M-Files Terminology

M-Files software

The M-Files document management software consists of the following components: M-Files Desktop, M-Files Admin, M-Files Desktop Settings, Show Status and M-Files Server. You can also use M-Files with a web browser or a mobile device.

File vs. document

An example of a file is a memo created using Microsoft Word and saved on the C:\ drive. The file becomes a document only after you have associated metadata with it. When you have implemented M-Files and start transferring existing files to M-Files, you add metadata to the files to make them documents.

In addition to documents, an M-Files vault can also store other types of objects, such as customers, assignments, or project data.

Multi-file documents

A multi-file document is a special M-Files document type that can contain more than one file. The files share one set of metadata.

Typical uses include linking of an electronic document with its signed and scanned counterpart, an email and all its attachments, or any such case where files need to be linked together and treated as one unit.

Temporary local file

For example, Microsoft Word creates temporary files during the work. These are so-called temporary local files. Some programs cannot remove these temporary files, and they remain as temporary local files in M-Files. As temporary local files have no associated metadata, they are not saved on the server.

The temporary local files can be converted to documents, refer to Convert to Document, and removed, refer to Clear Local Cache.

Metadata

Metadata consists of information about the document's properties, such as the parties of a contract or the recipient of a letter. Metadata is used to, for example, search for and organize documents.

Document / object permissions

Each document can be assigned permissions to specify the access rights of a user or user group. The permissions can be either allowed or denied separately.

One user can have allowed or denied permissions in two different ways: the permissions have been specified for that particular user, or the user belongs to a user group for which the permissions have been specified. If no permissions have been specified for a user, the user cannot view the document or access it in any way. If certain permissions have been allowed, the user can perform the procedures determined by these permissions.

Vault

A vault is a centralized storage location for documents and other objects. Its physical location is on the server running M-Files Server. Regardless of the physical location, all users see the document vault as a directory on their local computer's M-Files drive. This means that using a document vault is similar to using a local hard drive.

View

Views are locations in which the documents and other objects are listed based on the metadata they contain.

Virtual folder

The objects and documents in the views include virtual folders (property folders). Virtual folders enable sorting documents in the view into categories.

Traditional folder

You can also create traditional folders in M-Files. These do not have the additional properties provided by views. Traditional folders compare, for example, to C:\ folders and can be used for importing files to M-Files.

Client

A client is the regular M-Files user's computer and the software installed on it. The regular user performs operations like creating documents and exploring the document vault.

Object type

By defining object types, you can create different types of objects. Document is one of such object types, one that every vault contains. In addition, the M-Files administrator can create other object types for the vault, such as customer, contact, and project. This way, you can use M-Files to, for example, store the company's customer and project databases.

Object

The term object refers to instances of various object types – that is, individual objects created using object types. For example, one contact person in the document vault is an object.

Most functions are identical for documents and for other objects. This manual often represents operations as being performed on documents, but the same operations are available for, e.g., document sets and other objects. An individual document can therefore also be thought of as an object.

Document collection

Document collections are collections of individual documents in the document vault. Each collection member document has its own metadata. In addition, the document collection has a collective set of metadata independently of member documents (cf. multi-file document).

Each document in the collection can still be accessed as an individual document but also through the document collection.

Relationships

You can also define the relationships between objects. Using relationships you can, for example, indicate that two documents are related. Relationships enable easy tracking of all documents related to an issue.

Template

You can use another object as a template for creating a new object. When you select a template from the list, the metadata card adjusts itself to the specifications of the template object. You can edit and add metadata.

Specify an object as a template by setting its Is template property to Yes.

Workflow

The M-Files Workflow feature enables modeling object lifecycles according to real world processes. The workflow is grouped into states that correspond to the working stages of the document or other object. The M-Files administrator can easily define workflows to meet company requirements. For more information about workflows, refer to Workflows.

Server

M-Files Server runs on the server. Clients connect to the server and retrieve data so that the contents of the document can be viewed on the clients. The server is the physical location of the document vault.