SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

2683903 - What is Mirrored documents feature in SAP Jam / Work Zone and how to use it?

Symptom

  • What is Mirrored documents feature in SAP Jam?
  • What is Mirrored documents feature in SAP Work Zone?
  • How to mirror documents?

Environment

  • SAP Jam Collaboration
  • SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone

Resolution

Glossary

  • Source document. This is the origination document of mirrored documents. Think of it as the “parent” document.
  • “Mirrors”. This is the result of mirroring a source document. Think of these as virtual “children”.
  • Mirror-group. The group to which a mirrored document exists in.
  • Mirror-creator. The person that created a mirrored document.

To create a mirrored document in Jam or Work Zone you can follow the steps below:

  1. Go to the Content section for your group. Or if mirroring a knowledge base article, from the Knowledge Base section, go to the single item view of the article you want to mirror.
  2. Click the content item to open it in single item view.
  3. From the More menu choose Mirror.
  4. On the Manage Mirrors light box, click + Mirror.
  5. From the Mirror to Group light box, click the Select Group drop-down menu.
  6. A list of groups that you have access to displays. Choose a group and select a folder.
  7. Click Select Folder. The Manage Mirrors light box displays with the confirmation message, "Mirror created successfully."
  8. If you want to mirror the document to other groups or other folders within the same group, repeat steps 1 through 9.

You can find more information in SAP Jam Collaboration User Guide

FAQs

  1. Who can edit mirrored documents?

    1. Mirrors are not editable by anyone. The source document (what mirrors are based on) is editable by the content owner/author or a group/workspace admin where the source document is located.

  2. Do mirrored documents use up storage?
    1. No, mirrored documents do not consume any storage – only the source document does and any updates/revisions to it.

  3. Do updates to the source document trigger notifications to the mirrors?
    1. - Yes

  4. Can users annotate on mirrored documents?
    1. - Yes.  The annotations live exclusively on the mirrored document, in the group the mirrors lives in and are per-version, just like "regular" documents.

  5. Do mirrored documents have version control/prior version viewing?
    1. - Yes, just like "regular" documents.

  6. Are mirrored documents called out/identified as being mirrors?
    1. - Yes, subtly.
      • They have a different document icon that has a little double-box overlay on top of the actual icon they would normally have.
      • In the right panel of the detail view, the words 'view source document" are mentioned.
      • Feed notifications for them say 'mirrored document'

  7. What happens if the source document is in a private group? What do users of the mirror see?
    1. To prevent having to deal with group structures, SAP Jam handles the relationship between source and mirrors. Any document stored within any group can be mirrored to any other group, regardless of its type (public, private or external). If the source is in a private group, users of the mirror can see the content just as they'd expect, regardless of if they aren't a member of.

  8. Can a document owner see how many virtual copies there are?
    1. Yes – you click on the More > Mirror option, or the 'Mirrored Documents' link on the right hand pane which will display the groups to which the document has been mirrored to. This will only show those groups you have access to (public or private and you're a member of).
      Unfortunately, if you don't have access to the mirrored-group (private group), you will not be able to see the group name, due to security/privacy.

  9. Do tags added to mirrors get reflected in the source?
    1. No, the mirrors have their own set of tags for the group they are within, just like regular documents.
      Also if you add tags to the source content, then mirror the content to another workspace the tags will not be on the mirrored content. This is expected as the mirrored content will need to have their own set of tags.

  10. Can I prevent someone from copying a document in favor of mirroring? Would setting the source document to read-only handle this?
    1. No, not specifically. If you change the permissions of the source document to read-only, it prevents people from mirroring the document as well. The current security capabilities of SAP Jam do the following:
      • Full: Anyone can edit, upload a new version, delete; anyone can create a new mirror
      • Limited: Only the author and group admin can edit, upload, delete; anyone can download locally, copy to another group and mirror the document
      • Read-only: Only the author and group admin can edit, upload, delete, create mirrors and download. Users can only read/view the content within the SAP Jam viewer. Mirrors cannot be created by users or downloaded.

    2. Instead, place your source someplace private – that only you have access to (a private group), and mirror your own document to where you want it exposed. That way, no one has access to your source for copying. This would give you the content control you want, but making your content available for viewing. However, if you want people to be able to download your document, you must place the source somewhere and have it not set to "limited". The permissions level of "limited" is required to be able to download your document, but also, unfortunately, allows users to copy your document elsewhere.

      Note: if your content doesn't preview correctly (Office documents with smart art for example) or at all within SAP Jam (such as the case with locked PDFs or unknown file types), your users will not be able to view the mirrored document (or the source) within the SAP Jam viewer. You should consider making your document available for download, in which case mirroring may not be a good distribution mechanism for you.

  11. What are the benefits of using Mirror feature for your documents?
  • It reduces the number of copies of documents (you don't know about or control) to just the one you do
  • You maintain control over your content - there's 1 official copy.
  • Distribution of content is much easier. When you update your document, you just update the source document, all mirrors are reflected likewise.. you don't have to hunt down all the copies (that you don't know about), regardless of where they live (even in groups you don't know about or have access to)
  • If you're a customer, it will reduce your storage utilization, and potentially cost for storage

Ex: Content is created in Group A, User A belongs to Group A and B. User B belongs only to Group B. User A mirrors document to Group B. User B can now access the mirrored document. Using just a link, User B would not be able to access the content.

  12. Deleting the mirror source. 

Deleting a mirrored content item from the source group will only remove the content of the mirror but leave behind existing feed updates and metadata that are already captured for the mirror. When someone visits the document viewer for a deleted mirrored item, they will see a message stating that the mirrored content is no longer available ('The mirror content is not available'), but they can still see associated feed updates, views, likes, downloads, tags, and content rating.

13. is it possible to Mirror more than one content item ? Is there an option to "mirror" several documents at once rather than one at a time?

No. bulk mirroring is currently not supported  

See Also

Keywords

Jam, Work Zone, Workzone, Mirror, mirroring, mirror document, source, copy, workspace, group, content if there is the option to "mirror" several documents at once rather than one at a time? , KBA , LOD-SF-JAM-CNT , Content, File Sharing & Upload , LOD-SF-SWZ-CNT , General Content (File Download & Upload) , How To

Product

SAP Jam Collaboration all versions