Include sub-folders in Shared Folder (aka Public Folders)

Idea shared by kevind - 12/16/2015 at 8:54 AM

Completed

SM can only share one folder at a time and it doesn't include sub-folders. If you want to share many folders, you need to share every folder individually, and the recipients need to attach every folder individually. This is cumbersome.

The fix: allow sub-folders inside a shared folder like other servers (Exchange, MDaemon, etc.)

Example: Your business has 25 customers, so you create a Customer folder with a sub-folder for each customer to save orders, returns, etc. Then you share that Customer folder so employees can access the 25 sub-folders.

Please add this feature so the business doesn't have to share 25 folders individually and have every employee attach them. And when the business gets a new customer, they can create the sub-folder and everyone sees it automatically.

Thanks,

Kevin

31 Replies

Reply to Thread

Ubiquitas Replied

9/22/2016 at 10:11 AM

yep, this is crazy - long overdue feature...

kevind Replied

9/22/2016 at 11:37 AM

Agreed! If you haven't already, click the 'up' button in the subject box to vote for this item. Supposedly, the more votes, the more likely it ST will consider it for a future version.

Anne Campbell Replied

3/30/2017 at 6:54 AM

Long over due this is a nightmare, if you are sharing a folder it should be all contents of that folder ie a subfolder

Nathan Replied

1/28/2019 at 3:44 PM

Is this on the roadmap for 'v17' ?

Anne Campbell Replied

2/28/2019 at 7:56 AM

If it was on the Road map its got lost !!!!!!!!!

Just upgraded to V17 and you cant have shared sub folders let alone share them automatically.

"Example: Your business has 25 customers, so you create a Customer folder with a sub-folder for each customer to save orders, returns, etc. Then you share that Customer folder so employees can access the 25 sub-folders. "

so lets say each customer has 4 sub folders thats 125 folders you have to share individually and then each users has to individually map 125 folders. Once thats done you are left with a list of 125 folders to scroll through each time your looking for something!!!!!

Matt Petty Replied

2/28/2019 at 10:28 AM

Employee Post

Hello,

I just spoke to Tim about how we should really consider doing this. I noticed some traction on this request lately and now we are an a release cadence that better allows us to introduce features like these. However, at the moment our focus is on MAPI and that will be our next major feature release. Once we have cleared that obstacle though, through our discussions it seems like this will be one of the features we focus on after MAPI. As such I have added a Task into our list, and I have upgraded this from Proposed to Planned. Please continue to post here any additional ideas or opinions on the feature and we can keep an eye on this.

Yay!

Matt Petty Software Developer SmarterTools Inc. (877) 357-6278 www.smartertools.com

J Lee Replied

2/28/2019 at 11:22 AM

Hi Everyone

Moving my post to here.

https://portal.smartertools.com/community/a91668/shared-email-folder-sm-15-vers-sm-17.aspx#119749

I'm writing to ask our community about the functionality of Shared Resources. In the interest of bring the shared resources into a place where the utility aspect of these features are humming like a fine tuned engine, I wanted to bring up some mud bogs we have run into.

1.a. Shared Email Folders - I have a client that shares 1000s of email folders with all his employees. When upgrading from SM 15 to SM 17, they lost 70% or more of there shares, the shares are gone. The email folder are just not shared any more. There is no option on a Top Level folder to say share all sub folders with everyone.

1.b. Mapping Email Folders - There should be a setting where you can auto accept all shares that are sent to you. With 1000s of shared resources this can be very time consuming to accept every single share one at a time.

2. I see that you have search Shared Contact lists, this is great, I had suggested this a couple of years ago and nice to see it works great.

3. Email Shares and Search capabilities - First the search of a large Inbox seems very slow and you can not search all your folders at once nor can you search any Shared Email Folders. Shouldn't you be able to search all folders a once for a lost email?

4.a. Calendar Shares – I think this is coming in SM 17, The ability to View/Edit Shared Calendars in Outlook desktop and Mobile

4.b. Calendar Shares – The ability to add a Shared Calendar to a webpage, via WordPress Plugin or iframe code.

4.c. Calendar API – Is it possible for me to hire a WordPress Plugin developer to create a Calendar Plugin for Smartermail?

Anyone please add to the list.

J. Sebastian Lee Service2Client LLC 6333 E Mockingbird Ste 147 Dallas, TX 75214 - 877.251.3273

Anne Campbell Replied

3/1/2019 at 2:42 AM

Matt

It is positive that you have taken on board the Sharing Feature has taken a backwards step from version 15

However perhaps if your "design / development team" had to sit for days / hours reinstating shares lost during an upgrade which are only going to result in a longer messy list of folders for each user ( who is also going to have to sit and map each folder individually), the importance of fixing this feature would quickly become appartant.

They are welcome to remote access my server and help sort out the mess I've been left with after the upgrade from Version 15 to 17 to help understand their impact on users.

Matt Petty Replied

3/1/2019 at 7:24 AM

Employee Post

Anna, users have never had the capabilities to share their subfolders. We only changed how we display nested folders from a share, that's why it looks different between 15 and 17, this was a deliberate change. But we understand we need to implement this feature and reintroduce shared folder nesting. After seeing the user you have with their use case and some other's have mentioned their use cases here recently. We will be going back to how we displayed multiple shared folders, they will become nested again and with this feature they will be able to share their entire subfolder tree at once.

Matt Petty Software Developer SmarterTools Inc. (877) 357-6278 www.smartertools.com

Anne Campbell Replied

3/1/2019 at 7:47 AM

Matt, I understand sharing subfolders was never a feature I dedicated days of my life sharing folders to produce a nest structure which worked perfectly in Version 15

I read you had improved the sharing process in version 16 /17 to reduce the number of clicks required to share a folder this was music to my ears as I know how timeconsuming it was to share folders.

