Transcript
I am Garima Arora, Product Manager for the Platform Team. Joining me today are Ajinkya and Amit. Ajinkya, do you mind sharing your screen and we can go over the agenda first? So for those of you who are new to Product Office Hours, what do we do here? We provide the live product demos, followed by a focused Q&A section. We look at new features, standard use cases, and most importantly, the best practices. Our goal is to folder. We want you to master the platform and we want to direct dialogue with you and help you with any queries. We are here for you every Wednesday, 11 to 11.30 a.m. EST. Mark your calendars. A quick housekeeping before we get started. All the registrants receive automated email within 24 to 48 hours with the recording of the sessions. You can always watch the recordings on YouTube as well. For the rolling weekly schedule, that can be found at our university calendar. If you are facing any technical issues, let us know in the Q&A section. The Q&A section is basically the one on your right top screen, the question mark icon. Basically, use that for all your questions and answers that you want to ask or if you are facing any difficulties in the session. With that, I will hand over to Ajinkya to present us for today's topic. Thank you. Thanks very much. I'm going to get started. As all of you are aware, and I believe we've made quite a lot of noise around this, the file sharing feature in ConnectWise of the platform is soon going to be live. We will soon get into early access at the start of next week. But what we've done as part of enabling file sharing for partners, we've ensured that partners now have a left navigation menu available where they can upload, view, delete, and download files. We've also integrated this into the script editor so that these files can be distributed across endpoints by running automations and then use in subsequent steps. One of the most common use cases that we've come across is installers, where you want to distribute installers across endpoints and eventually have the installer runs on those endpoints and install the softwares. Now, one of the things to notice, this is going to be behind permissions, and I'll talk a little more about it. And we've also ensured that when you're uploading files, there will be malware scans that will be happening. So before any file gets uploaded into the file storage, we'll ensure that the file is free. Set that. I'm going to move to the demo now. So what you see or what partners are going to get is a new left nav menu item, which will be called file sharing under the settings menu. Now, before I start talking about the page here, I do want to call out the permissions that are going to be used to control this on the ConnectOS home page where you have the user and application settings. We will have a new file sharing menu that will be present a new domain under which we will have four permissions. It's going to be view, upload, delete and download. These are going to be all or nothing permissions as we do our early access release. But we do understand the requirements for granularity. And I can tell you that we've already started the work towards it, which means that granular permissions, something that is similar to scripting will also be made soon available with respect to functions. Once again, these permissions will be enabled by default for primary super admin and super. All right. As I go into the file sharing section, I'll just walk you through the UI and then we look at the upload flow as part of the early access release. I do want to call out that what you are going to get is only one folder, which is going to be the documents folder. And a user can start uploading files there. What you see is already a structure that is present with respect to ability to add new folders. That's going to be an incremental release. We are still working on it. So I just want to call out that it's going to be one folder documents under which you will have the ability to upload files. Once you upload the file, you'll see you'll be able to see the name of the file, the type of the file. One thing to call out here is there is no restriction on the file type. Any file type can be uploaded. You'll see more metadata with respect to size, uploaded on, uploaded by. One field that you have is scan status. Now, as soon as the file gets uploaded, it undergoes a malware scan. There will be three statuses that would be reflected here. It would either be clean, pending when the file gets uploaded, or infected. If a file is infected, it will not be available for download, and it will be auto first of the 70s. Last access is a field which essentially refers to the fact that if you have this file reference inside of the script editor where we have a new download function present, it's going to, you will have, you will see the timestamp reflected here with the automation runs on that particular machine. You will, you will see when this file was last accessed. This is kind of, this also helps in housekeeping in terms of identifying which of these files are getting used regularly and which of them can be, which of them can be removed. And then on the two dot menu, you'll have two actions, which is going to be download and delete. Of course, we'll add more actions with respect to move and rename, but that will be part of subsequent releases. On top, you have the ability to see how much storage you are using. By default, for all partners today, we will have 25 GB of free storage enabled for all of them. This is going to be configurable for partner based on the requirements. So we do understand that some partners are going to have needs that will go beyond 25 GB. So we will, in terms of how to go about that, that is something that we can take on a case-to-case basis. Now, with respect to the upload flow, as you can see, you have the upload button here, as well as here. So if you are inside a folder, you can use the upload button here. If you directly want to upload it at this location, you can use the upload button here. As soon as I click upload, one of the things that I want to call out is today we have an upload limit of 4 GB or less. So each file must be 4 GB or smaller when you are going for an upload. So I go here and I choose a file. I'm just going to choose a file which is very small so I can show the flow. So I'm going to choose a characterised wallpaper. As you can see, it immediately starts uploading. As soon as the upload is complete, the file gets updated on the portal behind or on the UI behind. We will be working on improving this flow as