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CtrlSync

Teams and SharePoint, filed with metadata and rights

Teams documents filed in M‑Files as people work

People keep working in Teams and SharePoint. CtrlSync copies the documents you want kept to M‑Files as they go, filed under the right project. Every change saves a new version, and when the team is deleted the documents are still there.

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A project's Files tab in Microsoft Teams, with its folders, and in front of it the same project in M-Files with its documents listed, each window labelled with its program.

The archive fills while people work

The team works the way it always has

Documents are saved in teams, channels and SharePoint sites as before. The ones you want kept are copied to M‑Files from there, so there is no second place to save to.

Find a document without knowing its team

Documents arrive with metadata, so you find one by its project or its type, whatever folder it sat in. One search covers every connected team and site.

Kept under your M‑Files rules

Once a document is in M‑Files it has your permissions, your workflows and a version history. You choose where it is stored: on-premise, in your own cloud or in M‑Files Cloud.

Your rules decide where each document lands

CtrlSync checks the connected teams and sites on a schedule you set and copies the documents that match your rules to M‑Files. You decide once which documents count; after that, nobody has to remember to file them.

  • The same project in Teams and in M‑Files — The team holds the folders people work in. The project in M‑Files holds the documents that came from them.
  • Connected once, copied from then on — Link a team, a channel or a SharePoint site to its project in M‑Files, and new and changed documents follow by themselves.
Diagram: documents in a Microsoft Teams window are picked up by CtrlSync, which synchronises them automatically and adds metadata as they land in an M-Files repository

Connected in three steps

  1. Create the team and its folders

    A channel or a SharePoint site works as well. We recommend a standard folder structure inside it.

  2. Put its link on the M‑Files project

    That link tells CtrlSync which project the team's documents belong to.

  3. Start the synchronisation

    Matching documents start arriving in M‑Files with their metadata.

See a team's documents filed under their project

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Filed under the right project by itself

Folders work while there are a few projects. When there are hundreds, they stop working. CtrlSync reads the folder, the file name and the team, and files each document in M‑Files by what it is and which project it belongs to, with its access rights preserved.

Each team lands on its project

A team or site is matched to its project, or to any other record in M‑Files. A project number in a channel name is enough to file its documents under the right project.

The folder says what the document is

A folder or a file name decides what kind of document it becomes in M‑Files, and can fill in other fields as well. People keep their folders, and M‑Files gets its document types. Any folder you choose can be left out.

The author stays the author

Whoever created or last changed a file in Teams or SharePoint is recorded on the document in M‑Files.

What happens to a file saved in Teams

  1. Written in Teams or SharePoint

    Documents are created and edited in the team, channel or site, in its usual folders.

  2. Copied to M‑Files

    Documents that match your rules arrive in M‑Files, filed under their project.

  3. Each change becomes a new version

    A later change in Teams or SharePoint saves a new version in M‑Files.

  4. Team or site deleted

    When the project ends and the team, channel or site is deleted, synchronisation stops.

  5. The documents stay

    Everything already copied remains in M‑Files with its metadata and history.

What it needs to run

  • M‑Files licences.
  • Any M‑Files edition, in M‑Files Cloud or on-premise, with M‑Files 25.1 or later on the server and in the clients.
  • CtrlSync added as a Microsoft Azure application on your company's tenant.
  • A vault application, installed in M‑Files Admin, and an object type in the vault for the connected teams and sites.

The set-up guide is in the CtrlSync documentation.

Watch a team's documents land in M‑Files

Tell us which teams or sites hold the documents you could least afford to lose. We'll show you a team's files arriving in M‑Files with their metadata, then a change becoming a new version.

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Questions about CtrlSync

Do we choose which documents go to M‑Files?
Yes. CtrlSync adds the documents that match the configuration, and the configuration is yours to set. Each team, channel, SharePoint site or sub-site is connected to its record in M‑Files, and rules decide how the folder and the document name set the kind of document and its other fields. The creator and last modifier are matched to M‑Files users by email address, read-only users in the vault included.
Which Teams files does it cover?
The files in a team's or channel's document library, which includes files people post in channel conversations. See how it works for archiving Microsoft Teams documents.
What happens when the team, channel or site is deleted?
Synchronisation ends and the documents stay in M‑Files, with the metadata and the version history they arrived with. That is the point of archiving them this way: a team can be closed when the project ends without taking the record with it. A single document deleted in Teams or SharePoint also stays in M‑Files once it has been synchronised, and a property records that it was deleted at the source.
How often does it synchronise?
You set the frequency, anywhere from every minute to once a day. Our documentation recommends between 2 and 30 times an hour. A change made in Teams or SharePoint becomes a new version in M‑Files at the next run.
Can people edit a synchronised document from M‑Files?
That is a choice in the configuration. You can prevent editing from M‑Files, so that Teams or SharePoint stays the only place a document is changed, or you can allow it, in which case the file is checked out in Teams while the edit is in progress.
What happens when a file fails to synchronise?
Somebody is told. CtrlSync can create an M‑Files assignment for the owner of the connected team or site whenever a file fails to download, and put the source into an error workflow state you define. Sources that end up in an error state are checked again on a schedule of their own.
Where are the documents stored, and under which rules?
Where you decide: on-premise, in your own cloud or in M‑Files Cloud. Once they are in the vault, M‑Files permissions, workflows and version history apply to them, and full-text search covers every synchronised site at once. Each incoming document can start in the workflow state and with the permissions you choose.
Can CtrlSync and CtrlShare run in the same vault?
Yes. The two co-exist in the same vault, and we'll go through setting them up together with you.
Is there a trial?
Yes: 30 days, like every CtrlDocs product. We demonstrate CtrlSync and help set up a demo environment so you can try it yourself. We answer the same working day.

More CtrlDocs add-ons for M‑Files

CtrlPortals

Dashboards and UI that make M‑Files yours

Record pages, forms, boards and dashboards inside M‑Files, set up around your own records for any process. Open a project, a customer or a document and see everything that belongs to it.

See CtrlPortals 

CtrlShare

Co-author in Office on any M‑Files, cloud or on-premise

Open an M‑Files document for colleagues and outside parties to edit together, in desktop Office or the browser. It comes back to M‑Files as a new version.

See CtrlShare 

CtrlScout

AI for your M‑Files vault, cloud or on-premise

Ask your M‑Files vault in plain words. CtrlScout finds the records, counts and charts them, summarises documents, drafts the email and suggests the details for a new document. It only sees what you can see.

See CtrlScout 

CtrlProcesses

Show your people how the work is done, inside M‑Files

Your Elements.cloud process maps inside M‑Files. Every step leads to its procedure, the record it produces and the standards that apply.

See CtrlProcesses 

CtrlTeams

Microsoft Teams, governed from M‑Files

Start a project in M‑Files and its team in Microsoft Teams is ready, with the right people in it and your folders and templates in place. What they write there is kept in M‑Files.

See CtrlTeams 

CtrlConnect

M‑Files details, right inside Teams and Outlook

An M‑Files link pasted into Teams or Outlook shows the record's title and description, and in Teams it comes with buttons that open the record. You can also search M‑Files from the Teams chat, on a phone too.

See CtrlConnect 

CtrlTime

Time tracking where the work happens

Record hours in a calendar inside M‑Files, on the customer or project they belong to. Approved weeks feed payroll, invoicing and project follow-up.

See CtrlTime 

FancyLinks

M‑Files links with the details built in

M‑Files links that show which document and which version they point to, and open it directly. Free to use.

See FancyLinks