Files.com acquired ExaVault, another Managed File Transfer service, in 2021. Since then, the ExaVault service has been integrated into the "mainline" Files.com service.

This page tells you how to find the Files.com equivalent of ExaVault features.

The File Manager

When you first log into your account, the web application will automatically take you to the files section. Just like with ExaVault, this is where you will do anything relating to the files and folders within your account. The Files option in the left-hand navigation will take you back to the file manager.

The Files.com File Manager does not display the sizes of folders' contents in the file listing. This is a change from ExaVault, where an entry representing a folder also included the total size of all its contents. If a folder's contents are stored within the Files.com platform, the entry in the Size column will include a button to calculate the current size of the folder. If a folder is a remote server mount, no button to calculate the size is displayed because no Files.com storage is being used for the folder.

Learn more about the using the Files.com File Manager.

User Management

Just like in ExaVault, the Users page can be found via the left-hand navigation. To get there, type "Manage Users" in the search box at the top of every page and then click on the matching result.

Read more about creating and managing your users.

Shared Folders

Just like with ExaVault, you have the ability to create special links so that external users can access some of your files without needing their own credentials. ExaVault's Shared Folder feature is replaced on Files.com with the Share Links feature.

You can create new share links from within the files area by checking the items to be shared and then clicking the New Share button at the top of the files listing.

You can view your existing share links by clicking on the Sharing option in the left-hand navigation.

Share Links offer powerful functionality compared to Shared Folders, including features requested by hundreds of ExaVault customers. With Files.com, you can share multiple folders in a single link, or share the same folder in multiple share links with different levels of access.

You have the ability to customize the URL for a share link, or to limit the number of times a share link visitor can use their link.

You can add a custom registration form to collect information from share link visitors. and create Clickwraps - terms that users must agree to before they access your share link.

Deleting Shared Items

In the legacy ExaVault platform, deleting a folder that was Shared or set up to Receive would also invalidate those links to the folder. Your Shared Folder or Receive entry would be set to inactive.

In the Files.com platform, deleting an item that is part of a Share Link does not disable the link. When a file or folder that was shared with a recipient is removed, the recipient will see a placeholder in their link indicating that the item was deleted.

Receive Folders

ExaVault's Receive Folders allowed users to create a method for external contacts to submit files to your account without needing their own user credentials. The Receive Folder feature is replaced on Files.com with the Share Links feature - when you create your new share link, you'll set the "Allowed Actions" to permit uploads.

You can create new share links from within the files area by checking the folder to be shared and then clicking the New Share button at the top of the files listing.

You can view your existing share links by clicking on the Sharing option in the left-hand navigation.

Share Links offer powerful functionality compared to Receive Folders. With Share Links, users can share multiple folders at once and allow share link recipients to choose which folder(s) they will upload to. Rather than being restricted to one receive per folder, you can now use the same folder in multiple share links.

We know from our feature request tracking that former ExaVault customers will be delighted that they can now customize the URL for a share link and limit the number of times a share link visitor can use their link.

Share Links allow you to add a custom registration form to collect information from web visitors, and re-use that same form for multiple share links. You can also create Clickwraps - terms that visitors must agree to before they access your share link.

Another feature which is very similar to Receive Folders is Files.com's Inboxes. Just like receive folders, inboxes allow you to collect registration information and provides a way for external parties to upload files to you without requiring a user login.

There are some key differences between Inboxes and Share Links, refer to them below that will determine which makes sense for you:

Inboxes can only be created by site administrators, while Share Links can be created by any user who has both "SHARE" and "WRITE" permissions to the folder they're using.

Inboxes are permanent and account-wide, while Share Links have an expiration.

Inbox links can be displayed on the login page of your account.

Inboxes can receive files attached to an email.

Send Files

ExaVault's Send Files functionality allowed you to send specific files and folders to your external contacts without requiring you to set up user credentials. On Files.com, you will use the Share Links feature to send files to those contacts.

You can create new share links from within the files area by checking the items to be shared and then clicking the New Share button at the top of the files listing.

You can view your existing share links by clicking on the Sharing option in the left-hand navigation.

Share Links offer powerful functionality compared to Send Files. Users can customize the URL for a share link or limit the number of times a share link visitor can use their link.

You can also add a custom registration form to collect information from share link visitors, and create Clickwraps - terms that users must agree to before they access your share link.

