Nuxeo has recently made publicly available a new plugin for our platform enabling easy file sharing from the platform to external recipients. We are using this internally to make our documents which we manage in our Nuxeo Platform intranet, available for our customers. The EasyShare Plugin is available on the Marketplace in addition to numerous other plug-ins, offering added functionality for the platform. It is easily installable directly from the Admin console of the Nuxeo Platform.
People often need to send files larger than possible by email, and they also need to keep control over access to these. This was either done by uploading the file to a system specific for sharing like Google Drive or Dropbox or creating an account in your [Enterprise Content Management software. When your organization has your content managed within an ECM system it would be convenient to send and share directly from there with minimal configuration and maximum control.
The EasyShare plugin does just that. You create a share folder and either add files directly to it, or link by proxy to any other document within your platform. You can also specify an expiration date, a contact email and a comment visible to the recipient when they access the page. Instead of your recipient logging in, you send in any way you choose, a unique URL that goes directly to that share. Your recipient sees a web page and a listing of files, which they can download or permalink as well. That’s all there is to it.
Let’s illustrate the use of the plugin
We first create an EasyShare Folder anywhere Folder types are allowed in the Nuxeo Platform. An expiration date allows you to specify the last day of the share availability. It will not disappear but will no longer be externally accessible. The Share comment is a message or description you’d like to have your recipient see on the landing page for the share. The contact email is the address visible on the share landing page as a contact for the recipient. Notifications of file download will also be sent to the recipient. This can be your own as creator of the share or another contact.
We then add files into the share. There are two methods. First, you can simply upload files into the share as in any folder within Nuxeo. Second, you can link other files anywhere in the system by browsing and adding to your worklist on left by drag and drop. Once you have a list of files you want to share, you navigate into the share folder you want to use. A new action below the list appears allowing you to add into the EasyShare. These are now proxies to the original documents.
The URL to the Share folder is found on the URL Link button and pops up for cut and paste. This is the unique URL which is externally available without having to create any accounts in Nuxeo. It can be sent any way you want, by email, IM, etc.
You will also notice in the History tab that access and download events are logged with an IP to keep track of who has downloaded the shared files and when.
Accessing the Share
Access to the URL takes you to the landing page for the share. The page displays the comments, contact email, share name and a file listing. It is simply a matter of clicking a file to download it. Communication with the share provider is made easier by a mail-to link on the page as well.
Future
Since this is an initial release originally used for internal use at Nuxeo, we look forward to hearing user feedback on other features could be useful. We will continue to add on to the plugin over time and make it even more useful and comprehensive. The goal would be in the end to merge all the features implemented in this plugin with the newly released collection module that is part of the Nuxeo Platform and fully supported.