Interaction Among Several Vaults

Note: This content is no longer updated. For the latest content, please go to the user guide for M-Files Online. For information on the supported product versions, refer to our lifecycle policy.

M-Files enables a multi-level interaction between several document vaults. The interaction enables you, for instance, to:

  • Archive data from an actively used vault to an archive vault.
  • Back up data from the vault on your server to the vault in the cloud service so that the users can immediately connect to the cloud service if they face problems with the vault installed on your server.
  • Centralize data from several M-Files vaults to a single vault.
  • Use several vaults, separating the various functions of the company so that content, metadata structures, and the permissions for the vaults can be customized to match the needs of various operations and business units.
  • Publish certain documents via a separate vault for interest groups.
  • Create relationships between objects in different vaults so that objects in other vaults can be found as the company's operations require.

With interaction, you can share documents and other objects efficiently between separate vaults. You can, for example, specify certain documents for sharing from the company's vault with a publishing vault. This enables you to easily provide your customers and other cooperation partners with up-to-date price lists, product descriptions, brochures, and other material from this publishing vault at all times without any manual copying or outdated information.

Note: If M-Files is installed on several servers, each server must have a unique server license installed. For example, if you want to replicate information between vaults on separate servers, unique server licenses must be installed for all the servers.

Settings required for the interaction

Associations for the metadata definitions

In order for you to associate and synchronize metadata between vaults, the metadata definitions must also be associatable between vaults. For more information, refer to Associating the Metadata Definitions.

Synchronization of objects and values between vaults

In addition to associations for the metadata, the objects and values need to be updated or synchronized regularly so that the data content is up to date across vaults. Synchronization of data between vaults is performed with replication of contents, with data then exported from the source vault and imported to another vault.

The synchronization of this content can be performed with scheduled export and import operations. The content can be synchronized, for example, every 15 minutes. With this approach, the data in the target vault will always be up to date. For more information, refer to Content Replication and Archiving.

Two-way synchronization is possible between vaults, but synchronization can also be performed among many individual vaults. When defining the export, you can use a filter if you want to export and publish only certain documents or another objects for the target vault.