PDM – Grey Files/Folders in the Local Vault View?

Recently, we have come across a few cases where PDM administrator limits folder permissions for a group of PDM users, but the users can still see the folders/files as in a greyed state. This article will explain why this is happening and introduce how to resolve this issue.

A “grey” file or folder in the vault view means that there is a cached local copy, but the logged in user either does not have read (read file, view working version) permission to that file, or it has been deleted, moved or renamed.

I have created a testing environment to demonstrate how to set up the Group settings to allow the correct user access. To start the testing, I have created a new group called “Testing” and assigned an user called “Tester” under this group.

Under the group setting, if there is any folder you do not want to be seen by this Testing group, please disable all the folder permissions to this folder. In this testing environment, I have disabled all folder permissions for the entire vault. Please see the image below:

The next step is to RMB on the group “Testing” and select “Settings..”, then go to “Explore” and select “Show only files that are part of the file vault” and also enable the option “Automatically delete local read-only files that are not part of the file vault” . Please refer to the screen shot below:

The “Show only files that are part of the file vault” will allow user to view folders and files only in the file vault with permissions.

The “Automatically delete local read-only files that are not part of the file vault” option will automatically delete any cached local copy for the files and folders for any logged in users that don’t have permissions to them. If this option is not selected, there will be grey files/folders shown in the PDM local view for these users (e.g. “Tester”) if there are cached local copies of the files/folders have been created previously.

I hope this post is useful.

Author: Mark Deng

Applications Engineer

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