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Where files live in 1pm

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Where files live in 1pm

A booking accumulates documents from every direction. The client emails a floor plan, you write a briefing, the venue has a site map, the caterer sends allergen sheets, someone uploads a certificate. 1pm has five places a file can sit, and each one exists because the file belongs to something different. Put a document in the right place and it turns up where it is needed without you attaching it again.

This article covers all five, what each is for, and how to choose.

The five places

The Files library is for documents you reuse. Upload once, attach to as many events as you like, and rename it in one place: every event using it picks up the new label, because each attachment is a reference rather than a copy. Your standard terms, a parking map, a supplier pack, the allergen sheet that goes out with every menu. This is the answer to re-uploading the same PDF forty times a year.

One thing the library does not do is versioning. Editing a file changes its label and its category, and nothing else: there is no way to swap the document itself for a newer one. A 2027 edition of a certificate is a new upload, attached in place of the old. The library holds up to 500 files, and each one is a PDF, PNG, JPEG or WebP up to 10 MB, the same formats and per-file limit as an event upload.

On an event is for documents belonging to this booking and nothing else. The client's floor plan, the signed agreement, the seating chart. Files attached to the event appear on the crew share link, so this is how a document reaches the people working the day.

On a Space is for documents true of the place rather than the booking. Site maps, loading dock instructions, house rules, spec sheets, brand guides. A file attached to a Space propagates to every event held there: it shows on the BEO print, the crew share link and the crew print, without anyone attaching it per event. Set the dock instructions once and every event in that room carries them.

On a request is the document you are asking someone else for, or a reference document you attach to the ask so they know what they are filling in. A blank agreement, an induction pack, a template to complete and send back. A reference document can be uploaded to the request, pasted in as a link, or taken straight out of the library with Add from Files, which is what you want for the induction pack that goes out on every job.

On a lead is where files arrive before a booking exists: whatever the client attached to their enquiry or to any email in the thread.

Pulling files off the lead

That last one used to be a dead end. The client emailed their run sheet during the enquiry, the enquiry became an event, and the document stayed back in the conversation, so anyone who wanted it had to go digging through Leads.

An event converted from a lead now has a From the lead section in its Files panel, with Add from lead beside it. That opens a picker of everything attached anywhere in that lead's thread, and you choose what belongs on the event.

Three things about how it works:

  • It is a reference, not a copy. The file stays where it is and the event points at it. Nothing is duplicated, and detaching it from the event leaves the original on the lead untouched.
  • It is opt-in, one file at a time. Nothing is imported automatically, deliberately: a real thread carries three versions of the same run sheet and a pile of email-signature images, and auto-importing would pile all of it onto the event.
  • It handles the formats email actually carries. Word documents and spreadsheets come through and read as documents, which the event's own uploads would refuse.

There is a View lead link on the panel and on the event header, so the trip back to the full conversation is one click.

Files on an automation email

An automation that sends an email can attach files too, and they come from the Files library rather than being uploaded to the automation.

That restriction is on purpose. An automation fires indefinitely, so it should reference a document that lives somewhere you manage rather than hold a one-off copy nobody can find again. Renaming the brochure in the library keeps every automation pointed at it; issuing a new brochure means uploading it and swapping the attachment over, since library files cannot be replaced in place.

If an attached file cannot be read when the automation fires, the send fails and tells you which file, rather than delivering an email that quietly arrives with nothing attached. An email that visibly did not send gets fixed. One that arrived empty does not, because nobody goes looking.

For the same reason, 1pm blocks deleting a library file that anything still points at: an event, a request on an event, a reply template, an enquiry form using it as its sales PDF, or an automation. The message names what is holding it ("in use by 3 events and 1 automation"), so detach it there first.

Choosing where to put something

  • Will you use it on more than one event? Library.
  • Is it true of the room or site rather than the booking? Space.
  • Is it about this one booking? The event.
  • Are you asking someone else to provide it? A request.
  • Did it arrive by email before the booking existed? The lead, then pin it onto the event.

When in doubt, the library is the safer choice. A library file can be attached to an event in seconds; an event file cannot be promoted to the library without uploading it again.

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