[From Wrike's Product Team] Your Input Needed - File Management in Wrike

Hi Slava Kogan,

thanks for starting this thread!

One detail I'm concerned about again and again: Textfiles cannot be opened within Wrike directly. It's quite difficult so check some logfiles attached to a task because the file has to be downloaded first, although it contains just plain text!

Hi Florian,

Thank you for sharing this with me!

We have this in our plans, actually. We'll let you know here in the comments once we have another update for you.

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Hi Slava,

Thanks! I'd like to share a use case from a large enterprise customer such as us:

Archiving/ exporting

• to have the ability to extract attachments of a project, e.g. as a zip, in order to save into the designated archiving system
• to remove the attachments of closed projects from Wrike to free up space (we just recently hit our 2 TB storage space limit)
• to archive at the click of a button not to see everything any longer? via a button & window pop-up? via automation upon completion workflow status? via a button 'archive/ not archive' in the project?

Business case for archiving/ exporting

Limited storage space:

• Sheer amount of data & files leads to us hitting 2 TB total recently (we've bought additional space, but ideally, unused data such as attachments and files in closed projects could and should be removed)
• The longer an account exist, the more user/ use cases utilize the account, the more probable it is that the limit of storage capacity is reached (--> also for Wrike itself as their own biggest customer, this can be an issue)

Performance: to help system performance, which continues to deteriorate given the volume of tasks

• Would a "second cloud" for archived projects help?
• This might be solved as a workaround by choosing to view only folders on a deep level and not open folders on the higher or highest level

Document & Life-cycle Management:

• to avoid data clutter; in one country alone, there have been 6,000 projects created this year so far, and 375,000 tasks.
• A project / documents need to be tracked over their life-cycle and then archived once the contract with the customer is completed. In many cases, after the initial installation at the customer site, additional services (maintenance, migration, etc.) are sold and the appropriate project (and their documents) need to be handed over to another team/ another process - which can be outside of Wrike
• Extended export functionalities tie in with this archiving

Data retention policies in each country

• Archiving is very necessary from a data retention perspective
• In some countries, documents need to be stored/ archived in designated systems for a designated amount of time (e.g. 10-15 years)
• Wrike is great for productive and working data and documents, but less ideal for archiving (right now)

Additional change request:

Change request

Another one:

We tested the following case and found that Wrike does not provide an option to restore deleted files:

• One user deleted my file and I deleted his file.
• It was logged that the files were deleted, but we both can't find the deleted file again - neither in the stream to restore nor are the files in the recycle bin.
• Is that what you want? That documents are gone?
• Or should it end up in the Recycle Bin like the Tasks?

In order to do this you need to contact customer support.

Link to community post: https://help.wrike.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360010965453-Provide-an-option-to-restore-deleted-files 

Editing documents via mobile app (Android/iOS) with Document Editor is not possible

Workaround right now for document editing on mobile devices:

• Document needs to be downloaded from task in mobile app, can then be edited and needs to be shared (searched again) with existing task as new document

Idea: Enable Document Editor for mobile app

• to make this work just like in the desktop-version, an extension would need to be programmed (and then installed on all mobile devices).

I would like for my team to be able to easily view/access which tasks contain files. Possibly a highlight or something along the lines of how you can tell a document has comments? It would be extremely helpful, especially for those that struggle with which tasks have the files.

Hi Slava,

Not sure if this falls under your jurisdiction however with the use of the JIRA connector to turn tasks into JIRA tickets we sometimes need to include a screenshot for a developer, however the screenshot within the description once the ticket is created from the connector, is small and unable to zoom in on the image. We then tried to do the screenshot as an attachment on the task however when it creates a JIRA ticket it turns it into a permalink in the description instead of a true attachment and unfortunately the developer is unable to see the link given as they are not a collaborator in Wrike. 

Ideally we would like to have a better way to send attachments via the JIRA connector whether in the description or as an attachment instead of the current way it seems to be working. 

Thank you!

Hi Slava,

Thanks for starting the conversation! My team is a video team with a somewhat unique use-case. We mainly upload storyboards & scripts, sometimes invoices & media releases; however what we would really like to utilize is the Approvals feature for our video review process. Currently we cannot do this due to the Permalink option only being for users who have a Wrike account - we often work directly with execs and folks within our organization who do not use Wrike. The service we currently use, Frame.io, offers the option to invite collaborators to join the project as well as linking directly to the asset, a link that can be accessed by anyone who has it. Would love to see this feature come to Wrike so we can fully immerse in the ecosystem.

Thanks!

This is a major upgrade, especially being able to rename files. Thank you!

