Using Sharepoint integration to manage Flare files?

[adhollyhock]

We have just decided to migrate to Flare, and we already use Sharepoint and the version management features available with Windows Sharepoint Services 3.00 to maintain Word or PDF documents.
As several authors will work on common projects, and we would need simple version management features, I wonder whether I could use Sharepoint integration to store and manage the files of my whole Flare project in Sharepoint ...

1) But can the Sharepoint integration in Flare really serve this purpose?
It seems the integration does not allow this, but I would be interested to get your point of view.

If it can, several questions and issues arise out of my first attempts:

2) How should I perform the initial transfer of my Flare project files to Sharepoint?
I would expect to have an equivalent to the 'Bind' feature when you create a new project in Flare and want to directly save an maintain the files in Sharepoint.
Once the files are on Sharepoint, I understand how I can copy, map and synchronize them (or edit them directly without copying them locally), but what about the initial transfer to Sharepoint?

3) When I synchronize a local file to the Sharepoint file, does Sharepoint automatically create a new minor version of this file, or does the synchronization overwrite the latest version of the file in Sharepoint?

I know Subversion (or other source control applications) now natively integrates to Flare and provides such features. However, using the Sharepoint integration would make all Flare files availale not only to other authors, but mainly to all reviewers within our organization, which would be an asset.

Thanks in advance for sharing your experience.

[doc_guy]

Hi, adhollyhock,

I too am trying to use SharePoint in Flare v7.0.1. Unfortunately, I can get it to work at all. With 7.0.1 I can now connect to SharePoint and see my files on SharePoint, but that is it.

I can't open a Flare project from SharePoint in Flare. Tech Support said that they know that you can't open a project from SharePoint.

I can't open an individual Flare file from SharePoint in Flare. Nor can I copy a content file or folder to my project using mappings. I get this fun error message:


SharePoint won't let me map project files. When I right click on the project folder (or any of its subfiles and subfolders), and select copy to project, Flare only wants to let me copy them to the Content folder. That's not helpful at all.


I can't make Flare/SharePoint integration work in any kind of functional capacity. I mean, it's nice and all that I can view my SharePoint files in Flare's interface. Somehow, it seems, it would be nicer if I could find a way to actually EDIT the files in Flare. Sadly, that functionality must still be in development.

Honestly, I can't imagine that this is user error, but I suppose it might be an issue with the way my organization implements SharePoint. But as for Flare, I'm trying to use the out-of-the-box functionality with a fresh Flare installation.

Has anybody gotten this to work? Am I some weird corner case, or are other people having a hard time making this work too?

[Alicia143]

I am having the same type of problem with SharePoint Integration. When I try to open the files in the SharePoint Explorer, it tells me to convert them to XML. This is strange because they were Flare files when I uploaded them to SharePoint, but now Flare doesn't recognize them?

When I try to check out a file, I get a different error. So, basically this isn't working at all.

[rob hollinger]

We have seen where a space in the URL can cause Flare to think the files your copying down are not XML files.
This can be taken care of by binding to the root of the SharePoint server vs the folder.
Example URL when binding to the server:
Produces error -
http://teamserver/Shared%20Documents/
Does not produce error -
http://teamserver/

Then browse into "Shared Documents" in SharePoint Explorer for the files you need.


Paul,
Its really hard to tell whats going on there. It looks like the entire project is up on the server. I'm not sure if that's the project you have open (trying to open) and now copying files etc or if the errors are related to the above (url address). Please feel free to contact us so we can try and clear up whats going on. I just ran through a series of tests and was able to copy down and up project files, content files, etc. I never saw the window in your screen shot asking what folder to copy them(project files) down to and it only showing the Content area. Project files copied into their respective folders without issue.

The integration with SharePoint is not to be confused with version control. Its the ability to Share files stored on the server similar to a network repository so everyone could have access to the same files in their projects. If a file were to be changed, everyone could manage the mappings and update the files. In order for mappings to work, access to the FLPRJ (project file) is required.

[DebDinzes]

Hello,
My question was -- can MCF access a SharePoint library, e.g. of PDFs?
How might I integrate that?

We create PDFs in InDesign, and we plan to add them to a Resource library in MCF. Rather than store the InDesign source files & PDFs in GIT (then upload the PDFs to Flare), we're looking at keeping them in our current SharePoint library. It would be great if MCF could access the PDFs from the SP library.

Thanks!