AX2711

Shortcuts to individual files in a file group

You can use a shortcut to open individual files in a file group. The primary use case is to open file group utility files or driver files.

Can be used in

  • Axiom forms
  • Favorites
  • Ribbon tabs
  • Task panes

Shortcut parameters

The Shortcut Target can contain a file path to a file within a file group. The following parameters are available for spreadsheet files:

Item Description

Axiom Tab Name

Defines an alternate tab name for the file (by default, the tab name is the file name).

Read Only

Opens the file as read-only, regardless of whether the user has a higher level of rights.

Additional parameters for utility files

Utility files in file groups have the same shortcut parameters as report files. For more information, see Shortcuts to report files.

Using file group aliases in a document shortcut

You may want to create a document shortcut that uses a file group alias in the path. When the file group alias is updated to point to a different file group, the document shortcut will now look for the specified document in the new file group. This approach is intended to help support file group rollover, so that you do not have to manually update the shortcut to point to the new file group.

In order to use a file group alias, navigate to the file through the file group alias in Axiom Explorer. For example, you may have a file group alias named Current Budget that currently points to Budget 2020. When you expand the Current Budget node in Axiom Explorer, it shows all of the files for Budget 2018. If you select a file under the Current Budget node, the resulting document path will use file group alias syntax as follows:

When the task pane or ribbon tab is displayed in a user's session, Axiom Software looks up the current target of the specified alias and finds the file in that file group.

NOTE: This functionality is only available when defining document shortcuts for task panes and ribbon tabs. Additionally, you must use the browse button for the Shortcut Target to select the file using the Axiom Explorer dialog. It is not possible to drag and drop the item from the Explorer pane in the left-hand side of the task pane or ribbon tab editor.

Remarks

  • In many cases, it is more useful to link to file group features such as Open Plan Files, rather than linking to individual files in the file group. In order to link to a file group feature, select the file group itself as the shortcut target and then use the shortcut parameters to specify the feature to open. For more information, see Shortcuts to file groups.

  • For plan files, the only common use case for this type of shortcut is to add a plan file to a user's favorites. In task panes and ribbon tabs, using a shortcut to a specific plan file is not very useful, and instead you would link to file group features to open dialogs such as Open Plan Files. In Axiom forms, most likely you would dynamically generate hyperlinks to the plan files that are specific to the current user, instead of creating shortcuts to specific files.

  • When working in the task pane / ribbon tab editors, only certain limited files are available to be dragged and dropped from the File Groups section of the Axiom Explorer pane. However, if you add an item to the task pane / ribbon tab and then use the Browse button for the shortcut target, you can select any file within the file group (that you have access to).

See also