Create a document upload profile

Register documents fast with automatic filling of document properties from filenames.

On most projects, filenames follow a strict naming convention and include many document properties.  By configuring a ruleset with your filename convention, Aconex can extract and populate these properties for you, whenever your upload profile is used. Using a document upload profile is optional, but will help you save time.

  1. Check that you have the correct project selected.
  2. Click Documents.
  3. Select Add/Update Documents.

Tip!

Don't see this option? Make sure you are using the new upload experience.
In the classic document upload, you can find upload profiles under Documents > Multiple File Upload.
You can also find them from Documents > Bulk Processing > Upload.

  1. In the upload profile list, click Create Upload Profile.
    Note: You can click the pencil on an existing profile to view or edit it, but in this tutorial, we will create a new profile.

You'll see the Upload Profile screen.

Upload information

Fill in the details for your document upload profile.

Field Description
Name This name will appear in the dropdown list on the previous screen for profile selection.
Description Provide a description of this upload profile.
Enables the Zip File Upload tab when uploading documents. Use this if you want to upload a zip file that will expand on upload.
Share with

If your organization is the Aconex project-owning organization, you can share your upload profile with the entire project. Otherwise it will be shared with just your own organization. To share upload profiles with other organizations, you must have the Share upload profiles permission asset granted to your user role. Ask your Organisation Administrator to grant you permission.

Extract values from filenames Allow Aconex to auto-populate document properties from filenames. Choose either a system ruleset or define your own for greater flexibility.

Set default field values

Click Manage values under the Set default Document Field values or
Set default Project Field values heading.

Select the tags you want to apply to all the documents you're uploading using this profile. 

Remember to click Update to save your changes.

Extract values from filenames: System ruleset

System ruleset will detect the Document Number and Revision from the following filename schemes:

Filename Document Number Revision
AB152(A).dwg AB152 A
AB152.dwg AB152 Next Revision Number
AB-152_A.dwg AB-152 A
A-001-A.dwg A-001 A
A-001.dwg A-001  
AB_MECH_152_A.dwg AB_MECH_152 A
AB-152_a.dwg AB-152 A
AB-152(a).dwg AB-152 A
AB-152[a].dwg AB-152 A

Extract values from filenames: Custom ruleset

Custom ruleset allows you to configure your own scheme and section the filename to populate many document values.

Supported Document Field types:
• Text
• Text area
• Select List (Single)
• Document Number

Tip!

Document Field values (such as Disciplines) must already exist in your project for them to be applied – if you need more values added, ask your Project Administrator.

Separators:

Select which symbols (such as hyphen or underscore) are used as a separator for identifying values within your filename.

Skip parts of the filename:

Skip parts of your filename that are not required to populate document fields. For example, you might be using a sequence number in your filename, which is not part of your document values. Select "Skip" for this part of the filename to ignore it and continue with the rest of the filename.

Use in Document Number:

Tick this box for each value that will be used to define the Document Number. 

Extract document values from the filename vs. Default document values:

Both of these features can work together in your upload profile. Default values are applied first, then if a custom ruleset exists for a given value, the system will overwrite it.

Custom ruleset Example

Take the following filename: AIR-1815-1-B-Approved-Ventilation Level 1.dwg

This filename contains the Document Number, Revision and many other important values that are separated with a hyphen (-).

For clarity, let's break the filename into sections at each hyphen, so we can see the fields that can be extracted and populated:

Filename Section Format/Document Field  
AIR   Use in Document Number
1815   Use in Document Number
1 Level Use in Document Number
B Revision  
Approved Status  
Ventilation Level 1 Title  

Tip!

Aconex knows to ignore the file extension (in this case .dwg).

Now we are ready to build our custom ruleset per the following image:

We have used a combination of the custom ruleset and default values, allowing for many values to be populated, and reduce time spent entering values manually.
Make sure you Save your profile!

Using your document upload profile

Now that you have created and saved your Document Upload Profile you can use it when you add documents.

You can create many different combinations of rulesets, to accommodate many filename schemas.

Set a default profile for your project

If you're a project admin (from the Aconex project-owning organization) you can set a default upload profile for your project. This helps uploaders apply the correct metadata. It's a project-wide setting and will apply to all users in all organizations. We recommend you communicate any changes to your project team.

  1. From Setup > Preferences select the Project tab.
  2. Scroll down to Project-wide settings.
  3. Under the Documents heading you'll find Configure Default Profile for the project.    
  4. Click Edit.
  5. Click the dropdown to select a default upload profile for the project. If the profile isn't listed, make sure you've set it to Share with the Project.
  6. Click Save.

Now when users on your project add documents, the default profile will be selected, but they can choose a different profile each time they upload.