well, where you will directly see the UI and not see this window at all. But right now, what you can see is this file has been successfully uploaded. So I'm just going to close this as you can see. Search for it. The characterised wallpaper file was uploaded and it went into pending status. Now, like I mentioned inside of the script editor, this file will only be available to use once the scan status determines it as being. Alright, now I'm going to go to the upload flow once again. I'm going to try to upload the same file. So if I, if I try to upload the same file, you will get a message which says the following file or files already exist. Do you want to replace it? So you hear you will have the choice to replace it. If I want to replace it, I can just go ahead and replace. If I want to cancel, I can cancel. One of the things that I do want to call out is if you replace a file with the same name and it is being used inside of an automation and it is being used inside of an automation inside the script editor, that automation will not fail. It will continue to proceed as flat. So if you replace a file with a file with the same name, the automations will not fail. Alright, and then I'm going to go to another flow here. So I'm going to try to upload a file that's essentially quite big in size. So I'm going to say take this one. So as soon as I tried to upload this, you saw that it threw a message which said that your upload could not be completed because you would surpass the given quota of 25 GB. As you can see right now, I'm at 24.67 GB and the file was around 1 GB. So it gave me a message that I'm not allowed to upload this file. And then I'm going to try and upload a file that's relatively less just to show the flow of the file. So I'm going to take this one. So as you can see, it starts uploading here. When it's uploading, you get the option to cancel the upload from here. If you selected one or more files, you can even choose this. This gives you the ability to cancel all in progress uploads. And this is at an item level where you have the ability to cancel the upload that's for that particular file. Right. So these are the flows that we have with respect to upload. Now, once you are happy and once you have uploaded this file into the file storage or file sharing, we now have an integration with script editor where we've introduced a new function. So I'm just going to show you that inside of the script editor, I've written a script, which is download wallpaper. I want to download a wallpaper to a specific destination. The new function is going to be called connect by sharing. When I edit on it, I'm going to see have or I'm going to see all the files that are essentially clean. So I will not see anything that is pending. I will not see anything that is infected. I will see all the files. You will see the same older structure that you see on the file sharing section. And then you can go ahead. And so what you have to do is choose the file that you want to download here. So I'm just going to choose a file that's clean. So the selection is done. And I also want to choose an output path or the path where I want this file to be downloaded on that end point. So I've chosen this path and I'm going to say save. Under script block, what I've written is a function which says percent output percent. So that's to just to print what's happening with the file download function. Just going to set up one new point. So you can see I schedule the task here so the task is now going to run. And in the meanwhile what I'm going to try and see is the scan still oh I'm still on my page. So if you see the file that I had uploaded the cw wallpaper the scan status changed to clean which means that if I wanted to use this inside of my automation I could do that as well. Now I'm going to go here and see the status of the task that I just ran. All right so as you can see the task that I'm successfully. And because I pretend course and output person it gave me file download.png this was the file that we chose was downloaded successfully. Now I also have the same endpoint open remotely. So as you can see at the location that I had mentioned see users are doing a pattern for downloads. I have the download.png wallpaper that has been downloaded to the machine. One more thing that I want to call is if you schedule the same download on a machine again and again that particular file is going to get overwritten. So you're not going to see copies of the file. It's going to be one file which will keep on getting overwritten the number of times you download it. All right I think that summarizes everything I had. I do want to go back to my presentation and talk a little more about when these releases are coming out. So if you can see on the right side right hand side of the screen we are planning incremental releases for early access partners. That's going to be the AU region on the 22nd the EU region on the 23rd and the NA region on the 24th. Now we are actually inviting partners for early access the QR code that you see here. If you quickly scan it with your mobile you should be able to express your interest in getting this enabled as early access partners for you. Once this is in early access and stable we are planning to have this as a GA release to all our partners in the second week of July. Apart from that we also have a few improvements that partners have requested that are coming out which is add drop down by parameter in script editor. We did not support that. We're almost they're actually done with testing. We should be able to get this released out in the next week. We also have show available variables in script editor. Today there's not a lot of visibility around what are the what all variables you can use when you are inside of the script editor with respect to system variables. The user variables that you've defined the predefined variables that you've defined are the output variables. So this is going to be available when you are inside of your script editor when you're writing your script steps. And then you might have seen a glimpse of script isolation present as well when I was demoing it. So this is also something that we are actively developing and right now looks like we should we should be able to release this out around 15th or 3rd week of July. All right. Having said that I'm going to take a pause here and see if there are any questions. Yeah there are a couple of questions in here. A few interesting ones. I think everybody was looking initially for that QR code so you can stay on the screen so that they can scan it and fill