Hi Slava,

Those who posted before me have very valid points and use cases. I also wanted to bring up the recently added ability to attach files directly from SharePoint (Microsoft 365) and wondered how that plays into the overall storage limit. I assume that what shows as an attached file in Wrike is merely a link to the actual file that resides in SharePoint and as such does not use physical space in our Wrike account. Can you clarify this? This may belong in a different topic since this thread has to do with using Wrike for file storage and management (not a third party storage solution).

Thank You!

We would like to have our Wrike projects be the central location for all things related to a project. Once files are uploaded to a task and a task is marked complete, it is very difficult to find the specific file. It is important to have a more intuitive location for the files that people need to access/reference multiple times during the project's lifecycle. Currently we started to create folders and then tag the task to the folder. However it would be great to also be able to add files directly to the folder without association to a task.

Hi Rosalynn Mok,

just change your folders to a project, and you can attach files to it!

Besides this I'd recommend to use sharepoint as central filestructure and then just link the files in wrike. So it woun't matter anymore to wich task they're attached.

Florian

Hey guys!

Thank you for your amazing ideas and feedback! We will make sure to review all your suggestions here and we'll see if we can address them in the future 🙂

I'd also like to dive a little deeper into leveraging Wrike as a full-blown file repository (Digital Asset Management system) to maintain all your digital assets and reusing them in your tasks or projects. My team and I would like to understand how to make this useful for your processes, how this Wrike file repository could work, and if it would be beneficial for you to store all your documents and creative assets in one system instead of using Wrike in conjunction with cloud storages. If you could also share your views on this topic, that would be great 🤗

Thank you again for helping me!

Slava Kogan Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Learn about Wrike’s killer features and best practices with our Online Training Webinars

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Ron Grover

you're absolutely right, sharepoint files are only linked, not copied into wrike and don't need storage. But there's also an advantage of uploading files directly to wrike, as wrike provides a very nice versioning!

Hi Samantha Babcock,

if you use the list view, you can recognize tasks with attached files by a paper clip icon.

We love the ability to have our files that are located in Sharepoint & OneDrive for Business linked into Wrike, which is paramount for reasons of Security & Compliance (Sharepoint offers very good controls for data policy) and we can then also use the same Sharepoint files to link and integrate into other systems. Our requirements would not enable us to store files natively in Wrike, and so anything to make as much as possible the experience of linked SharePoint files as a natively uploaded file is always appreciated. 

There is, however, no underlaying API to do this programatically, which then means the process of linking a new set of files, when creating a project from a blueprint is manual, and has also limited our ability to also create automations and efficiencies in other ways. Therefore our main requirement is the ability to link and update Sharepoint and OneDrive for Business files using the API.

Within a task or project view, the following would be helpful to our group:

• folders for attachments
• ability to sort by file type, date added, who added, etc., in the attachment area
• being able to PIN certain attachments for specific individuals
• collapsable attachment area
• greater emphasis on the items for approval (ex: highlighted background color)
• Thumbnail could be user designated from a list of attachments or from a single page amongst multi-page PDFs. This has the potential to make the "Board" view more utilitarian.

Hi Slava!

Thank you for all the great work you and the Wrike team have made so far to improve the product. Move and copy File Attachments was on our wish list for over 2 years, so our team is super happy to be using it ever day now.

As a whole, our organization is very happy with the file management itself. I think we’re more focused on seeing improvements with how approvals work and can be improved as well as how Wrike can utilize their integrations with partners to offer solutions without extra add-ons. A great example of an issue our teams have still not solved after two years is video proofing. I am very aware of the built in video proofing functions (for videos you upload) and for video you upload to YouTube, but while these work extremely well, we cannot spend time uploading every video proof to YouTube or compress the video each time and take up space in the system. My idea along with many others is to utilize the file storage solutions our organizations are already using for video proofing. For instance, our organization uses Dropbox and Dropbox has a great API that should make this possible.

https://help.wrike.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360005463033-Video-Proofing-with-Google-Drive-Dropbox-or-OneDrive

https://help.wrike.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115000566989-Add-Vimeo-as-source-for-video-proofing

We love the video proofing option in Wrike, but can’t use it as team don’t use YouTube for proofing and do not want to upload it directly to Wrike. I think if Wrike implemented a video proofing option for Dropbox, Google Drive, Vimeo, it could be a game changer for video production teams. And just to add on that, we currently have to use Dropbox’s comment feature to review videos instead of doing it directly in Wrike because of this.

As mentioned in the beginning, the move and copy File Attachments feature has been a game changer for us, but we do have some ideas on how it can be improved even more. One big feature that should be added is for the task selection dropdown to show all project tasks first as opposed to most recent tasks.