Send Files Internals

On the ExaVault legacy platform, sending files actually created a copy ("snapshot") of the items you sent, and that snapshot existed independent of the files in your account. This meant you could send a file and then delete it from your account, and your recipient would still be able to access their file. In addition, it is possible on the legacy platform to directly upload a file during the send process, and that file would not appear in the site.

On the Files.com platform, share links now support two different modes - live Share Links generate a link to the live version of the files and folders you're sharing, while snapshot Share Links provide access to a read-only copy created at the time of sending.

If you create a live Share Link for a file and then delete the file from the site, your share link recipient will not be able to access the file. Similarly, if you create a live Share Link for a folder and then change the contents of that folder, the share link contents will reflect the changes you made.

If you create a snapshot Share Link for a file and then delete the file from the site, your share link recipient will be able to access the file because their link is to a copy of the file. These copies are stored in a hidden, read-only folder, which you will see listed in your History Logs as _/Snapshots.

Special Behaviors to note for the Snapshots Folder

The folder _/Snapshots cannot be removed from your site. It is not displayed in the listing of folders in your site.

Only site administrators can access the _/Snapshots folder. You cannot grant any permissions to the _/Snapshots folder

The _/Snapshots folder is controlled by the system, and site administrators cannot make changes to the folder.

When a Snapshot Share Link is disabled, the files associated with that Share Link will be automatically deleted by the system.

The _/Snapshots folder does count as disk usage for your site.

Notifications

Files.com's email Notifications are very similar to the notifications in ExaVault.

To create a new notification in the Files area, click the Folder Settings button. If you're a site administrator, you'll see a wide array of powerful features that you can set up for your folder, including Email Notifications. If you're not a site administrator, you'll only see a form to create your own notification for the folder.

To view a listing of all your notifications, click on your username at the top of the screen and choose My Account. You can update, remove or add new notifications from that page for any folder you have access to.

Files.com Notifications include some exciting improvements:

Site admins can manage notifications for other users and even for user groups.

Specify a pattern to match against filenames and limit a notification to a specific file type.

Choose how often notifications are delivered.

Activity Logs

ExaVault account administrators have access to Session Logs, or Activity Logs. These are also made available in Files.com as History to site administrators or to users who have the "History" permission for a folder (for some plans).

To access the logs for a specific folder, click on the File History button that appears at the top of the file listing for your folder. If you are a site admin, type "History" in the search box at the top of every page and then click on the matching result to see the site-wide audit log.

Just like ExaVault, the FIles.com History listing allows you to filter the history by a date range, the type of action, the user, the file and folder paths and IP address. You can also export the listing to a CSV file for importing into a different system.

Files.com retains file history for 7 years, a huge improvement from the 90 days of retention offered on ExaVault.

ExaVault Session Activity Logs Are Not Migrated

The session activity history from your ExaVault account is not migrated to your new Files.com site. If you need to maintain an archive of the data, you should log in before your scheduled migration window and export the logs through the ExaVault Web File Manager. If your site is very recently migrated, you can submit a ticket for our Customer Support team to export the logs from your ExaVault account on your behalf.

Direct Links

In your ExaVault account, administrators can assign a direct link to a folder, making it available for web downloads without tracking any share invitations. Now that your site is migrated to Files.com, you have access to Public Hosting.

With Public Hosting, also known as Publicly Serve or Web Hosting, site admins (or user with Admin rights to a folder) can assign a public URL to that folder and all of its contents.

Public Hosting offers several improvements over the ExaVault feature. You can customize the link to the folder, and prevent revealing the entire path within your account. You can create multiple distinct URLs to the same folder. You can enable HTTP basic authentication, assigning a username and password to the link, and you can change those settings for each URL you've created for the folder.

Branding

Make changes to your site's branding, such as the logo or custom domain. To get there, type "Branding" in the search box at the top of every page and then click on the matching result.

In addition to the customizations you're used to, Files.com offers even more options as part of the Site Identity settings:

Choose custom interface colors.

Add your own custom icons as well as the site logo.

Display a different logo in the web interface for various folders.

Add a custom header or footer to the web interface.

Add a message to your login page.

Webhooks

Webhook settings are migrated along with your account settings, so any webhook you have configured on your ExaVault account will be created for your Files.com site. As much as possible, the Files.com webhook request will be identical to what was sent from the ExaVault platform. The X-ExaVault-Signature header will be calculated in the same way after the migration.

