my default view. When users visit the Standards Library, they'll see the Global default view, which is called All Documents. But I can also create saved views for them to choose from, perhaps based on Standard type. I'll filter on Specifications and then click the Library Options Ellipsis and select Save as New View. When I do that, I'm asked to add a title and I'll call this Specifications. I'm also asked to specify whether this is a global view, meaning it's available to all end users in synthesis, or a personal view, which is available just to me. I'll select Global View and click Save. You'll notice that the name of the view has changed to Specifications and that there are 59 documents in the view. I'm going to create two more global views, one for Details. And another for Schedules. If I click on the caret next to the view name, I'll see all of the saved views for this library, where I can reorder them, add them to my favorites, edit their properties, or delete them. So one way for our users to get to these three global views I created is by changing the view in the Library. But we can also link directly to them from the Content Outliner, a navigation block or linked text. I'll show you how to add them to the Content Outliner. I'll open the Content Outliner and click Add. And then Add Link. I'll search on Details and you'll see that the Global View I created earlier shows up, so I'll select it. I'll remove the library name from the link title and click Apply. I'll do the same thing for Specifications. And for Schedules. I'll then drag them underneath the Standards Library in the Content Outliner. I'll close the Content Outliner, hover on Projects and Practice in the Mega menu, and see those links I just added. I'll click on Details and I'm taken directly to the Details Global View. Woohoo. Finally, what can I do with these documents now that they're in the Document Library? Well, if I click the Document Options Ellipsis, you'll see a variety of menu options. The actions above the line are available to any end user in Synthesis, Preview, Download, copy links, and document details. Actions below the line are limited to global administrators, community managers, and content editors for the community containing the Library Edit title, Edit, thumbnail edit, custom fields, move to a different library, upload a new version and delete. Our Standards committee has been working on revising some of our standard specifications, and I'm ready to upload a new version of our Deluge fire suppression sprinkler system specification. So I'll search on del Click the ellipsis next to the document, click Upload new version, select Upload from computer and select the file it will upload and generate a thumbnail and a document preview. Once that's finished, I'll click on the Document Options Ellipsis and you'll see that there's now a new menu option which is Version History. If I click on that, you'll see the version history for this document, be able to preview previous versions or restore them to make them the current version. The final thing I want to talk about with document libraries is downloading multiple files. If I'm working on a new plumbing project and need to download multiple standards, I can start by filtering on CSI division. And can pick the standards one at a time. Or I can click select all and then click Download. It's like shopping online for knowledge. I'll cancel out of this download and navigate over to the Training Videos library in the learning community to talk about video libraries. Okay, you can see that video libraries have the same tools as document libraries, such as search filters, saved views, Grouping, sorting, grid layout, list layout, and custom fields. And the same goes for image libraries. Another thing that document libraries, video libraries, and image libraries all have in common is smart blocks, which is what we're going to talk about next. To do so, I'll head over to the Deltec Vantage Point page on the technology community. This is a page our team has been building to help support our firm's transition to vantagepoint. What I want to do is add those videos we just saw in the training videos library onto this page. So I'll edit the page, then click Insert Videos. When I do that, you'll see that I have three types of video blocks to choose from. I can add a single video directly to the page, I can upload multiple videos directly to the page, or I can choose a smart block which will allow me to add multiple files from a library. Smart block is what I want, so I'll select that and click Next. I'm asked to identify the source library for my smart block and I'll select the training videos library on the Learning community and click Next. I'll use the application custom field as my filter and select the seven Deltec Vantage Point videos. You can see that I could add additional filters, but this will work fine for me, so I'll click Next. Smart blocks are automatically sorted by title, but I can drag to reorder my videos. Or I could sort by any other field in the library. Title will work for me, so I'll click Next. I have three layouts to choose. Grid, Compact Grid, and List. I'll choose Grid and click Next. If I click on more options, you'll see that I have a handful of options to further configure my block, such as thumbnail size, thumbnail crop, number of videos displayed, and whether or not I want my block to be collapsible. I'll accept the defaults and click Next. I'll name this block Training Videos and click Finish. And just like that, I've added the seven Deltec Vantage Point videos from the training videos library to my page. And now when new videos with the Deltek Vantage Point custom field are added, removed, or new versions of videos are added to the library, this block will update automatically. If I ever want to make changes to my filters, the layout of my block or or the block title, I can select the block and click on the settings cog in the upper right. I'm happy with my video block, so I'll go ahead and publish my page. I'll stay within the technology community and head on over to the bamboohr page. Bamboohr is an HR system that our firm has been using for a few years now. The video on this page has information about checking your benefits information and the video was uploaded directly to this page. Now, the video might have been uploaded directly to the page instead of to our training videos library for a couple of reasons. One, this page may have been created in synthesis five, which didn't have video libraries, or two, perhaps when our HR director, Geo, started building out this page, we didn't know we were going to build a training video library