Sorry if I am repeating my self but

The issue I face today is all my Version 15 shares were lost in the upgrade. If samrter mail are unable to offer a way of reteiving these I need to spend a long time reproducing these links and the end result is going to be one long not very user friendly list.

We only changed how we display nested folders from a share, that's why it looks different between 15 and 17, this was a deliberate change.

My offer to let your team see how these deliberate changes inpact on daily use is still open! Also you state only the way they folders are viewed have changed this is not true, each user now has to sit and Map each individal folder. where in version 15 you could go to list select as many as you wish and say attach. It took time but is you select all and went for lunch you could come back to it having been done. Now have to sit and map each one individually. A backwards step!!!

Do you have a timescale for when you plan to go back to nested view?

Do you have a timescale for when you plan to introduce the ability to share the entire tree at once?

Matt Petty Replied

3/1/2019 at 8:03 AM

Employee Post

Yes, this is one of our priority items after MAPI so if you follow our MAPI development, that can give you a good idea when we will start working on this.

https://portal.smartertools.com/community/a89901/mapi-support.aspx

Matt Petty Software Developer SmarterTools Inc. (877) 357-6278 www.smartertools.com

Anne Campbell Replied

3/4/2019 at 1:39 AM

Hi Matt

Sorry that doesnt answer my questions

Looking at the link you have shared there is no timescale for MAPI.

What deadline has been given to your developers for MAPI Development?

Do you have a timescale for when you plan to go back to nested view?
Do you have a timescale for when you plan to introduce the ability to share the entire tree at once?

Anne Campbell Replied

3/4/2019 at 8:05 AM

Sharing across domains is a request Samrtermail receive frequently according to this post it woudl be good to see this feature implemented

https://portal.smartertools.com/community/a1373/chat-shared-resources-over-multiple-domains.aspx#119825

Anne Campbell Replied

3/4/2019 at 9:33 AM

Needle in Haystack !!!!

So in Januuary Tim Said "We're excited to announce that we are committing to April for MAPI being released." So tat answers my first question:

What deadline has been given to your developers for MAPI Development?

Do you have a timescale for when you plan to go back to nested view?
Do you have a timescale for when you plan to introduce the ability to share the entire tree at once?

Anne Campbell Replied

3/6/2019 at 1:40 AM

We really need the nested view back to be able to make Smartermail work in our organisation

Can you advise if or when it will come back?

Anne Campbell Replied

3/6/2019 at 8:45 AM

Sharing resources with others within your organization is crucial. From sharing calendars, contacts, tasks, notes and email folders, to event and conference room scheduling, having a true team collaboration server leads to a more effective, and efficient, business.

couldn't agree more, but how do we achieve this in Smarter mail 17?

Sharing resources across a company, department or group of users is simple in SmarterMail. Items can be shared right from within the webmail client, and SmarterMail even supports permission levels, allowing users to specify whether items are read-only or editable on a per user or group basis.

it is not simple each resource has to be shared separately and then accepted individually by each user, so if you have 1000 email folders to share across an organisation. The source has to share each of the 1000 folders separately and then each user has to accept each of the 1000 folders individually, leads to a more effective, and efficient, business. maybe once its set up but getting there is going to have to be the biggest team collaboration ever under gone. "Do you remember the days we all sat mapping folders?"

Anne Campbell Replied

3/8/2019 at 2:27 AM

Good News

I received a response yesterday to my open ticket regarding sharing issues which stated:

We'll have a release out either today or tomorrow that resolves this issue and some other sharing issues.

J Lee Replied

3/14/2019 at 12:57 PM

This does not appear to be addressed in the latest update for March 10?

J. Sebastian Lee Service2Client LLC 6333 E Mockingbird Ste 147 Dallas, TX 75214 - 877.251.3273

Anne Campbell Replied

3/15/2019 at 3:59 AM

Disappointingly I don't think Smarter mail know what they are doing, all ive had back from them:

"Sorry for the delay. We're still looking into this."

getting no straight answers

Anne Campbell Replied

3/26/2019 at 2:30 AM

Still waiting on an answer

Employee Replied

11/11/2019 at 3:38 PM

Employee Post

I've moved Michael's response to it's own thread as a feature request. You will find it here, https://portal.smartertools.com/community/a92576/file-sharing.aspx#124036

kevind Replied

11/12/2019 at 8:04 AM

Hi Emily,

Just following up on the original request from 2015 -- to share one folder and automatically include any and all sub-folders. I see it's marked as Planned which is great, and even recall seeing some recent discussion in other threads. Do you have a rough idea when it might be available?

Thanks,
Kevin

Matt Petty Replied

11/12/2019 at 9:27 AM

Employee Post

@kevind,

It is currently implemented in our MAPI release we don't have any public builds with this in but we implemented that a couple weeks ago into our codebase. Along with other sharing improvements and changes.

UPDATE: As of Build 7459 (June 3, 2020) it is now possible to share primary and/or secondary email folders.

Matt Petty Software Developer SmarterTools Inc. (877) 357-6278 www.smartertools.com

kevind Replied

5/6/2021 at 5:59 AM

Looks like the status of this thread changed today, so good time to ask a follow-up question...

Any chance this enhancement will make it into IMAP or webmail? Then everyone could take advantage of this feature, not just Outlook users.

Thanks!

ScottF Replied

5/6/2021 at 12:06 PM

I was able to share a folder and sub-folders with an another account in SM Build 7793. I could view the folders and sub-folders in WebMail under "Shared With Me". I could view the root shared folder in ThunderBird and Outlook set up with IMAP but not the sub-folders.