Changes to Migrated Webhooks

Webhook requests sent by the Files.com platform will include a User-Agent header of Files.com Webhook

For v1-formatted webhooks, creating a folder will trigger a request with the action of "Upload" rather than "Create Folder"

For v1-formatted webhooks, renaming an item will trigger a request with the action of "Move" rather than "Rename"

For v2-formatted webhooks, creating a folder will trigger a request with the action of resources.upload instead of resources.createFolder.

For v2-formatted webhooks, renaming an item will trigger a request with the action of resources.move rather than resources.rename.

For v2-formatted webhooks, some of the date fields, such as accessedAt or createdBy are not supported for every operation, and will be null.

For v2-formatted webhooks, the eventData.resources.hash will contain a placeholder value.

Managing Webhooks

Site administrators and users with admin rights to a folder can configure Webhooks. To get there, type "Webhooks" in the search box at the top of every page and then click on the matching result. Users with admin rights to a folder can manage webhooks for a folder from the Folder Settings button within that folder.

The Webhooks feature of the Files.com platform offers some improvements over the previous platform:

Assign a backup URL for the webhook listener, in case the primary listener is offline.

Add custom headers to the webhook request sent by Files.com.

Use custom patterns so that only certain types of files can trigger the webhook.

If you wish to use the Files.com body format rather than the legacy v1 or v2 formats offered from the ExaVault platform, other features are also available:

Change the HTTP method of the webhook request sent by Files.com.

Use XML encoding for the webhook request.

Attach the file which triggered the webhook to the request sent by Files.com.

To view the results of webhook calls made from your Files.com site to other systems, type "Webhook" logs in the search box at the top of every page and then click on the matching result. Webhook logs are retained by the system for 30 days.

Multi-Factor Authentication

The ExaVault Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) feature is known as Two-factor Authentication (2FA) in the Files.com platform.

If your plan allows it, you can require all the users of your site, or just the site administrators, to use a two-factor login when they connect. The Files.com 2FA feature provides several key improvements over the other platform - site administrators can make up to 5 different 2FA methods available to users, and can exempt individual users from 2FA requirements.

Site administrators can set the 2FA requirements for their site. Type "Two-factor authentication" in the search box at the top of every page and then click on the matching result.

Each user can locate their own 2FA settings by clicking on their username in the upper-right corner and locating the Two-factor authentication section.

IP Address Restrictions

Your IP Address Restrictions from ExaVault are automatically migrated to the IP Whitelist settings within your Files.com site. Site administrators can manage a sitewide IP Whitelist. To get there, type "IP Whitelist/Blacklist" in the search box at the top of every page and then click on the matching result.

IP Whitelists have some important enhancements from the previous platform. Individual users can be restricted to specific IP addresses. Individual users can be allowed to connect from any IP address, not just those listed as allowed for the site. Files.com also supports allowing or disallowing connections from specific countries (which is enforced by IP address).

Notes for IP Address Restrictions are not Migrated

Within ExaVault, it was possible to add a note to an IP range, which could be used to indicate which user was expected to connect from that range. Files.com allows you to assign IP addresses to individual users instead. If your site was migrated and you need access to the original notes, contact Customer Support for help.

Account Usage Dashboard

Files.com provides an Account Usage dashboard to track the amount of storage space, transfer, users and API calls that have been used by your site. This can be accessed by site administrators. To get there, type "Usage" in the search box at the top of every page and then click on the matching result.

Exceeding your account's storage

One key difference between ExaVault and Files.com is what happens when you exceed your account's storage space. On ExaVault, uploads would be disabled for accounts that had filled their storage space, which could cause disruption for automated processes. To prevent possible disruption of your critical transfers, Files.com sites will allow transfers to continue at an incremental cost.

Getting Support

ExaVault's self-service customer support model operated mostly via receiving email requests, which customer support staff would attempt to match up with an account owner. This could result in delays in receiving support. At Files.com, we take pride in providing you with quality support from the first point of contact, which is possible because only site administrators can submit a support ticket through the web interface. This allows us to look in detail at your site configuration, user history, and billing information.

You'll be able to specify the impact an issue has on your business (from Low to Critical) and provide customer service with the appropriate level of access to your account.

If a site administrator isn't able to submit a support ticket, you can also email the our Customer Support team at support@files.com or call (800) 286-8372 Monday through Friday from 9am to 8pm Eastern.

Trash Can

Some ExaVault customers had access to the Trash Can feature, and could restore recently-deleted items to their ExaVault account, but most ExaVault customers could not reliably restore deleted files. Files.com provides a configurable retention period for deleted files, and our support team has procedures that will allow them to restore deleted files which you may request via support ticket.

Summary Table

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