Sharing Folders or Items

You can share folders and items, such as files or change requests, between views if the views belong to projects that are located on the same server configuration. You can also share a folder or item at two locations in the same view.

Branching a view negates all shares, not just the ones between parent and child views.

Keep in mind the following points about sharing folders or items:

• When you branch a view, any manual shares between items in the same view are not retained in the view’s child view.
• When a folder is shared, users of both views can access its contents, including its child folders and their contents.
• As a rule, the behavior of the shared item is governed by the Set items Shared Into View to Branch on Change property of the new view, not by that of its parent view. If the new view is a reference view (that is, a view that does not permit branching), it does not have that property, so the shared item’s Branch on change setting is controlled by the setting of its parent view.
• The “branch on change” behavior of a shared item is specific to the folder it is in and the Branch on change check box is selected by default for the shared file.
• Tasks and topics do not have branching behavior so this view property does not affect them.
• If a folder or item is shared, its configuration (floating, based on a label, a promotion state, or a point in time) is initially identical in both views. However, the configuration can be modified in either view, which means that shared items can differ. To freeze shared folders or items, you must configure each of them to a specific date and time. Once items have been shared into a view, you can change their branching behavior on an item-by-item basis.
• Shared folders or items have the access rights originally set for them at the folder or item level, until they branch in their new location. Branching creates a new object that initially has no access rights at the folder or item levels.
• The shared folder or item loses any labels it had in the previous view. Labels cannot be moved from view to view. However, the shared folder or item will have all the labels you attach to them in their new location regardless of whether they branch or not.