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Working with Documents in RealtimeCRM?

RealtimeCRM allows you to attach documents to a variety of records including Companies, Contacts, Projects and Tasks. You can take documents from any cloud-based platform, such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive or any URL.

Think of this tool as an electronic paperclip, keeping all relevant notes and other important documents attached to your records so you always have the relevant information to hand plus you can add as many documents as you wish to a record.

RealtimeCRM doesn’t simply attach documents to records but also has the same access settings as your cloud storage platform so even if you link a sensitive document to a record if another RealtimeCRM User who doesn’t have access to it clicks on it in RealtimeCRM they will not be able to view it.

Attaching a document?

As mentioned earlier, you can attach documents to different types of records but in this example we will add a document to a Company record.

  • From the Dashboard, go to the ‘Company’ tab in the left-hand menu
  • Choose your desired Company record and then click on it
  • Now you are on that Company’s record, scroll down the page until you see the Documents box
  • Click  Add from…
  • A small drop-down menu will appear where you can pick from Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box or a URL link to a document
  • After choosing one of the above (in this example we chose Google Drive), you might be asked for a permission, all you need to do is click OK to allow RealtimeCRM to connect to your cloud storage provider
  • Then simply pick the document(s) you wish to attach and click the select button
  • Your document will now be attached to the record

Note: If you wish to remove an attached document simply click next to it.

Linking to a folder

In addition to the ability to add files to your records within RealtimeCRM you also have the ability to link to folders on your cloud based storage as well. For example if you have a folder in your Google Drive storage with all the documents you need about a certain Company which is what we will add to a Company record in this example.

  • Once you are in the relevant record scroll down the page until you see the ‘Documents’ heading
  • Click  Add from…
  • From the drop-down menu that appears you should select ‘URL’
  • A new dialog box should open wherein you will label your folder link and enter its web address, so now every time you click that label in RealtimeCRM it will take you to the linked folder in Google Drive in another browser tab
  • Once you have entered the folder URL and label simply click the blue ‘Add document’ button to save this link to your record. After that whenever you want to access that specific folder simply click the label that appears under the Documents heading inside the record

Linking to a local file on your computer

RealtimeCRM also allows you to add a link to files and folders on your local computer. This means if you have a file on your laptop you can add its file path as a link to the Documents box in any record inside RealtimeCRM. All you have to do is add it as a URL by copying its file path from your computer and entering it in the file URL format we will explain below.

Then whenever you enter the record with that file link, so long as you’re using the computer with that file on it you can simply copy the file URL and paste it into File explorer on Widows or finder on your Mac.

The format for the file URL will take the following form:

file://host/path

So for example we have an image file called ‘Hugo’ sitting on our C drive:

From the above we get the following file path:

C:\Hugo.png

Therefore the file URL you will enter into RealtimeCRM to link to the Hugo image would take the form:

file://C:/Hugo.png

Note: You add ‘file://’ in front of the file path and you change the \ to / in the file URL you’ll enter into RealtimeCRM.

So now that you understand the general process behind creating a file URL we’ll run through an example in RealtimeCRM by creating a link to the image file Hugo in a Contact record.

  • Click on the Contacts panel on the left hand sidebar
  • Now click through to the relevant Contact record and then scroll down until you see the Documents box
  • Click Add from… and from the drop down menu select ‘URL’
  • Now type in the name you want to give the file link, in this case we’ll name it ‘Hugo image’ and then enter the URL:
file://C:/Hugo.png
  • Once you’ve done that just click Add Document and the new file link will be saved
  • To open the file on your computer click the ‘Copy to clipboard’ button next to the file link name to copy the file URL and then open File explorer or Finder on your Mac
  • Now simply paste the File URL in and press enter to open the file on your computer

Note:This link will only work on the computer that contains this file. Please use cloud storage if you require access from other computers.

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