and and so he uploaded it directly to the page. That said, we can now move this video into our training video library. I'm going to edit the page, click on the video options ellipsis and select Move to Library. I'll pick the library that I want to move the video to our training video library. You'll see that I have a couple of move options to choose from. I can move the video block and retain a linked reference on the page, which means I can move it to the library and keep it embedded on the page. Or I can move the video block and remove it from the page. I'm going to choose the default, which is to move the video block and retain the reference, and click Next. I'll populate the application custom field with bamboohr and click Move. So now that the video has been moved, we'll When I hover on my video, I'll notice there's a new icon in the upper right which lets me know that this is a library video and that it was inserted from the training videos library. In the learning community, I'll publish my page and then head back to the training videos library. You'll see that the Accessing benefit information video appears. So for my final video block example, I'll head to the Timesheets page in the Time and Travel section of the HR in Office community. You can see that we've started writing this page, but I'd like to finish it off by adding a training video. I'll click Edit page, Click Insert and Video. I'll select the single video option and click Next. You can see I have the choice between uploading from my computer, dragging and dropping, and inserting from a library. And I want to insert from a library. When I do that, a helpful screen will pop up to explain what library videos are and how they work. I'll click Next. I'll select the training video library as the source library. Click Next. I'll filter the library on Deltec Vantagepoint, select the video called Completing Timesheets in Deltec Vantage Point, and add my video. And now that I've added the Completing Timesheets video, I'll publish my changes. So that's inserting smart video blocks and single video blocks from a video library, as well as moving videos into a video library. Next, I'll head over to our medical and dental page to talk about smart document blocks. So everything I just showed with video blocks applies to document blocks as well. You can insert documents from a document library using smart blocks, and you have all the same configuration options, so that's great. And sometimes that's what you want because you have a large collection of files that you want to manage and update centrally. But sometimes you just want to put a handful of documents directly on a page and not put them in a library and tag them first. You would do that using a basic block, which I'll show You. Now I'll edit the page, click Insert documents. I can choose between a single document block, a basic block, and a smart block. I'll choose the basic block. I'll choose Upload from computer. Now they're uploading and generating thumbnails and document previews. Okay, they're finished. I can drag them to reorder, and if I click on the document options ellipsis, I can do several things including edit the document title and thumbnail. I'm happy with how my documents are organized, so I'll click Next. I can choose between grid layout, compact grid layout, list layout, or to insert my documents separately. I'll stick with Grid and click Next. I'll accept the default layout options and name this block medical and dental plans, and click Finish. So that was easy. Using a basic block for uploading these documents might be the right choice for this specific community's content. Maybe there aren't enough documents to justify a document library, and it's just simpler to add documents directly to pages. But then in this fictitious scenario, 12 months or 18 months go by and it turns out that our HR team ended up with many more documents than they originally imagined. And they decide to build a document library for HR to centralize them. No worries. I'll click on the settings cog for the basic document block and select Move Block to library. I'll select the HR library in HR and Office, and this time I'll select Move Document Block and remove from page. You'll see why in a minute. I'll populate the category custom field. And click Move. I'll open up that new HR library in a new tab and can see that the medical and dental documents were moved over. If I switch back to the medical and dental page, I can now insert a smart block. I'll pick the HR library. I'll insert the medical documents. Click Next, accept the default layout. Accept the default configuration options. Call this block Medical Plans and click Finish. And I'll drop in another smart block for dental and click Publish. Now I'll head back to the HR library and add a new medical document to the library. Okay, there's my new document. If I head back to the medical and dental page and refresh it, there's that new medical benefits document. Because I replaced the basic block with smart blocks, any changes to the library will be reflected in the two smart blocks I added. Ok, that's all I wanted to share about smart blocks. I'll head back to the standards library for a quick lightning round and then we'll close. If I click on the Library options ellipsis, you'll see that I can edit thumbnails settings, which allows me to customize the default thumbnail size and thumbnail crop for my saved views. And if I open library options again, you'll see that I can configure version history. If I click on that, you'll see that users are able to see the version history of library assets by default, but I can disable this here if it makes sense for my library. Finally, I'm going to log out of synthesis as me who is a global administrator, and back in as M. Davison, who is an end user. End users have most of the same functionality as global administrators, with the following exceptions. They can't upload or delete assets from libraries, they can't create or update global views for others to see, and they can't configure library options like version history for other users. But what they can do is filter. Group, Switch layouts, edit columns, And edit the filter bar. To get the list just the way they like so they can find what they're looking for, or even create a personal saved view so that they can reference it in the future. They can then favorite that view so it's easy to access. And even send the URL to others if they want to share their personal view. So that's it for our getting started video on working with libraries and smart blocks. Please feel free to reach out with any questions or comments and happy building.