Work with Offline Files

Note: These steps are written for College Enterprise computers that are part of the AG domain.

Certain offices at University Park and County Extension Offices may have their My Documents folder stored on a Server (e.g. files and folders are redirected to the server) rather than being stored directly on your EN machine. If your computer is setup in this manner, the My Documents icon will display the blue arrows of a "Pinned" folder. See below.

If you have redirected My Documents, what will happen if the network in the office is disrupted? Will you lose access to your My Documents? Or, what if you're a laptop user and need to work on your files while you out of the office? Will you have access to these files while on the road? In each case, you should retain access to your information. The computer will tell you that your are "working offline" from your redirected My Documents and you can continue working with your files.

The purpose of this How To is to help you make this happen, safely and consistently.

Let's go back for a moment. Prior to having your My Documents based (redirected) on a server, your files and folders were housed in one location ... your EN machine. They were stored locally on the C drive. If the network was disrupted, or you took a laptop out of the office, it didn't affect access to your files. Since the files were on the Local Disk (C), they traveled with you. But, you needed to backup these files. And if the computer crashed or the hard drive failed, you lost access to the files for days, weeks, or forever if you had no backup.

Now, with Server Based My Documents and the use of Offline Files, your data is being stored in two locations. First, and most importantly, the data is on the server. To see this, you can Right Click on the My Documents folder and choose Properties. In the target line, you will see the path to your Server Based My Documents. Example 1 occurs at University Park. Example 2 occurs in county extension offices.

\\ag.psu.edu\Shared\RMD\<deptname>\<UserID>\My Documents\
\\192.168.cc.1\data\home\<UserID> (where cc is the 2 digit county code, Adams is 01, Centre is 14)

OK, so your My Documents' data is stored is on the server. That should be clear. What is often less clear to many of us is that a COPY of your server based data is still stored locally!

This is done via the Windows' Offline Files feature. Offline Files used a technology called Client Side Caching or CSC. Without getting too technical, it is important for you to know three things.

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Offline Files Setup

Note: If you have the pinned My Documents icon, Offline Files should already be configured. These steps can be used for troubleshooting.

1. Double-click My Computer.
2. From the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
3. Click the Offline Files tab.
4. The Enable Offline Files check box should be checked.
   
   Key Point: If the Enable Offline Files check box is not selected, and you should have server based My Documents, the computer must be in your "default work" location to reenable Offline Files. Example: if you are a multi-county Extension educator and this option has turned itself off, you need to return to your default office, so that the computer can "see" its server.
   
   Note: Laptop users should select both the Synchronize all offline files when logging on and Synchronize all offline files before logging off check boxes. Assuming that you take the computer away from the office, you want the server based copies updated when the machine returns to the office. Desktop computers can have just the Synchronize all offline files before logging off check box selected.
   
   Note: The Display a reminder box should be checked and left at its 60 minute default. The Create an Offline Files shortcut on the desktop and Encrypt offline files to secure data should not be checked.
   
   Note: The Amount of disk space to use for temporary offline files should be left at its default. Keep in mind that this setting is for temporarily cached files only. As mentioned above, the CSC does not limit the drive space allocated for permanently cached files ... beyond the capacity of the hard drive itself. An example of a temporarily cached file would be a file opened from a mapped drive, like the Z drive.
   
   
5. Click OK to close the Folder Options dialog box.
   
   Tip: If you are having difficulty with staying "online" while in the office, verify that the computer has the correct AG Domain DNS & WINS Network Settings.
   http://ict.cas.psu.edu/Training/HowTo/ENComputers/agdomainnetsettings.htm

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Managing File Synchronization

We'll talk about two items here. First, it's very important to know the difference between Quick and Full syncs. Second, at some point even desktop computers may see the "Working Offline" message. After Working Offline, you may be asked to resolve file conflicts.

Quick vs Full Sync

We need to discuss a few terms before we can discuss the difference between Quick and Full syncs.