For instance, we have 100's of projects in progress at a time and they all follow a strict naming convention, so when you search that task name they all appear. That being said I have two ideas on how this can be improved:

1. The dropdown shows all project tasks first and then shows most recent.

2. Add a button that says: Select task inside this project which would then show a dropdown with only that projects tasks. I feel like this would be a cleaner way to implement this feature.

I would argue that 99% of the time we're moving to a task within a project, so it's not saving as much time yet as we had hoped. It definitely has helped, but can be improved greatly with this addition. :)

Tuomo Suominen, although we're currently reviewing ideas on how to we can improve file organization in Wrike, we're also looking into introducing APIs for linking other Digital Assets Management systems. If I understood you correctly, you have multiple assets for a project, and it's difficult to find a particular one. It would be great if you could share what can help you with that.

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Christopher Halkovic, I'm really happy to hear that you found our recent file management releases useful! Thank you for sharing your feedback with me, we'll be looking into how we can further improve your experience.

Regarding video proofing, unfortunately, it's not an easy task even with the API possibilities provided by Dropbox / Google Drive. At the same time, we also have some longer-term plans to support proofing for cloud storage.

Slava Kogan Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Learn about Wrike’s killer features and best practices with our Online Training Webinars

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Christopher Halkovic Thank you for bringing this up! I work in a video team as well with dozens of deliverables flying around at once, and it would be awesome if there was even a Vimeo integration, or an option for unlimited storage/automatic deletion of video files once a project has been marked complete.

Hi Slava Kogan, thanks for your reply!

Our publishing projects consist of several sections, and in each section we have tens of individual assets in different stages of development. Our problem is that with our current DAM integration, we're only able to share one single DAM directory per project to Wrike. That one single directory then contains all the project's assets in one flat view, and it's not possible to organise the assets into section specific folders. Currently, that means quite a chaotic view of the assets in the DAM system. This becomes even more chaotic when illustrators and other external subcontractors upload new and revised versions of assets into one single space. File naming conventions help but quickly become overly complex.

What would help us? Let us set up the project's asset folders in DAM. Within a Wrike project, make it possible to view those assets in their respective folders. The ultimate scenario would be to also allow DAM functions from within the Wrike project.

An asset API might allow a Wrike project to be linked to a specific DAM directory and display its' subfolders and assets within Wrike. That would allow us to organise the project's DAM space in whatever hierarchies that serve the asset workflows, and to view the contents of the project's DAM space from within Wrike.

A more advanced asset API might even allow project team members to actually perform actual DAM operations on the assets, e.g. preview, comment, vote on alternatives, change status, maybe even move/copy from within the Wrike project.

Hi Slava Kogan! Not sure if this falls under the umbrella of what you're working on... Our team is still stuck with using Google Sheets or MS Teams when we want to collaborate on a file. This is because we need the ability to co-edit documents: https://help.wrike.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360048431573-Document-co-editing-feature

If we could simultaneously work on attachments in Wrike (Word docs, Excel, etc.), it would be a game-changer for user buy-in. 

I'll survey the rest of our team to see if they have any other suggestions. Thank you!

As discussed and long time requested in https://help.wrike.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115000544589-Link-local-files-in-task- and https://help.wrike.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360052550633-Linking-to-company-server it is necesary to also link local file to Wrike tasks with a real link (not only copy and paste text).

Anna Fields, regarding Vimeo, we're aware of this ask and we'll be looking into possibilities of supporting it in the future.

Sven Passinger, on local files links - thank you for this idea! We aren't planning to work on this in the near future, but we'll definitely consider that later.

Soraya Jung, We aren't currently planning to introduce file editing within Wrike Proof, but thank you for the idea, I'll keep it on my radar.

Slava Kogan Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Learn about Wrike’s killer features and best practices with our Online Training Webinars

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Slava Kogan Hi! My question had nothing to do with Wrike Proof...just the Wrike Document Editor.

I've done a bit of exploring and have realized that our company has hugely been missing out on the Sharepoint integration 🤦. I'm immediately going to start reorganizing how our files are saved in Wrike, to pull them from our Sharepoint first.

Now that I understand how that works, it answers my question above about how we can co-edit documents. But I have new feedback: MS Teams allows us to "Open in App" instead of opening the file on the Sharepoint webpage. For example, and excel would be opened on the Excel desktop app (sort of how the Wrike DE works right now...but missing that link to our Sharepoint).

If a similar feature could exist in Wrike ("Open in app") for these files we have stored in our Sharepoint cloud, it would be revolutionary for us!!!

...sorry, I don't know how to resize screenshots. That is obnoxiously big 😂

Thank you for letting Slava know your feedback Soraya Jung 🙂 I'll make sure he gets it when he's back from holidays 🎄

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