Files

Store, organize, preview, and share your organization and property documents — with folder-level access you control.

Overview

Files is where your organization's documents live — insurance certificates, vendor contracts, policies, financials, lease documents, and anything else you need to keep on hand. Open it from Files in the sidebar, which has two views:

  • All files: your organization's folder tree. If you belong to one organization you land straight inside it; if you belong to several, you start from a list of your organizations.
  • Shared with me: files and folders other people have shared with you directly — see Sharing & access.
Files in List view (click to zoom)

How Files Is Organized

Property folders

  • Every property has its own folder
  • Everyone with access to the property can open it by default
  • The same documents appear on the property's Files tab
  • Lease documents are filed automatically from the lease page

Organization folders

  • For documents that aren't tied to one property
  • Visible to owners and admins, plus anyone the folder (or a folder above it) is shared with
  • Good for company policies, templates, and entity records

Browsing Files

Three Ways to View

Switch layouts from the view and sort menu at the right of the search bar. The layout is kept in the page link, so a colleague you send it to sees the same view, and Cardinal remembers your preferred sort order.

List

The default. A table with Name, Category, Uploaded by, and Modified columns. Click a folder to open it.

Icons

A grid of tiles — handy when you're scanning by name. Page through large folders with the footer controls.

Columns

Browse folder by folder, each opening in a new column. Select a file to see its details pane.

The details pane in Columns view shows a preview tile, the file type and last-modified date, its Category, who uploaded it, and its Location, with a Download button. Click the preview tile to open the document full screen.

Search, Filter & Sort

  • Search files: type in the search box to find files and folders by name. Inside a folder, the search covers that folder and everything beneath it.
  • File Type: narrow the list to one or more categories, such as Insurance Files or Vendor Contracts.
  • Property Type: at the top level, narrow property folders to office, retail, industrial, and so on.
  • Filter chips: each active filter shows as a chip you can remove individually, or use Clear all to reset.
  • Sort: by name (A–Z or Z–A), last modified, oldest modified, newest or oldest created, or — at the top level — property type.

Columns view is for browsing, so search and filters are hidden while it's active. Switch to List or Icons to search.

Previewing a File

Choose Preview from a file's … menu to open it full screen without downloading. PDFs open in a built-in viewer; Word documents are shown in a document viewer. Close the preview to return to where you were.

Adding Folders & Files

The New Folder and Add New buttons sit at the top right of the page. They're available wherever you can edit; if you can't add to the current folder, the buttons are greyed out and hovering them tells you why.

Creating a Folder

  1. Click New Folder.
  2. Enter a Folder Name and confirm the Location — it starts as the folder you're in.
  3. Review the Access line, which says who will be able to open the new folder based on where it lives.
  4. To limit the folder to specific people, click Change, add people, and pick each person's level. Leave it alone and the folder simply inherits access from its location.
  5. Click Create Folder.

Choosing people when you create a folder makes it a restricted folder: only those people, you, and organization owners and admins can open it. You need manage access on the folder you're creating in to set this.

Uploading a File

  1. Click Add New.
  2. Click Browse… (or drop a file onto the dialog) and choose a PDF or DOCX up to 50 MB. The File Name fills in from the file — change it if you like.
  3. Pick a category under Upload to: Entity & Tax, Financial, Insurance Files, Legal, Maintenance Files, Policies, Templates, Vendor Contracts, or Other Files.
  4. Confirm the Location. The Access line shows who will be able to see the file — a file always takes its access from the folder it's in.
  5. Click Upload.

The category describes what a document is, so it stays with the file if you move it. Lease documents, lease amendments, and purchase & sale agreements are categorized automatically when they're added from their own records.

Uploading Many Files at Once

To upload several files — or whole folders — open the destination folder and drag them from your computer onto the page.

  • A banner confirms where the files will go. Drag-and-drop works inside a folder, not at the top level of Files.
  • A Confirm Upload dialog lists everything you dropped; remove anything you didn't mean to include, then click Upload.
  • Folder structure is preserved, and a progress panel in the corner shows each item as it finishes.

If an Upload Doesn't Finish

If your connection drops mid-upload, Cardinal tells you and the file is listed as incomplete. Delete it and upload it again.

