Managing PDFs and Other Documents for the BCIT Public Website

PDFs and other documents for the public website are managed in the BCIT Web Content tool within Sharespace. Access to this tool is limited to only trained WordPress users and your access will have been set up at the same time as your WordPress account was created prior to WordPress Editor training. There are several ways to access the tool, all of which will require you to login with your regular BCIT credentials:

• Click on the BCIT Web Content tool link on your WordPress dashboard.
  
• Go directly to the BCIT Web Content document repository in Sharespace.
• Go to Sharespace and click on the BCIT Web Content link under My Sharespace Sites.
  

Before you upload

Before uploading your PDF, please ensure that it has the correct document properties and security settings and that the file is named according to the file naming standards. As the person uploading the file, you are the one responsible for ensuring this has been done, even if you’re not the person who created the file. The filename should include only lower-case letters and numbers, with words separated by hyphens (not spaces or underscores).

Uploading a single net-new PDF/document

1. Go to the BCIT Web Content document repository in Sharespace and login with your regular BCIT credentials (if you were not already logged in to Sharespace).
2. On the left, click on the library in which your document should be located.
   • Note: The libraries are usually named to reflect the root URL of the BCIT site/Section that they serve, but this may not be a perfect match in some cases. Older sites may instead reflect the older version of the root URL from the pre-WordPress version of the BCIT website. The relationships should still be obvious.
3. Navigate the folder structure in your library until you are in the correct sub-folder for your document. For example, PDFs should usually be uploaded to a “pdf” sub-folder in your library.The title at the top of the page will tell you are in relation to the library. In the example below, you are in the “pdf” sub-folder in the Welcome library.
   
4. Click on the +new document link at the top of the library.
   
5. In the Add Document dialog box that opens, click on the Browse button.
   
6. Navigate to the file on your computer that you wish to upload and select it, then click the Open button.
7. Important: If this is intended to be a brand new file (not an updated version of an existing file), uncheck the Add as a new version to existing files checkbox. This will prevent you from accidentally overwriting an existing in-use document. You will see an error after the next step if another file exists with the same name and can re-name the file and try again.
8. Do not change the destination folder. Click the OK button.
9. Don’t change any fields in following screen. Instead, click either Save button to complete the initial upload step.

You’ll now see your newly uploaded file at the top of the list in the folder, highlighted with a small green star icon. Unlike the other documents in the list, your new file won’t yet have an “Approved Date”, “isApproved” will be “No”, and the “Process Documents” column will be “In Progress”.

Your Publisher will be automatically notified that they need to approve your submission. There are no further steps you need to take.

Note: The “Full Path” may initially appear to be incorrect (listed as “https://www.bcit.ca”). Reload the page to see the correct full path.

Before you upload

Before uploading your PDFs, please ensure that they have the correct document properties and security settings and that the files are named according to the file naming standards. As the person uploading the files, you are the one responsible for ensuring this has been done, even if you’re not the person who created them. The filenames should include only lower-case letters and numbers, with words separated by hyphens (not spaces or underscores).

Uploading a multiple PDFs/documents

1. Recommended: To upload multiple files at once, it’s easiest if you first put all of the files you want to upload to a single directory in one folder in your computer. Have that folder open and ready to go on your computer.
2. Go to the BCIT Web Content document repository in Sharespace and login with your regular BCIT credentials (if you were not already logged in to Sharespace).
3. On the left, click on the library in which your documents should be located.
4. Navigate the folder structure in your library until you are in the correct sub-folder for your documents. For example, PDFs should usually be uploaded to a “pdf” sub-folder in your library.The title at the top of the page will tell you are in relation to the library. In the example below, you are in the “pdf” sub-folder in the Welcome library.
   
5. Click on the open folder containing your files in your computer’s taskbar to bring it to front.
6. Select all files you want to upload and drag them over the file list in your browser. It will go grey to show that it’s ready to take your files. Drop them there and they will upload.
   

You’ll now see your newly uploaded files at the top of the list in the folder, highlighted with small green star icons. Unlike the other documents in the list, your new files won’t yet have an “Approved Date”, “isApproved” will be “No”, and the “Process Documents” column will be “In Progress”.

Your Publisher will be automatically notified that they need to approve your submissions. There are no further steps you need to take.

Note: The “Full Path” may initially appear to be incorrect (listed as “https://www.bcit.ca”). Reload the page to see the correct full path for each file.

Before you upload

Before uploading your PDF, please ensure that it has the correct document properties and security settings and that the filename exactly matches the document you are replacing/updating (even if that previous name doesn’t quite meet the current file naming standards). You’ll also need to know the current location of the existing file to ensure you upload the updated version to the same location.

