How To Implement Amazon WorkDocs For Basic File Sharing

Amazon WorkDocs provides secure, file sharing for the purposes of completing a project together, without the file sharing system taking up space on anyone’s hard drive. It provides document versioning, and the ability to recover a deleted document.

In this article I’ll cover a basic file-sharing scenario that invites clients using their e-mail addresses. As a portal for my clients to upload content into, it just cannot be beat. My clients can upload files as large as 5GB. You have to pay for storage and there’s an additional per-user monthly fee, but even then it is cheaper than what I’ve seen at most web hosts. Pricing and other details are here.

Let’s dig in. This won’t take long:

Create an Amazon Web Services account with a credit card attached at https://aws.amazon.com
From the AWS Management Console, find Amazon WorkDocs and click on it to enter Amazon WorkDocs.
Click the button Create a New WorkDocs Site.
Select the Quick Start option by clicking on its Launch button. The Standard Setup option is more advanced than we need for this tutorial.
The Site URL field is how you give this WorkDocs website a name others can use to visit it. Don’t worry, nobody will be able to see it that shouldn’t.
Complete the remaining fields and click on Complete Setup. Now wait about ten minutes for your WorkDocs site to be provisioned and live.
Next, to satisfy my use case, I create the folders which become each customer’s private space for file sharing with me. For instance, “fakecompany”.
To share a folder:
1. Check its selection box
2. Then on the right side of the screen click the button Share.
3. From the resulting dropdown menu, choose Invite People. If you choose Share a Link the folder becomes public. That’s not within this use case.
4. Enter the e-mail addresses that should receive a notification / authorization e-mail to access the shared folder.
5. Click Save when ready. The system sends a notification to the e-mail address you typed in.
6. The person receives the e-mail, clicks on VIEW, and arrives at the login form that doubles as an account creation form in this instance.
7. The person completes the required fields on the form, and proceeds to login. This creates the account on the system as well.
8. To see the folder you have shared, the person clicks on “Collaborate” ; the option in the blue bar across the top.

It’s a good idea to test all this before inviting clients to join you.

In the past when I’ve used solutions similar to this my clients confuse it for a long term storage resource…which it certainly could be in another use case. Here, however, I delete the file from WorkDocs once I’ve downloaded it.

WorkDocs gives your clients a secure, safe place to centralize file management related to a project, and can fit many other use cases as well. Its intuitive interface makes it easy for everyone to use.

It’s a good idea to test all this before inviting clients to join you.

In the past when I’ve used solutions similar to this my clients confused it for a long term storage resource…which it certainly could be in another use case. Here, however, I delete the file from WorkDocs once I’ve downloaded it.