Local File Sync - Anyone using?
We've been trying to use the local file sync functionality and have run into various issues. Is there anyone using the functionality in their program?
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Yep, I used it a lot during SOX testing. One of the best new features 2021 from my point of view. It saved me a lot of time and ran without issues.
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Udo. Thanks for the feedback.
Have you had any issues with the functionality? It worked great for us initially, but now we're having problems with it.
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No issues, also no complaints from colleagues who were using it.
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following, i haven't used it extensively but would like to hear what kind of issues you are having?
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The functionality has been unstable for us. On some days users would not see option to open with local file sync at all. We're also trying to determine if internal IT configuration is responsible for it working from some sites, but not others.
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Was this ever resolved for you? We are having significant issues and support has not been able to help us. We pretty much have to have it for our workflow so are really struggling.
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We are having the similar issues .. local file sync option available however users get an error when trying to save the file back to app .. the file opens in file sync but does not save the changes or upload them back to Wdesk. It hasn't been working for us either.
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The feature is still unstable for us. It's great when it works, but it can be hit or miss. I haven't had much from support, only to ensure that the latest version is downloaded. I haven't surveyed my teams recently to determine how much they are still trying to use the feature.
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That is the same problem we have been having. It will sometimes save, sometimes wont. Some attachments it really hates and will not let us update, others never have a problem.
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We have issues on and off with Local File Sync. We have one IA team member who doesn't really use Local File Sync at all after she lost support for a SOX control she was testing, but the other 3 team members who use Local File Sync haven't had this particular issue. I have found (and Workiva never notified us of this) that Local File Sync will time out after a certain period of time (e.g. an hour & a half) once you initially open a workpaper using Local File Sync, regardless of if you're working on the workpaper the entire time or it's just sitting open in a desktop application not being worked on at all, and once Local File Sync "expires" for a workpaper it will no longer sync any additional saves to your workpaper from the time it "expires" back to Wdesk, and thus if you forgot to save the most-current version of your workpaper before it expired you'll have to save the file to your desktop, re-open the file in Wdesk using Local File Sync, and copy those revisions/updates into the Local File Sync file. You could go the route of "Replacing" the file in the Testing Experience, but if you've already started tickmarking your workpaper I wouldn't recommend this option.
Every now and then I'll save an edit to a workpaper using Local File Sync, specifically an excel file, but the sync notification I get on my laptop will not come up after re-saving the workpaper two or three times. In those cases I'll try to type or delete a couple spaces in an empty cell at the top of the page and re-save the file until I get the sync notification. Like everyone has already communicated the functionality is hit or miss so that unfortunately may be out of our control, but hope this helps in terms of transparency/visibility into our pain points and any work-arounds we've used!0
Our issues have been primarily with PDFs. We are external audit so do a lot of non-testing oriented agency document collection to build criteria. We have had occasional issues that could be due to timing out, though ours seems to sometimes be less than an hour based on what I've been seeing in our logs. When we have documents with continual issues we've been testing them by opening them, putting on a comment or highlight, saving, and closing all within a couple of minutes and failed to save over and over again. We've got a new one now that instead of not saving changes it will only add them and not save any deletes of comments of highlights. Do you know of any way of seeing if the sync has been successful for PDF prior to closing? I think if we had a way of knowing it saved we'd be fine and could switch to replacing when necessary, but having no idea we've lost work is pretty disturbing.
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Alyssa, my advice would be to use Local File Sync as little as possible. You can use "Open in Markup Viewer" functionality when documenting PDF files. We've almost never use Local File Sync for any PDF support file (we don't have a need to highlight workpapers, but sometimes we'll insert/delete pages in a PDF file). Using Markup Viewer to document PDFs gives you most of the same functionality as you would if you were to use Adobe, Nitro, or whatever PDF application through Local File Sync to document a PDF file. The couple things that I know off-hand where you'll need to use Local File Sync when documenting a PDF file would be highlighting & inserting/deleting pages in the PDF.
Any text box (and changing font color/size in text box), underlining, square/round boxes around certain detail, arrows, footing/crossfooting, recalcs/tie-outs, and preparer/reviewer/approval stamps can be added/deleted within Markup Viewer without having to use Local File Sync and any documentation done in Markup Viewer is already in Wdesk, and thus there is no need for any "sync" to occur. For the times that you do use Local File Sync for a PDF file and save the file I get the same sync notification for PDF files that we get when updating excel files using Local File Sync where it'll let us know that "APxx.xx is in the process of being synced" and then a second notification on my laptop shortly thereafter saying "APxx.xx has been synced successfully" or something to that extent. I don't know if what we see on our end as IA would be the same as what you might see from the external side, but that's how we know that when we save a file using Local File Sync that is has been synced back into Wdesk.
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We do not seem to get any notification of syncing occurring successfully, I'll ask our Workiva folks about that. Thank you!
Unfortunately I don't think we can use use Markup Viewer, but I'm happy to keep brainstorming ideas for work arounds. My understanding is Mark Up Viewer does not allow for highlighting or attributed and dated comments or replies between audit team members including oversight. Our only option would be the textbox like features, requiring us to all remember to attribute each comment, and try and make sure it is clear what text box is a "response" to another. It also places the text boxes right on top of the document, so if you have any significant commentary it covers up the entire document you are trying to read. For some Workiva style comments are allowed in the testing version of Mark Up Viewer, but not for regular attachments in a simple procedure. We have considered trying to arrange our procedures in a way that we set up testing just to for adding basic evidence so we could use the comment feature in Mark Up Viewer to document the PDFs. We've resisted so far due to none of the documentation/commentary being downloadable on the document so we wouldn't be able to download any of the mark up we make if we need to add or move the PDF to a different procedure, print it out to take to a meeting, or share with agency staff (none of whom are in Workiva, since we are external audit). It is also an issue if the document we recieved already had comments in it from the agency. If we open it in Mark Up Viewer, their comments are all a broken mess.
It is to the point we may have to continue to use our shared drive to store all of our workpapers, same as we did prior to Workiva, but adding an embedded spreadsheet with a link to the path of all the associated documents. But even that is an unappealing option since the links wouldn't work to click through and automatically open the documents. We'd have to copy and paste each path into our file explorer to open. Plus then we would have to maintain our shared drive.
Anyone have any other ideas?
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Some thoughts to the comments above.
We are mainly using the features in the Markup Viewer and really like that you can drag and drop the test attributes on the documents. However, for big Excel-sheets with multiple tabs and many data the Markup Viewer is not very comfortable. In theses cases, or when I want to see the attachments of uploaded mails, I love using Local File Sync. We had some issues with Local File Sync when we upgraded our Windows system but with the latest version of File Sync, the problems were gone.
Nevertheless, I also know the problem of not refreshing Workiva with the updated version from the local computer. For what reason ever, in some cases, I got a message when I start using File Sync, giving me the option to open the (downloaded) file or the folder where File Sync. stored it on my HD. I opened the folder and found out that all my downloaded and edited attachments are saved under the following path: C:\Users\XXXXXXX\AppData\Roaming\Workiva Local File Sync\attachments. So if Workiva has not properly replaced the attachment with the updated version from your local HD, look for the file under this path and replace it manually.
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