Understanding document transfers

The GCF uses BlueCielo briefcase technology to move documents and metadata between vaults. The operation of creating a briefcase, including documents in it, copying the briefcase file to the destination site, and importing the data into the destination site, is called a transfer. The GCF uses three types of transfers:

• Enlistment: Documents are sent to another vault for the first time.
• Ownership and Claim Ownership: Documents are checked out and locked in the source vault, and checked in and unlocked in the destination vault.
• Update: Documents with content or properties that have been changed are transferred to all collaborating vaults. The status of the document is not changed.

Each transfer can be either immediate or scheduled. An immediate transfer is executed within a short amount of time and scheduled transfers can be configured to run when more convenient or when more processing capacity is available.

Note  In GCF 2012, the transfer action was divided into two processes: the briefcase is created by the export processor and then it is copied to the destination site by a new dedicated transfer processor. The major benefit of this is that briefcases can be transferred to other sites and do not have to wait while new ones are being created. Another benefit is that briefcases are only created once and will be resent if the transfer connection is broken.

In the following topics, the steps of each of the three types of document transfer are explained in detail.