Document file sizes and recommendations

This article will provide recommendations regarding some of the settings used for files that are uploaded to workspaces and associated to documents, as well as some recommendations on compressing files.

File formats and recommendations when uploading files

It is important that the files uploaded to the workspace via the Assets tab in the Documents module follow the below requirements, otherwise errors may occur:

• The file name must include the file extension (.pdf / .xls / etc.) in order to be uploaded.
  When compressing files using a Mac, the file name may be removed. Please check before uploading a file that the extension is present in the file name.
  
  
• Please ensure that the file name does not contain any special characters at all, including any periods ".", otherwise the file will not be uploaded.
  
  
• When creating a .zip file containing multiple documents, using a Mac, in view of uploading the zip file as a bulk upload of documents, please check that no additional superfluous files were created automatically in the resulting .zip file. If there are some superfluous files there, please delete them as otherwise they will be uploaded to your workspace. This only happens with Mac, not with Windows. 

Compressing files

As a general rule, non-video files that are uploaded to Backstage should not exceed 100 MB.

We recommend that you always compress the files that you upload, as smaller files will work more smoothly in the workspace.

There are a number of tools that can be used to reduce the size of your files to make them more manageable. The tool you use will depend on the type of file.

PDF files

smallpdf.com is an easy to use and reliable tool that reduces the size of your files while keeping quality loss at a minimum (if any).

Images

For mac users, ImageOptim is easy to use and compresses photos and graphics up to 60% without any quality loss. Windows users can also use IrfanView.

Video files

We recommend that you use the Video library to upload your videos (up to 4 GB), in view of using them in pages and feed posts, or for playing them during live sessions to your audience.

Instruction on how you can compress video files are also available.

Online or offline availability

Online or offline availability is applicable to mobile apps only, and is only applicable to app versions prior to Eventspace 2.0.

Available online only (recommended)

We recommend that files are uploaded to workspaces with the setting Available online only.

This means that the app user will have to be online to access the file for the first time. Once the file has been accessed, it will be cached on their device and it will become available offline.

This approach ensures a quick activation process and does not take up additional storage on user's devices.

Available offline (not recommended)

If app users will not have access to internet after they initially activate the workspace, we recommend that you select the Available offline setting for your documents.

With this setting, files will be downloaded to the device during workspace activation and will be available for viewing at any time.

Important: Using the Available offline setting can significantly increase the mobile app activation time for the user. On average, only 3% of all interactions with SpotMe apps are carried out while the user is offline so using this setting is often quite unnecessary.