Questions about this training? We've got answers! Post your questions here.
Audience
Project managers and project creators
Description
Box is an online file sharing system that is good for larger organizations with security needs above and beyond DropBox. For customers who share documents within their organization via Box, Project Insight offers an out of the box integration with Box's file system. The Box integration allows your organization to leverage the power of Project Insight's project management software and document management features like routing files for approval, or adding comments, together with the external storage system and features of Box.
Benefits
- Learn how to access Box files while using document management features like approvals and comments in PI
- Leverage all the external storage system features of Box within PI
- Integrate Box with PI without duplicating files in two places
Key Points
Turning on Box Integration
Associate Your Box Account to PI
Synchronize a New or Existing Folder
Display Options for Box Folders
Adding Files
Re-Synchronization of Folders
View a File
Download a File
Collaborating on a Document
Approving a Document
Version Control
Deleting Synched Files
Adding Files to Project Insight Only
Other Tips and Tricks
Transcript
As project managers, you know that documents are an integral part of your project management process.
You will create all kinds of documents for a number of different reasons. They may be general project management documents such as a project charter or they could be more specific project assets or deliverables like graphics, test plans, architectural drawings and so on.
Project Insight does come with its own document management functionality that includes version control, check in and check out, and approvals. However, a lot of organizations have invested in document management solutions that they use for their entire organization, not just their project management functions. One of those types of systems is Box.
Box is a versatile, online file sharing system that permits documents to be stored securely and shared from anywhere.
As part of Project Insight’s commitment to integrating with other best of breed software applications, you can use the Box document sharing solution and leverage all the external storage system features of Box but from within the Project Insight application. This allows your project teams to ‘live’ in their portfolio and project management (PPM) system. You can access files in Box while using the advanced features of Project Insight such as adding comments for collaboration and routing files for approval.
With this out of the box integration, you only store one copy of the files, in Box, but the team may access them from Project Insight or Box.
Turning on Box Integration
To get started with the Box integration, you need to set up your Box account.
Then you are going to need to turn on the feature in Project Insight.
Only system administrators are able to turn on the box integration.
Expand your left navigation.
Click on the Administration section to expand it out.
Click on System Configuration to expand that section out.
Click on Security.
Click on the option to Enable Box Single Sign-On.
Associate Your Box Account to PI
Once you have the Box Integration turned on, you then need to associate your Box account with Project Insight.
Hover on your user name and click Edit Profile.
Click on the Single Sign-On tab.
If you are not able to edit your own user profile, you will have to get your user manager to do these steps for you.
Click in the Box User Name and enter your full account name.
If you do not associate your Box account with your PI account here, when you attempt to synchronize a folder from Box, Project Insight will prompt you to login to Box. The act of logging into Box through the prompt will automatically associate your Box account with your Project Insight account.
That is the set up portion of Box.
Synchronize a New or Existing Folder
Now you can synchronize folders in Box with projects, tasks, issues, folders or other items in Project Insight.
For now, let’s assume you have all your files for a project uploaded into Box and you want to connect the project in Project Insight with that folder.
Click on Folders to expand that section out.
Click on Projects.
Click on the Software Development project.
Hover on Views and click Documents.
Hover on the Add icon and select Folder.
Click in the drop down for sync with box.com folder.
If you have not associated your Box account, you will get a message that you need to login. If you get that, click the login option and follow the options.
Otherwise, you will be able to see the folders set up in Box.
Enter the name of the folder that you will see in Project Insight, such as Project Files.
Click Save.
That Box folder is now listed.
You will see a new icon indicating this is a synchronized folder.
Click on the link.
You will see all the files that were stored in Box are now displayed as if they were files loaded in Project Insight.
It is a seamless integration. Your team will not know that they are even looking at files that are stored in Box.
There are two additional icons that are available.
The icon with a magnifying lens indicates a "preview" button for "preview file" or "preview folder" and will take you to Box to view the folder or file when clicked.
The large blue download button also takes you to Box to perform a direct download of the folder.