• Permanent or "Pinned" Offline files- these are the files that have gone through a Full sync at some point. They exist on the server and in your local CSC folder.
• Sparsely Cached files- these files are in the server based My Documents folder only. Thus, you would only see them while you are online. As an example, when working online, new files that are created may not generate a local copy in the CSC folder.
• Temporary Cached files - these files are stored locally in the CSC, but are temporary. As an example, you open and work with files from the mapped Z drive. A copy of this file is created in the CSC. If you reach the limit of the temporary offline files setting, the "oldest" files will be removed from the CSC.
  

A Quick Sync will fill in any un-synced or 'sparse' files in the local CSC cache. In other words, the Quick Sync will provide you with a full version of each offline file. Couple of key points to make on quick syncs. The quick sync will happen as you work ... when the computer has been idle for 15 minutes. Also, the quick sync will give you a full version of a file, but it may not be the most recent version. All this is scary, yes. Keep in mind that the quick sync in designed ... to be quick. To keep everything up to date, the CSC needs full access to your files. This takes us to the importance of doing a Full Sync.

A Full Sync does much more. Along with filling any sparse files, a full sync synchronizes any server-side changes to the client as well as pinning any unpinned files. This scanning of pinned files and folders can require a lot of time. A full sync ensures that the CSC cache is complete (everything that should be cached is cached), and all cached content is up to date when you begin working offline. A full sync can only happen at Log On or Log Off.

Note: Laptop users may decide to "just close the lid" on a laptop to leave the office becuase that is quick and easy. But, if the machine is not logged off or shut down, you may not have access to all your offline My Documents. IT recommends that you Log Off or Shut Down laptops when taking them from the office. You can choose to ignore this advice. But your "best practice" would be to do one or the other of these actions. Even Desktop users should Log Off or Shut Down, if not every day at least once a week, to allow a Full Sync to occur!

Note: If you initiate a synchronization manually (Right Click on My Documents and choose Synchronize), CSC does a partial full sync. It will push to the server and pull from it. But this manual sync will not do the full scan of files and folders for pinned and unpinned items.

Resolve File Conflicts

You might never see one of these dialog boxes. If you do, don't panic.

Read it carefully. It is asking you to decide about a file that is out-of-sync. You have the option to keep both (local and network version), keep the "local" copy only, or keep the "network" copy only. If you keep both, the "local" copy is saved to the server with a slightly different name. You also have the option to click View for either version. This can help you decide which to keep.

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Working Offline - Create, Rename and Delete

Desktops computers very rarely leave their "default work" location. In addition, assuming that the network is always 'online', these computer will never be affected by this gotcha. On the other hand, laptop users will need to keep these points in mind.

1. If your computer is online, you are able to create, rename, and delete files and folders in your server based My Documents folder. This is as expected.
   
   
2. If your computer is working offline, you are able to create, rename, and delete files.
3. If your computer is working offline, you are able to create, rename, and delete folders.
   
   
4. If your computer is working offline, you are not able to rename folders.
   
   Note: If you attempt to rename a folder, you will see a message that says "Cannot rename <foldername>: This operation is supported only when you are connected to the server." You will need to wait for the computer network to become available before you can rename the folder.

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Laptop User Tips

As mentioned before, seeing the "You are no longer connected" message and that you are "Working offline" is not a bad thing. In fact, when you have a laptop and you are not in your "default work" location, you want the computer to work offline. When the computer is offline, it should use the local copies on your the machine.

These tips should help the computer recognize that it is offline. They are all based on one simple fact. When you turn on the laptop in a location other than your default work network, you don't want the computer to "see" or sense another network at startup. You want it to assume that it is offline.

1. If your computer has a Wireless card, disable it before you Log Off or Shut Down. Then, when the computer is turned on, it won't try to connect to the network and sync. The sync will fail anyway. Once the machine is completely on, if you need the wireless, you can enable it to access the Internet.
   
   
2. If you're in another office or location with a high speed connection, don't plug in the Ethernet cable before you turn on the laptop. Turn the computer on. Wait for the machine to boot. Once the machine is completely on, you can plug in the Ethernet cable and access the Internet.
   
   
3. When you see the "Working offline" message, ignore or close them. Don't try to connect. You should be able to work normally. Once you're back in your default work location, you should plug in the Ethernet cable before you turn on the computer. The CSC should take over and synchronize your changes.

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