Uploading an updated version of an existing PDF/document

1. Go to the BCIT Web Content document repository in Sharespace and login with your regular BCIT credentials (if you were not already logged in to Sharespace).
2. On the left, click on the library in which your document should be located.
3. Navigate the folder structure in your library until you are in the correct sub-folder for your document. For example, PDFs should usually be uploaded to a “pdf” sub-folder in your library.The title at the top of the page will tell you are in relation to the library. In the example below, you are in the “pdf” sub-folder in the Welcome library.
   
4. Click on the +new document link at the top of the library.
   
5. In the Add Document dialog box that opens, click on the Browse button.
   
6. Navigate to the file on your computer that you wish to upload and select it, then click the Open button.
7. Important: Leave the Add as a new version to existing files checkbox checked. This will let you add a new version to the previous file.
8. Do not change the destination folder. Click the OK button.
9. Don’t change any fields in following screen. Instead, click either Save button to complete the initial upload step.

You’ll now see your newly uploaded version of the file at the top of the list in the folder. Unlike the other documents in the list, your new version won’t yet have an “Approved Date”, “isApproved” will be “No”, and the “Process Documents” column will be “In Progress”.

Your Publisher will be automatically notified that they need to approve your submission. There are no further steps you need to take.

Note: This method only works for Libraries to which you have access. If you want to instead find a web address from elsewhere on the BCIT site, use the Sharespace Documents report instead.

In the Sharespace BCIT Web Content tool:

1. Navigate through the libraries until you find the PDF/document that you want to link to. The web address is visible as plain text next to the file name in the “Full Path” column.
2. Highlight the web address, including the “https://” at the start and and use CTRL-C on your keyboard to copy it.
   
   • Note: You cannot right-click on the document to copy it as brings up a different contextual menu in Sharespace which doesn’t contain the Copy command. You must use the keyboard shortcut in this case.
   • Known problem for Firefox users: For some reason, in Firefox your highlighted selection doesn’t stay after you let go of your mouse button. Simple workaround: Use the keyboard shortcut (CTRL-C) to copy the selection before you let go of your mouse button.

You can now use the address in your clipboard to add a link in WordPress.

In WordPress:

1. Hover your mouse over Reports in the WordPress menu, then click on Sharespace Documents.
   
   
   • Please note: Quite often, the first time you attempt to go to this report in a session, it will report that there are no files to report. This is incorrect, but the list is so large that if it hasn’t loaded recently, it takes an extra second or two for it to become available to the report. Usually, reloading the page in your browser one or two times will result in the full list becoming available.
2. You can now navigate through the list to find the file you want.
   • Note: There are options to sort by URL, by Library, or by Approved Date, as well as to Filter by Library (which will display only the documents in one Library) or even to search for any string of characters that appears as part of the URL (this search is looking only at the URL, it is not able to read the contents of a document and return results that way).
3. When you have found the file you want to link to, hover your mouse over it and click on the Copy Link link that appears.
   

You can now use the address in your clipboard to add a link.

When a PDF/document is uploaded  in a Section for which you are the Publisher, you will receive an email notification. This email notification has functionality that makes it easy for you to quickly approve submitted files, but it is also possible to approve them within Sharespace

Accessing the approval workflow from Outlook

1. Open the email in your Outlook client.
2. Click on the Open this task link at top of the email.
   

The approval workflow page will open in your default browser.

Accessing the Approval workflow page from Sharespace

1. Go to the BCIT Web Content document repository in Sharespace and login with your regular BCIT credentials (if you were not already logged in to Sharespace).
2. If there are documents awaiting your approval they will be visible listed under “My Tasks” at the top right. Click on the title of the document in the list to go to the Approval workflow page.

Approving documents in the Approval workflow page

1. Click on the filename link in the yellow bar at the top to preview the file and check that the content appears correct and that the document properties and security settings are correct.
   
2. Optional: Enter a comment which will be added to the email sent back to the person who submitted the file originally.
   
3. Click the Approve button at the bottom left.

At this point in the process, the document will start its journey from Sharepoint to the live server. Important: This is not immediate and can take up to 10 minutes, but after that time the new/updated PDF/document will be available on the live server. There is no delay, however, in the change to the document listing in Sharepoint. As soon as you approve the submitted PDF/document, the “isApproved” and “Approved Date” columns for it will update with “Yes” and today’s date.

Follow the instructions in the section above to get to the Approval workflow page and preview the submitted document. If at that point there are problems that prevent you from Approving it, you can either Reject it entirely or Request Changes. Most commonly, you’d want to Request Changes. To do so:

1. Note the name of the person who submitted the document (this is visible in the Approval workflow page).
2. Click the Request Changes button.
3. Enter the name of the person from step 1 in the Request Change From field. After a moment or two, it will automatically search for that person and if found in the BCIT directory, it will change and become underlined.
4. Enter a description of the changes you’re requesting in the New Request field. Try to be as descriptive as possible.
5. Click the Send button.