Off-campus Access
Web File Access (W.F.A.) - Some questions answered
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Your Individual File Store (U: drive) www.lboro.ac.uk/it/systems/cfs.html, your Individual Web Space www.lboro.ac.uk/it/systems/personal-web.html, and, for staff, your Staff Shared File Store (department drive) www.lboro.ac.uk/it/systems/staff-shared.html, the Intranet https://internal.lboro.ac.uk/, Learn Server https://learn.lboro.ac.uk/, and TeachDoc. You can also access Group File Store www.lboro.ac.uk/it/systems/group-filestore.html and compatible Department network shares - see below.
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How do I access Group File Store and compatible Department network shares?
For Group File Store www.lboro.ac.uk/it/systems/group-filestore.html: Log in to Web File Access, and select the Main Menu link at the top of the screen. At the foot of the Main menu screen, enter \\stud-fs\student-group\name-of-group as the Share, and name-of-group as the Path (where name-of-group is the name of the group or project). Put the name of your group or project in for Description. Leave Remember set on and click Go. You will now be accessing your Group File Store. Also from now on your group file store will be available for you to select under Available Shares.
For compatible Department network shares, please see your Department IT representative for details of the Share and Path.
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Which username and password do I use?
Your normal University ones that you use for logging into the University network and for reading your e-mail.
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Do I need to logout from W.F.A. when I have finished?
Yes, you do if you wish to ensure that your session has been terminated and that your files are secure.
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Will it take a long time for a file to upload or download to or from home?
It may take a long time, especially if you are on a dial up connection. Although the University network is fast, the speed of the off campus connection is likely to be the limiting factor.
Note, however, that you can e-mail a file to someone else very quickly.
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When I download a file, can I save it on my local disk?
Yes, you can but you must remember to use Save As so that it is saved to a permanent place.
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I downloaded a file, edited it and saved it again, but it wasn't on the University filestore / Learn / Intranet / TeachDoc when I looked using my office PC. Why ?
After downloading a file from web file access, a copy is stored on the PC that you have downloaded it to. If you then edit the file and save it again, this copy, saved locally, will differ from the one available via web file access. If you wish to overwrite the file that's already there, you must use the upload facility in web file access to copy the file back to your University filestore / Learn / Intranet / TeachDoc as appropiate.
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Can I e-mail a file to someone else directly from W.F.A.?
Yes, and this is much faster than downloading it first and then e-mailing it! E-mail from W.F.A. issues a command to create an e-mail to the required recipient with the selected file as an attachment; this all takes place quickly on our servers and fast network without having to download the file to your computer at home. (The alternative is to spend some minutes downloading the file to your computer, and then the same time again when you send the e-mail!) Note that there is no advantage to e-mailing a file to yourself at home - you'll still have to wait to download it for either mechanism!
To do this, at the top of the page look for the entry E-mail address(es), fill in the required address (for more than one, separate the addresses with a ; semi-colon), and then click the Set button immediately after the e-mail address(es). For files (but not folders), the display will change so that for each one there is an option [MAIL]. Click the MAIL link for the required file, and the e-mail will be sent very quickly. The e-mail will have a Subject of Filestore email of pathname, no text, and the required file as an attachment.
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At the moment anywhere that is not on Loughborough University's campus. We hope, in due course, to make it available on-campus as well.
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Can I change the appearance of W.F.A.?
Yes, you can. Click on Preferences and try out the various themes and listing types to see which ones suit you best.
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What other preferences are there?
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Activate theming,
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Theme (only works theming is activated),
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Listing type,
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Sort type,
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Initial network folder to jump to,
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Preferred printer,
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Large Icon Columns,
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Name for Folder,
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Show documents (Word, PDF, RTF) as,
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View documents in new window,
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Send a copy of e-mails to yourself.
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What are the default preferences within W.F.A.?
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no themes,
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default theme (but not active because of above),
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detail listing,
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sorted by name,
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no initial folder,
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n314_cc_a4m printer selected,
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6 columns for large icons,
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Folders named as 'Folder',
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Show documents as web pages,
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Don't view docs in a new window.
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Can I access Learn and the Intranet and TeachDoc using W.F.A.?
Yes. Select from the Available Shares drop-down list.
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Why does W.F.A. sometimes say that my folders are empty when I know there are files in them?
Your Web File Access session expires after about an hour for security reasons. If this happens then all folders will appear empty. You need to log out of Web File Access and then log back in again in order to continue your Web File Access session.
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Which part of my shared folder is the share and which is the path?
For the folder \\staff-filestore\shared\tx
the share is \\staff-filestore\shared
and the path is \tx -
Why does the drive mapping for Teach Doc in W.F.A. appear as \\ccpclabs1\pclabs\teachdoc when it should appear as the fault tolerant D.F.S. path \\lboro\pclabs\TeachDoc?
The implementation of W.F.A. currently in use does not allow the use of D.F.S. paths. If you find the TeachDoc resource unavailable from W.F.A., please contact the IT Services' Service Desk.