Use the Upload widget to put a drop area on a page, so users can add many files at once and have Auclio create the objects that hold them. Its tile in the widget palette is labelled File Upload.

When to use it #

An Upload widget is for adding files in bulk, and for the objects that come with them. Use it for:

• a drop area on an Invoices page, where every file becomes an invoice;
• a general intake page where the person uploading chooses what each file is;
• any place where users would otherwise create an object, open it, and attach a file, one at a time.

Where a user adds one file to an object that already exists, use the file actions on a Table or Text Grid widget instead. See Work with files.

Only data types that accept files can be used. If the widget offers you nothing, turn files on for the data type first.

Add an Upload widget #

To add an Upload widget:

1. Open the page and enable Layout edit mode.
2. Select Add a widget.
3. Select the File Upload tile, or drag it onto the page.
4. Work through the four steps — Widget, Datasets, Properties, and Files — using Next and Back.
5. Select Create.
6. Save the page layout.

Only two things are required: a Widget Title, and — in fixed mode — the Dataset files become. Every other setting has a default that works. Each is checked as you leave the step it is on, rather than all at the end.

Configuration #

Widget #

Widget Title is required and shown by default; Description is optional and hidden by default. Both carry their own visibility controls.

Behaviour is collapsed, with its current settings summarised on the header. It holds five settings:

Where properties are filled in decides where the person uploading types the values the objects need. In a review dialog opens a dialog when they are ready; On the file rows puts the properties directly on the list of files, which finishes a short batch without opening anything. This is available only when the widget has a fixed dataset, because a batch whose data type is chosen per file has no single set of columns to put on the rows.

Objects per batch decides how files become objects:

• Auto — follow the dataset reads the data type’s own cap on files per object. One object per file, unless the data type accepts several.
• One object per file always makes one object each.
• One object holding the whole batch makes a single object carrying every file.

Review dialog opens as sets the dialog’s starting shape when a batch becomes several objects: One object at a time, a form with next and previous controls, or A row per object, a grid. A batch that becomes a single object is always a form. The person uploading can switch either way, so this is a default rather than a rule.

Drop area text replaces the default Drag & drop files here.

Create the objects automatically creates the batch as soon as its files have uploaded — no Create button and no dialog. It needs a fixed dataset. Anything the data type requires that no default value fills still stops the batch and waits for a person, so pair this with default values on the Properties step. Combining it with On the file rows raises a warning for exactly that reason.

Datasets #

How each file’s dataset is decided offers two modes:

• Fixed — everything becomes one dataset, then choose the Dataset. This is the drop-on-the-Invoices-page case.
• User selected — the person uploading chooses, then optionally restrict the list with Offer these datasets. Left empty it offers every data type that accepts files and that the user may write to.

In user-selected mode, Suggest the dataset automatically uses document AI to pre-select a data type for each file. The suggestion is always overridable, and a file begins uploading as soon as it has one. Auto-classify at most caps how many files per batch are sent for a suggestion, defaulting to 25, because each one costs an AI call.

Properties #

A grid of the data type’s properties, with four columns: Property, Default value, Visible, and Editable.

A property left alone is asked for exactly as its data type defines it. Hide the ones the person uploading should not have to think about — a hidden property still receives its default value — and make visible-but-not-editable the ones they should see without changing.

In user-selected mode there is one grid per offered data type, because their properties differ.

Files #

What the datasets allow lists the file rules each chosen data type already enforces. It is not editable here; it is shown because those rules always apply.

Override the dataset’s limits is collapsed unless something is set, and tightens those rules for this widget only:

• Allowed file types — extensions separated by semicolons, for example .pdf;.docx. Empty means whatever each data type accepts.
• Max file size (MB) — per file. Leave at 0 to use the data type’s limit.
• Max total size (MB) — everything in one upload added together. Leave at 0 for no limit.
• Max files at once — leave at 0 for the usual limit of 5,000 files.

Where nothing constrains them, Auclio’s own ceilings are 250 MB per file and 5,000 files in one batch.

A limit here is only ever a tightening. A stricter value is applied; a more generous one is ignored, because the data type always has the final say. Setting 50 MB here will not let a 40 MB file through a data type that caps files at 10 MB — and a widget that appears to permit something its data type refuses is the most common confusion with this screen.

What the person uploading sees #

The widget shows a drop area carrying its text and, beneath it, whichever rules are in force, written out — Up to 1,000 files, Max 20 MB per file, Max 200 MB in total, Allowed: .PDF, .DOCX. A rule that has not been set is not mentioned. Files can be dropped or picked. While a file is being dragged over it, the area reads Drop files here.

Uploading starts on its own; there is no separate upload step. Each file shows its own status, and the counters above the list show how the batch is going.

In user-selected mode a classification bar sits above the list, with a data type selector that applies to everything or to a selection, a Suggest automatically action, and a running count that reads either N still need a data type or All files have a data type. Each row also has its own Data type cell.

The actions along the bottom appear as they become relevant: Clear, Cancel uploads while an upload is running, Review to open the dialog and fill in what is missing, and Create N objects. Where an upload has stalled, Upload N remaining or Retry N selected appears.

When part of a batch fails #

The objects are created by a background job, so partial success is normal and expected. Each object is created independently and a failure is recorded against the files it affects, with its own reason, rather than taking the batch down. The manifest is the record of what happened to each file.

A file that breaks a rule never reaches storage at all: rules are checked when the upload is authorised, so its bytes are refused rather than uploaded and then rejected. The rest of the batch continues.

Drop files anywhere on a page #

A page can be made a drop target in its own right, so files can be dropped without aiming at the widget. See Pages. Dragging files over such a page raises a panel reading Drop files here to upload; the page’s Upload widget governs the rules if one is named.

Sizing on the grid #

An Upload widget is added thirty-four rows tall and about two thirds of the grid’s width on a large screen, full width on a phone or small tablet. It cannot be made shorter than ten rows.

Give it the height it asks for. Below the drop area sit the classification controls, a counter row, and the file list — a list squeezed into three rows stops being a list.

Unlike the Table, Text Grid, Form, and Chart widgets, an Upload widget can be placed in a page’s header or footer as well as its main area.

Recommendations #

When using Upload widgets:

• prefer a fixed data type where the page is already about one thing — it is simpler for the person uploading and it is what Create the objects automatically needs;
• set default values for everything a user should not have to type, and hide those properties;
• leave Objects per batch on Auto unless the data type’s own file cap gives the wrong answer;
• set the overrides only where this drop area genuinely needs to be stricter than its data type, and remember they cannot loosen anything;
• switch Suggest the dataset automatically on only where files really are of mixed kinds, and keep Auto-classify at most low enough to be worth the calls;
• tell users in the widget description what the area is for, since a drop area with no context invites anything.