Local Workspace
Local workspace is the name of the area on your computer's hard disk where Meridian Enterprise copies vault documents when you view or edit them in a workflow. Meridian also copies all referenced documents to your local workspace and makes them read-only. This process is similar to the way web browsers cache web pages, images, and other content to improve performance. Local workspaces especially improve the performance of working with large files and assemblies. Unlike with a web browser, however, you can edit documents in your local workspace and even add new documents. The key to this ability is synchronization.
The local workspace is automatically synchronized with the vault by Application Integration while you continue to work. Meridian does the tedious job of keeping track of which files are newer, which files are under change and by whom, and which vault files should be updated from the local workspace copies. Vault synchronization can be configured to occur periodically or you can run it manually, if needed.
The synchronization components are installed with the Application Integration feature by the Meridian Enterprise client installation package as described in Install the Client Components. Meridian Cloud users can install the components by downloading the installation package from the Meridian Cloud home page.
Note:
The files that are synchronized to the vault are determined, in part, by the file filters that are configured for the vault by a System Administrator. If files with a particular extension are missing from the vault but are present in the local workspace, consult a System Administrator to see if they are being excluded by a file filter.
By default, all documents copied to local workspace are read-only. When you run the Open in Application command within one of the Meridian applications (or use Application Integration from within other applications), the local workspace copy is detected, made writable, and opened in the application. When synchronization occurs, any documents that have been changed and have been submitted or released in workflows are uploaded to replace the vault copies, and the local copy is set to read-only again.
Local workspace uses a limited amount of disk space. As more documents are downloaded and this limit is reached, the oldest documents that are read-only (and their parent folders, if empty) are automatically deleted until sufficient space is freed for newer documents. The least recently used files are deleted first. This disk cleanup happens in the background without your intervention. No documents that are being actively edited are deleted.
Notes About Storage
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If you download an updated revision of a document to your local workspace when you had previously downloaded an older revision, Meridian will create a new folder for the updated revision and append a unique identifier to the end of the folder name. Essentially, each folder is specific to the revision it contains.
As long as your changes have been saved in PowerWeb, it is safe to remove folders that contain prior revisions of the document from your local workspace.
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Some documents may reside in folders that are configured to use a shared network folder as a workspace instead of your local workspace. For information about working with documents in shared workspace folders, see Shared Workspace Folders.
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When a document property is changed in PowerUser that causes the document to be moved in the vault, any local workspace copies are deleted during synchronization. This does not occur if the property is changed in PowerWeb, which might be contrary to your organization's file retention policy. If so, consider setting the ForceClean value in the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cyco\AutoManager Meridian\CurrentVersion\AMSync\Settings
Synchronization