it out so we can get those requests. Again for users who are signing up for early access the dates are 22nd of June for AU, 23rd for EU, and 24th for North America. It will be in batches so we have a great participation for early access from partners so we'll get those things enabled as soon as possible. Again from a recording perspective all these sessions have been recorded. You are going to get these recording links. It's also going to go back into our YouTube channel as well so you can see it from there. One question that I think though I've answered but I wanted to talk about that. What do we gain from using this versus OneDrive or other cloud storage? So one of the main points that partners have been talking about a lot is we do have other functions that support file storage. We have support for SFTP, we have support for HTTP but one of the things that is challenging is the maintenance part. If there are issues that happen with respect to failures or troubleshooting that you need to do, you essentially have to go to another tool or another solution to look at what the status of that file is over there. You also need to maintain two different permission sets with respect to who can access a particular file and who is allowed to run that inside of ConnectWise or inside of the ConnectWise platform to access it, to run it so that it can be distributed to the endpoint. So all of this now is unified and comes under one umbrella where you have the file sharing which is again under the same permissions that ConnectWise offers as a platform. So you can control all the things from one single pin across. You kind of covered a few more questions that were present. Will there be granular permissions available for that? And I think what you said it's an incremental improvement, right? Yes. So granular permissions, like I said, we're already planning for this. It's going to be very similar to what we have with respect to script sharing today where you have the granular ability to share it with a particular role, share it with everyone, just keep the file restricted to who uploaded it or just have it shared with across or have global access where a user, someone like a primary super admin gets access to every day. So you'll be able to do a lot because sharing along with permissions will give you the flexibility to determine who gets to see what file. I also want to add that when folders get introduced, the sharing option will get extended to folders as well and not just files. So you'll be able to even share folders with the user roles and not just files. Perfect. Great. Just talking about those downloads, will the download task of the script be audit logged along with the script and will uploads also be audit logged? Yes, everything will be audit logged. So we already have auditing in place today. All user actions that will be performed with respect to basically anything that you have on the platform today, but yes, with respect to file sharing, all of it will get logged. So yes, you should be able to see all of that data. Right. And just to iterate, we have audits feature as well that's in the early access. So it will be visible only for our partners who are on the early access. We are further improving it based on the feedback that the partner provides. So it's not gone to a GA, full GA yet, but that's soon coming in as well. All right. A few more questions here. Will there be a way to increase the storage capacity beyond that 25 gigs that you offer out of the box? Yes. So we are certainly anticipating that some of some partners are going to have needs of storage that will go beyond 25 GB. And like I mentioned today, when we are doing our early access, we have this enabled us 25 GB for all partners. Incrementally, we are going to make this configurable by partner. So what this means in terms of consuming more space, I think we are in the process of defining that. And once we have more clarity, we will definitely share. That's great. Next question up here is, will there be any way to script adding files to a file sharing? That is, I want to regularly upload a new software version to replace the old one, like the fully automated way of putting a new file instead of doing it manually. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't fully understand that. Can you come again? Sure. I think the partners are looking at it as the file sharing that we are offering. It's a manual upload. Would there be a way by which I can automatically say whatever file is present over here, just upload it so that they don't need to do it manually? So we are looking for feedback around that because when we built this function, we also spoke about having a potential function to upload files from a specified location, something that you saw like a download on the script editor. We've also discussed that. So if this really becomes a requirement where there's a solid use case around this, then we'll definitely consider it because we've definitely discussed it. Okay. Yeah. A couple of questions. As the file, per file size that we allow for the uploads is limited to four gigs. Is there a plan on increasing that? Right. So again, I've had conversations with a few partners who've requested for it to be six GB and eight GB as well. But with most of the conversations that I had, our partners were happy with four GB files. So again, I think this is something that we have to deal on a case to case basis to see what the requirement is and how best to deal with it. And that's how we can take it out. All right. Great. Another interesting question. And I feel like that's going to be more of a use case for the partners. Would they be able to download the files to a specific user directory? Then do they want to run it as a logged in user if they have to do it? Got it. Yeah. You should be able to run it as a logged in user. As long as you have the file present on that endpoint and then you choose to run it as a logged in user, I believe you should be able to do that and use the file in the context of that. All right. There is another question in here where they're looking off collecting the logs from the endpoint and potentially putting into file sharing area in the RMM. Actually, I can take that up because that's beyond the file sharing piece of it here. So we're looking at options where you would get some sort of an automation function or an action that you should be able to just collect it. We'll make that particular file available to a signed URL that kind of stays active for a couple of hours and then you can just pull it or make it available. But I see