Managing Files & Folders

The Item Menu

Every file and folder has a … menu:

Open & share

  • Preview: view a file full screen
  • Download: save a copy to your computer
  • Share… (files) or Manage access… (folders): control who can open it

Change

  • Rename: give it a new name
  • Move: pick a new folder and click Update
  • Delete: remove it after you confirm. Deleting a folder deletes everything inside it

Working With Several Items

Tick the checkboxes next to files and folders (or use the select-all checkbox in the toolbar), then open the bulk actions menu:

  • Download: everything selected is bundled into a single .zip file, with a progress bar while it's prepared.
  • Move: move the whole selection to another folder.
  • Delete: delete the whole selection.

Why an Action Might Be Greyed Out

Hover a disabled menu item to see the reason. The usual ones:

  • Your access level: with view-only access you can preview and download; edit access adds uploading and renaming; moving, deleting, and sharing need manage access.
  • Managed by its lease or property: documents and folders that Cardinal creates for a record — such as lease documents and each lease's folder — can't be moved, deleted, or shared from Files. Make those changes on the lease or property that owns them.
  • Lease folders: folders reserved for lease documents don't accept new uploads from Files; add lease documents from the lease page instead.

Sharing & Access

Access in Files flows downward: a file takes its access from the folder it's in, and a folder from the folders above it. Sharing adds people. Restricting a folder is how you limit who can open it.

Access Levels

Can view

Open, preview, and download.

Can edit

Everything in Can view, plus upload into a folder, create subfolders, and rename.

Can manage

Everything in Can edit, plus move, delete, and share with others.

Organization owners and admins can always open everything — they appear in the access list marked as always having access.

Sharing a File or Folder

  1. Open the item's … menu and choose Share… (for a file) or Manage access… (for a folder).
  2. Use Add people… to find someone in your organization, or click Add everyone in this organization to add all members at once.
  3. Set each person to Can view, Can edit, or Can manage. Choose Remove access to take someone off the list.
  4. Read the note at the bottom of the dialog — it explains exactly who will be able to see the item once you save — then click Save.

Under the title, the dialog shows where the item inherits its access from (for example, Inherits access from Properties / 12 Main St).

Managing access to a folder (click to zoom)

Restricted Folders

A folder's Manage access dialog has a Who can access toggle:

  • Inherited (the left option): for a property folder, everyone with access to the property; for an organization folder, owners, admins, and anyone it's shared with. Inside a restricted folder, this reads Everyone who can open the folder above it.
  • Select people: restricts the folder. Only the people listed — plus organization owners and admins — can open it and everything inside it. Access granted on folders above it no longer applies.

Changing the toggle asks you to confirm with Restrict folder or Lift restriction. Lifting a restriction never removes the people already listed — it only lets the folder's wider audience back in.

  • Restricted folders show a padlock next to their name.
  • People who can see where a restricted folder lives still see its name (with the padlock), even if they can't open it — so keep private details out of folder names.
  • Files can't be restricted on their own. To limit who can open a file, put it in a restricted folder.
  • While a folder is restricted, you can't lower or remove your own access — someone else with access has to do it.

Shared With Me

Files → Shared with me lists the files and folders people have shared with you directly. It's the quickest way to reach something you were given access to when you can't open the folder it sits in.

Files on a Property

Each property's Files tab shows the documents in that property's folder, so you can work with them without leaving the property. Anything you add there appears in Files, and vice versa — it's one set of documents with two ways in.

Best Practices

  • Keep property-specific documents in the property's folder so everyone working on that property can find them
  • Pick an accurate category when uploading — the File Type filter relies on it
  • Restrict a folder rather than sharing files one by one when a group of documents needs to stay private
  • Avoid putting names or sensitive details in the title of a restricted folder, since its name stays visible

Troubleshooting

  • Can't see a folder? It may be restricted, or belong to a property you don't have access to. Ask an owner, admin, or someone who manages the folder to share it with you.
  • Upload rejected? The Add New dialog accepts PDF and DOCX files up to 50 MB.
  • Can't delete or move a document? Check your access level, and whether it's managed by a lease or property.
  • Drag-and-drop not working? Open a folder first — you can't drop files at the top level.