Notice that the Type column displays the standard type of the file or folder but is then post-fixed with "- Box" indicating that this file or folder can be found within the Box system.
Display Options for Box Folders
You can add columns to your view that are specific to the Bbox integration.
Click the Page Display Options icon.
Scroll down to the Available Columns that start with the letter L.
Double click on Last Synched.
Scroll down to the Available Columns that start with the letter S.
Double click on Synched By.
Click on both those columns in the Selected Column and click the up arrow to position them just before the Admin column.
Click the Update Display icon.
These allow you to see the last time this folder was synchronized and by whom.
Adding Files
You can add files right to the Box folder from within Project Insight.
Hover on the Add icon and select Add Files to Box.
This will take you to the folder in Box, where you can utilize all the Box functionality that is available.
Click Upload to store a new document in Box.
Click Upload File.
Select a File.
Click back on the Project Insight tab.
Re-Synchronization of Folders
To see updates of those new files or new folders in Box, click the Synchronize icon.
View a File
To view a file, click on the Preview icon.
You are switch to Box and the file is displayed using the Box preview functionality. You then have all the available functionality in Box.
Click back on the Project Insight tab.
Download a File
Click the Download icon.
You will be taken to the Box download form. What displays here will be depend on your Box confirmation.
For example, in this instance you have to click on an additional link.
Click back on the Project Insight tab.
All of the standard Project Insight functionality is available to you for a Box file that is integrated with Project Insight.
For example, to collaborate on a document, click on the document name.
Click the Add Comment option.
Type your comment such as Looks Good.
Click Save.
The comment gets date and time stamped.
You can get more details on collaborating in that training session.
Approving a Document
You can also send this document through an approval process,
Click on the Approvals tab.
Click on the Add Approvals icon – which is the plus sign.
You are taken to the Approvals request form.
The name of the approval and the items to be approved are automatically selected.
Click on the Approvers tab.
Click in the drop down to select the Approvers.
Set Your Approval options, such as whether or not all approvers must approve or just one of them and if there are multiple approvers whether or not the approvals must be routed sequentially.
More details on the approvals process can be found in the training session titled, Routing Items for Approvals and Electronic Signatures.
Ensure Activate and Send Approval Request is checked.
Click Save.
The Approval Request will be listed.
Version Control
One feature that you may not want to use in Project Insight if you are synchronizing to Box files is the version control feature.
Box has its own version control functionality, so you may want to use that and not the Project Insight version functionality.
The file displayed in Project Insight will always be the latest version in box.
Hover on Views and select Documents to return to the documents folder.
Click on Project Files again.
Deleting Synched Files
You do have the delete option available for the Box Files in Project Insight.
Click on the Delete icon.
This deletes the file link from Project Insight only. It does not not affect the file stored in Box.
Click the Synchronize option again.
You will see that file gets listed again.
If you want to delete a file, you must first delete it from Box, then delete it from Project Insight.
Adding Files to Project Insight Only
If you hover on the Add icon, you can see that you can still add have functionality to add files to Project Insight and not box, and this is with the Add Files and Multiple Files icon.
If you use those functions, it is important to note that you are then using the document management functionality in Project Insight and not the Box document functionality.
If you find you accidently do that instead of adding the file to Box, just delete the file and use the Add Files to Box function.
Other Tips and Tricks
A couple of other things that you should note:
You can only perform a direct download from Box if you are an enterprise user of Box, otherwise you will be redirected to the Box preview and from there you can download the file.
The synchronization can only be performed on an entire folder from Box and the synchronization is one way, meaning files and folders are pulled from Box into Project Insight, but no files or folders added to Project Insight are pushed to Box. You need to use the Add File to Box function to do that, and that takes you into box itself to add the file.
Only people who are listed as a Collaborator in Box can perform a synchronization.
For Box folders, you may want to turn off notifications of new items added. Otherwise, you may see a lot of notifications after synchronization.
Lastly, Project Insight will not attempt to "match" file names from items within the Project Insight File System to those on Box before synchronizing a folder. All items added from Box are treated as entirely new items. However, this is only true for items added from Project Insight and not items added from Box.