Smart collections are collections of reference files, automatically gathered according to stored search conditions.
Like collections, smart collections are made up of reference files only.
This page is about creating smart collections from scratch. It is also possible to create a smart collection from search results.
Step-by-step:
1. In any location where you have Upload permission, click New in the right-hand sidebar. A dropdown menu will open.
2. Choose Smart Collection from the menu.
A Create Smart Collection modal will open. You can give your Smart Collection a descriptive name.
3. If you wish, you can limit the smart collection so that it only searches in specific folders. In this case, click Choose Folder to specify the folder or folders in which you want your smart collection to search for files.
The folders you can see are those that the space can access (and must also be visible to your own user account).
The default behaviour is not to specify any folders. If you do not specify folders, then the smart collection will search the whole space. There are further notes on this in "About smart collection permissions", below.
4. Click Add A Condition.
Here, select a Field, Condition, and Value with which to gather for files for this smart collection.
5. Click Add A Condition again to add multiple conditions.
6. Additional options are available for advanced users:
- If you need to filter files according to their permissions (e.g. if you only want to include downloadable files, or editable files) then you can click on one of the Permissions Filter icons to remove files that do not have this permission.
For more details on Permissions Filters, please see below ("About Permissions Filters"). - If you tick the box labelled "Include folders", then your smart collection will return any folders which have been tagged with matching metadata. This may include empty folders.
- If you tick the box labelled "Include copies", then you may see more than one copy of the same file returned, if that file has been referred to in multiple locations.
7. Click Save and Close.
The smart collection is created, and you will be returned to the space.
Once created, smart collections update automatically, and their contents can change at any time as a result.
About smart collection permissions
When you create a smart collection, Chorus will begin by performing your search within a set of fixed permissions. These permissions are determined by the space, which exists independently of your user account. The following rules apply:
- Only a space manager can create a smart collection in a shared space.
- Users can always create a smart collection in their private space.
- A smart collection uses the permissions of the space itself; in your private space, these have the same meaning.
Secondly, the scope of the search (meaning, where the smart collection can "see") is fixed to the space that it is created in: A smart collection will only search within its own space.
A smart collection can, however, search other spaces in a special case where the space is a member of other spaces. If you would like to know more about making a space a member of another space, please see C11.1 Give users access to a space.
Lastly, the way that smart collections search is controlled to prevent recursive behaviour. To avoid producing confusing results, smart collections do not search within other smart collections.
About permissions filters
When you create a smart collection, you can use filters to reduce the number of files according to their permissions. This is called a permissions filter.
By default, there is no permissions filter applied. This means that any file that matches the smart collection rules will be included in the smart collection (or equivalently, it any file that has the permission to be viewed and matches the smart collection rules is included).
The filter levels available are icons which can be clicked to select them. From left to right, the filters are:
Download - the file will only be included if the space has permission to be viewed and download
Edit - the file will only be included if the space has permission to be viewed, download and edited
Share - the file will only be included if the space has permission to be viewed, download, edited and shared.
Each time a permissions filter is added, the number of results in the smart collection may fall. This is because the files which do not meet the filtering requirements are removed from the smart collection.
More on smart collections:
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