your point in the question where you want to kind of route it over to the file sharing. So maybe a use case for a future referencing of that particular file, but we can look at that. Definitely, we can merge the two if you're looking at it together to make things much more easier. I think we have covered all the questions. All right. That's awesome. I was actually hoping that I was going to get a lot of questions, so I think there is one question just popped in. Will scripting be able to note that a file was updated and then subsequently run? I'm not sure. I don't think so. I don't think it's going to be able to do that. I'm not sure I understand by what file was updated means. If you're referring to the fact that you uploaded a file today and you're using that inside of a script function and you've set it on a schedule and if you updated the file tomorrow by replacing the file, it will use the latest file as long as you are using the same name on the file. All right, cool. I think we have covered all questions. Is it possible to create subfolders? Yes, you will have the ability to create subfolders as soon as you get the folder structure available where you'll get the ability to create folders. You will be able to create subfolders. We understand that a lot of partners seek structure where they want to get folders created and then start placing files inside of it. All right, great. And all right, we got a few more questions. And does that trigger the script to run automatically? I think scripts are going to run on schedule. The file upload has nothing to do with the script execution over there. Right, you'll have to set it up inside of a script. And then once you put it on a schedule, it'll run on schedule. Okay. And again, just to reiterate that this is a platform feature that we are building it out. We are starting off with RMM. We definitely want to extend it for other products that are there in these solutions. So there will be future improvements and incremental updates coming in. So if there are feedback, feel free to share that with us through the virtual community. Or directly reach out to our support if you're seeing something that we can implement in our product for the improvements. All right, another question came in. Is there any added cost to use the file uploads, assuming we stay under 25 gigs? No, there's no additional cost to use the file uploads. The 25 GB that is provided to all partners is paid. Yep, that is true. We don't want to add additional costs. But I think there was another question. If you want to upgrade beyond that 25 gigs, then that could be an add-on to it. Again, we are looking and finalizing those options. But definitely, we will come with those options for you. All right. And all right, one more question. Is there a better way to use the file uploads or is there a backup of these files we upload? How are they protected in ConnectWise's file system? I'm going to discuss this with my architect to get back on this. I want to make sure we are accurate on this. So let me get back on this. Yeah, we'll add a little more detail on the security of those files and details in the documentation when it goes live. But we are pretty sure that the details are present. It is fully backed up. So you're not going to lose anything which you're going to be updating. And because right from the upload, we are scanning those files. So they are fully protected. And I'm pretty sure there are multiple copies. We want to make sure that we give you the right content information. So we'll get that updated in the docs. And I'll make sure that it's there in the documentation as well. Perfect. All right, a few more questions popped in. Ajinkya, if you can help very quickly, can multiple endpoints pull the file at the same time? Yes, you should be able to reference a file based on the number of endpoints that you've used to distribute it. That should not be an issue. All right, got an interesting question here. OneDrive lets you roll back for weeks so you don't lose data. So would we have versioning kind of a feature in the file sharing? So with respect to versioning, again, this is something that we've discussed. And we would like to see more feedback from partners on what their use cases are with respect to versioning of files. Based on the response for enhancements that we received, we should be able to consider this request. All right, more questions popping in. Is there any file scanning to prevent malicious files from being uploaded? Yes, like I mentioned, once you upload the file, the file undergoes a virus scan or a malware scan. If the file is infected, you will see the status as infected. And that file will be auto-posed from the storage after seven days. You won't be able to do anything with the file, meaning you won't be able to use it inside of automations. It will just be there. You can delete it if you want, but after seven days, the file will be removed. Yeah, perfect. All right, we are at the top of the hour. I can see Garima raising a flag that you guys have done with your time. Get back to me. So back to you, Garima. Thank you so much. Thanks for answering all the questions. Arjun, can we move to the next slide? On the screen now, you'll see a QR code for our ConnectWise YouTube channel. This is a great place to catch replays and re-divert to other content. All the Wednesday videos are here, so make sure you scan this, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and look for the playlist. And on the next slide, if you're wondering what's coming up next in these sessions, you can find our scheduled topics in a few places. Check out for university calendars or look for in-app notifications directly within the platform. You get those pending notifications there. Finally, we hope to see you all again next week. On the next slide, you'll see a QR code to register for our next session, which will be held on next Wednesday at 11 a.m. EST. It's going to be about PSA company tickets template enhancements. We encourage you to sign up for this. Encourage you to sign up for this and join that session as well. We'll pause here for a few seconds, and thank you all for joining us today and for your great questions. Thank you, Arjun K. Namath, for answering all those questions. It was a great demo. We look forward to seeing you all again next week. Have a productive rest of your day. Also, as this session ends, there's going to be a feedback questionnaire. Please make sure you fill that. It just helps us improve our topics and our presentations for any future demos that we do. Thank you. Thanks.
