Set up and Create a New Collaborate Site (New Sites only)

This article details how to create and configure your practice’s New Collaborate settings and filing structure to enable you to co-edit and share documents and folders with your clients.

Watch the tutorial to learn how to set up your Collaborate site, or follow the steps below.

Before you Begin

New Collaborate uses the OneDrive Admin Account to connect and create the New Collaborate SharePoint site. To ensure the site can be created correctly, please refer to Setting up Microsoft 365 for New Collaborate.

Step 1 - Create New Collaborate SharePoint Site

FYI Admins create the New Collaborate SharePoint site within the FYI Collaborate app.

1. In FYI, click the Automation menu option.
   
   
2. Go to the Apps tab.
   
   
3. Locate the Collaborate tile and click the cog icon.
   
4. Your Microsoft 365 Permissions will be checked. For more information on the permissions refer to the article What Microsoft 365 permissions does FYI require?
   
   
5. If you have the correct permissions, click Proceed and continue with the next steps.
   
   If you don't have the correct permissions, click on the appropriate item below.
   
   
   If you can accept the permissions

   1. The permissions dialogue will be displayed.
   2. Tick Consent on behalf of your organisation.
      
      
      
   3. You will be redirected to the New Collaborate Setup Wizard.
   If approval is required

   1. An "Approval Required" message will be displayed.
      
      
      
   2. If your practice's OneDrive user does not have the rights to accept the permissions in your organisation, click Have an admin account? Sign in with that account and log in with a Microsoft 365 Global Administrator user account.
      
      
   3. If you select to sign in with another account, a Microsoft login will be displayed. Enter the login details for the practice's OneDrive Admin user.
      
      
   4. The permissions will be displayed. Tick Consent on behalf of your organisation.
      
      
   5. Click Accept.
      
      
   6. The practice's OneDrive Admin User will need to log out of FYI, and back in, to accept the new permissions.
      
      
   7. Open the Collaborate app and click Upgrade to resume the upgrade process.
6. The Configuration settings will be displayed.
   
   
7. Create a new Collaborate Site by clicking the plus + button on the right of the Collaborate Site field.
   
   Enter a name into the New Collaborate Site Name field. FYI will automatically create and configure the site for you with the required permissions.
   
   Note: When naming your Collaborate site, this name will be visible to your clients. We recommend including "Client Portal" in the name to clearly indicate the SharePoint site's purpose for your clients.
   
   

   Important: For practices with an existing SharePoint site used for external purposes, we strongly recommend creating a new SharePoint site exclusively for New Collaborate. Using an existing site that was not created specifically for New Collaborate may prevent core New Collaborate functionality from working.

   If selecting an existing SharePoint site, and multiple Document Libraries are detected, a warning will be displayed. New Collaborate is only able to control access to the Document Library selected in the New Collaborate app settings in FYI. Where multiple libraries exist, this can result in visitors to the site having access to libraries that the practice does not intend for guest users to access.
   
   

8. The Document Library field will be greyed out if creating a new site.
   
   
9. The Microsoft Group is a mandatory field, displaying the Security Group used to control sharing and access to documents. The field will be set to "Everyone except external users" by default. Click the drop-down to display a list of Microsoft Security Groups from the selected SharePoint site. Type directly into the field to filter the drop-down to matching Groups only.
   
   
10. To select a Default Email Template, used when sharing documents with your clients, select the template from the drop-down or type at least 3 letters to search for the Template Name. Refer to Setting up Collaborate Email Templates.
    
    If preferred, leave this field blank. A default email template will not be selected when sharing documents.
    
11. The Retain Client Uploads in Collaborate site option allows practices to control whether client-uploaded files remain on the SharePoint site after being imported to FYI. If the option is set to Yes, uploaded files will be moved to a "Processed" folder within the client's Upload folder, enabling clients to confirm their documents have been successfully imported. If set to No, the files will be deleted from SharePoint after being imported.
    
    
12. Click Next.
    
    
13. Follow the steps below to set up the Share folder structure, or click Next to proceed through the tabs and commit your updates.
    Important: you must click Next on the final tab before your changes will be saved.

Step 2 - Set up the Share folder structure

You can configure the folder structure that FYI will automatically use for all documents within your SharePoint Document Library. For more information refer to Summary of New Collaborate Folder Structure.

To configure your Folder Structure:

1. From the Available List in the left-hand pane, select and drag the relevant fields to the Structure List in the right-hand pane.
   
   
2. Then drag the selections in the Structure List up and down to order the fields, so they match the filing structure you want.
   Note: When Folders are created on the New Collaborate SharePoint site, invalid characters will be omitted from the folder name, for example, full stops or forward slashes.
   
   
3. Click Next.
   
   The Reset button will reset the structure list back to its default settings. It will not update your settings until you click Next and complete the remainder of the setup instructions.
   
   
4. Once your set-up is complete, the Collaborate - Finished message displays. The link to your new Collaborate Site will be displayed.
   
   The Collaborate Site Link will also be displayed under the Collaborate Site field when opening the Collaborate app in FYI.
   
5. Click the link to open your New Collaborate SharePoint site.
   
   Note: The Documents section will be blank as there are no documents shared with the user. As documents are shared they will be added to the list.
   

Note: It can take up to 30 minutes for permissions to be applied before other users will be able to access the site. The Site Owner, the OneDrive Admin account, will be the only user able to access the site during that time.

You can now optionally customise your site to match your practice branding. Refer to Customising your New Collaborate site on SharePoint.

Step 3 - Check your SharePoint site status

Now that your site has been created, clients can now be sent invitations to the Collaborate site.

As a final check, follow the instructions in Checking your Collaborate Status to review the status and resolve any errors.

Step 4 - Update User Permissions

For users to be able to add clients to the Sharing Settings, so that documents can be shared and uploaded to the New Collaborate client folder on SharePoint, the user must be either an FYI Admin or in a User Group that has permissions enabled for Share Settings.

To update users, refer to Share Settings in Managing User Groups and to Managing Users

For more information, refer to New Collaborate Permissions

Step 5 - Test your site by sharing a document

You can now test your site by doing the following:

1. Set up a test email address in Gmail (not linked to your existing FYI staff user account).
   
   
2. Add the new email address to a client's Sharing Settings. Refer to Sharing the Share Folder and Upload Folder with Clients.
   
   
3. Share documents to the new email address as if it was a client. Refer to Sharing Documents with Clients.
   
   
4. In an incognito or private browser session (so you're not logged into your FYI user account), try accessing the document as a client. Refer to Login Experience for Clients using New Collaborate. Confirm that you can:
   • Access the SharePoint site Home Page.
   • Access the client folder.
   • Access a document.
   • Try uploading a document and confirm it successfully imports into FYI under the client account. Refer to Upload Experience for Clients using New Collaborate.