Linking Related Documents Together

Linking documents in FossLook

One of the most common tasks in FossLook is grouping together related documents. There are many scenarios, when you might need to group documents related to each other. You have a couple of options here: manual and automatic documents linking.

Some documents can be related to other documents. To display this relation in the system, you will need to create a link between those related documents. Doing this will allow your users to:

  • Quickly find documents without wasting time looking for them.
  • Know exactly which documents relate to which (for example, when you are writing a response, you can link to the document to which you are responding).
  • View related documents (for instance, viewing reports that relate to a project)
  • Divide them into logical groups.

For example, you can create a document type in the system called “CRM Project”. Someone on your team works with another type - "Project reports". Both of these documents will be stored in corresponding folders separately, but eventually, when the project will be finished you would like to combine these documents together, so you can easily view information about the whole project.

The information below describes how to link related documents.

Linking Documents Manually

Documents can be linked manually. You can link together various types of documents which are stored in various folders. To be able to do that, you need to enable “Linked documents” function of the document. You can refer to the article “Adding functions” for more information about document functions.

Enabling 'Linked documents' function

As a result, you'll see a new tab "Linked documents" in your document. Here you can add related documents by clicking on the Cross linking button button. A dialog will appear, where you can select necessary documents for linking.

How to add related documents to your document

Links can be cross-referenced or one-side referenced. In cross-reference case two documents link to each other. In one-side reference case links are set only in one direction.

Linking Documents Automatically

Selecting 'Key' field for documents linking

FossLook also allows you to link related documents automatically. Before you can do this, you need to select a “key field”, which is a field that is present in both documents and refers to the same dictionary.

Suppose we have two document types - "Motherboard" and "Processor (CPU)", which have one common ("key") field - "Socket". When we open "Motherboard", we naturally want to see all related processors, right?

In order to do this we will create a separate tab for our CPU's in the "Motherboard" document, and a rule by which the documents will be linked.

To create a tab in the document type, click “Create”, enter the field name, select field type "Links to the documents" and save the field.

Selecting related documents field

Next, we'll need to create a rule in the Links editor by which the documents will be linked. You can create as many rules as you want, but for simplicity, we will only create one.

To create a rule open link editor, then click "Add a rule" icon Add rule button, choose the linking field (in our case it's "Socket"). The system will filter all documents that have this field.

Finally, select our "Processor (CPU)" document type for linking and save a new rule.

Creating rules in link editor

All right, now we can actually use autolinks feature from the client application. Start FossLook client, open the "Motherboard" document and go to "Related CPU's" tab. There you should be able to see all CPU's that have same socket as the selected motherboard.

You can turn automatic documents linking on/off by clicking on the "Autolinks" button Automatic linking button on the toolbar.

Checking how autolinks work

In addition to automatic linking, you can add any relevant item to this tab by clicking "Add" button Add link button.

The ability to link documents is a great feature that can significantly simplify your document organization. Users have the ability to access items that are related to the document they are working with, no matter where they can be stored in the Library.

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