Overview

The Files App lets you and your clients securely share files, links, and folders with one another.

App setup

Default files channel

If you have companies enabled you can select a default channel on the Settings > General page. The default channel works as follows:

Always-on visibility

You can control whether clients always have a Files item on the sidebar that they can navigate to. Turn this off if you only want clients to see Files on their sidebar if 1 or more files have been made visible to the client.

Clients can add files

You can control if clients themselves can add files. Turn this off if you want clients to only be able to access files but not upload ones themselves.

Clients can delete files

You can control if clients can delete files. Turn this off if you want to prevent clients from deleting files.

Clients can update folders

You can control if clients can update the folder structure you have put in place. Turn this off if you want to “lock down your folder structure” and prevent clients from creating, uploading, renaming, moving, and deleting folders.

Internal user experience

Key Workflows

There are two main workflows for internal users.

App view

To see a list of all file channels sorted by recent activity, navigate to the Files App by clicking on Files in your sidebar. Here you’ll see a files channel for every client, company, or group that you’re sharing files with. From here, you can select a files channel to see the contained files and take actions like upload new files or create folders.

Client Details view

To access a particular client’s files channel you can click on a client on the Clients page and then navigate to the Files tab. This will only surface the files channel associated with that particular client.

Creating files channels

After you create a client, they will always get a new files channel or be assigned to an existing files channel which will be either client-level or company-level. In addition, there are group-level files channels. These are useful if you want to share files with multiple clients associated with a company, but not everyone assigned to the company.

Creating a company-level channel:

1. Click on the + on the messaging channels sidebar.

2. Select one or more clients, or select a company. Note that you cannot create a files channel that already exists.

eSignature Requests

One of the core features of Copilot is the ability to send eSignature requests to clients. An audit trail for eSignatures is appended to the signed document. Only PDF files are supported for eSignatures.

To request an eSignature from your client:

1. Go to the Files tab in your sidebar.

2. Select the client that will be signing the document to see their file channel.

3. Click the +New button and select Upload file from the dropdown to upload the document that requires the signature. The file will appear in the file channel once the upload is complete.

4. Click the 3 dots to the right of the file and select eSignature request. You will be taken to the eSignature editor.

5. Your Inputs: Drag and drop fields from the right sidebar where your input (not the client’s) is needed anywhere in the document. For example, if a document requires a signature from both you and your client, you would place a signature field where your signature is required in the document. You will be prompted to enter your input for a field when it is placed in the document.

6. Client Inputs: Drag and drop fields from the right sidebar anywhere in the document where input from your client is required.

7. Once you have confirmed all fields are correct, click Finish, and an eSignature request will be sent to your client.

8. After sending the eSignature request, there will now be an orange indicator to the left of the file name. This indicates that an eSignature request has been sent but not yet completed (pending).

9. Once your client completes the eSignature request, you will receive an email notification and the indicator will turn green (completed).

To cancel a pending eSignature request, click the 3 dots to the right of the file and select Cancel eSignature request from the dropdown. The file will remain in the file channel, but the status indicator and all signature fields will be deleted.

You can download a file at any time by clicking the 3 dots and selecting Download.

Note: PDF files for eSignatures must be 50 pages or less.

Client experience

Email notifications

Clients will automatically receive email notifications if one or more files were uploaded by an internal user. From there, they can navigate to your portal to access the files.

Portal notifications

Clients can see files by clicking on Files on the portal sidebar. In most cases, clients will only have one files channel so there is no file channels sidebar.