Access model
The space belongs to the company. People work inside it.
In services born for personal use every person has their own space and shares a few folders with colleagues: when they change jobs, the folders leave with them. Files starts from the opposite end. There is one archive, the company’s; top-level folders are decided by administrators; people receive an access, with a level, on a part of the tree. Nobody “owns” a client’s folder.
One tree, with people hanging from its branches
Root folders — Clients, Administration, Projects, Quality — are created by the Administrator, or by whoever has the privilege to do so. Below, every folder inherits access from the one above, and where needed you add a person or restrict. The Administrator and the Manager see the whole tree, always: there is no company folder that someone created and nobody else can open. Every file records who uploaded it, but that is information, not ownership: the file sits in the folder, and the folder belongs to the company. The personal space is something else — a privilege of the user type, with its own quota, invisible to administrators — and it is for drafts and notes, not for shared work.
How it works
-
Draw the tree once
Top-level folders mirror the company, not people: by department, by client, by job. Structure templates and cloning let you repeat the same scheme every time a new client comes in.
-
Give access, not copies
A person or a group receives a level on a folder — Manager, Editor, Viewer — and from there down sees what they are entitled to. The external consultant enters a workspace or as a Guest, and sees only that. Nobody emails files around “so you have it too”.
-
When someone leaves, nothing moves
You deactivate the person in Kamzan Account and they lose access to every product. Folders stay where they are, with the same permissions for everyone else; on every file the name of who uploaded it stays readable. The personal space is closed towards the person, in a protected archive: the company does not open it, but it does not need to, because the work was not there.
No company file lives in someone’s drive.
What you can do
-
Root folders decided by the company
Creating a top-level folder is a privilege of the user type, on for Administrators and Managers and off for the others if you want: the tree does not grow at random.
-
Administrators see everything
Administrator and Manager have access to every company folder, and the Auditor sees everything without touching anything. No corner of the archive depends on the goodwill of whoever created it.
-
The creator is information
Every file and folder keeps who uploaded it, with date and time, even after that person has left. It serves traceability, not deciding who can open.
-
Personal space: a privilege, not the rule
Employees have it, Collaborators and Guests do not; the per-person quota is decided by the company and does not eat into the company one. Administrators see how much space it takes, not what it contains.
-
External users within a boundary
Firms, suppliers, clients enter as Collaborators or Guests: they live in the workspaces and folders they are assigned to, with a mandatory user expiry. They have no personal space and create no root folders.
-
A periodic reminder
Archive controls send administrators a report on folders without an owner, never-used accesses, files idle for too long: the company archive stays in order even as people change.
Frequently asked questions
If an employee leaves, do we lose their files?
No. Work files sit in the company’s folders, and the folders are not theirs: they stay in place with the same permissions for everyone else. Only their access goes, and with it the personal space, which by definition is what was not shared work.
Can an employee create a folder of “their own” that nobody else sees?
In the company archive, no: Administrator and Manager always see everything. For drafts and notes there is the personal space, which really is theirs — but it is separate, has its own quota and is not the place for shared work.
Can we do without the personal space?
Yes: it is a privilege of the user type and can be switched off. Many companies keep it only for Employees; Collaborators and Guests never have it.
We come from Google Drive or Dropbox: how do we bring the archive in?
With migration from the desktop app or from the shared folder, rebuilding the company tree first and assigning access afterwards. It is the right moment to stop having one folder per person.
The other Files features
Move your company files to the cloud
Request a demo: we’ll show you how Files makes storage and sharing simple and secure.
Alex