How client folders work

You will learn what the Documents app builds for each client, where the files are kept, and who can see them.

• Reading a client’s folders needs access to that client. Any member with client access can open the Documents tab.
• Turning the app on and designing templates needs a Company Owner or Company Admin.
• The Documents app is on the Elite plan.

The Documents app gives every client one folder tree, shown in the client’s Documents tab. Three things fill that tree:

• The folder structure template. Your firm designs one structure, and Uku creates it for every client that uses it. See Folder structure templates.
• Automatic filing. A file attached to a task, a note, or an email is filed into the right folder without anybody moving it.
• Uploads. Members upload straight into a folder, and clients upload through the Client Portal.

Every folder tree contains the same fixed parts:

Folder	What it holds
Recent	The client’s newest files across the whole tree. A view only — nothing is stored here.
New files	Files that arrive from the Client Portal or from a connected mailbox. Your firm files them from here.
Public	The only branch your client can see in the Client Portal.
Private	Your firm’s working files, sorted into year and month folders. Never shown to the client on the portal’s Documents page.
Notes, Templates	Optional branches for note attachments and template files. Present only if your template includes them.

Uku Storage is the default. Your firm can instead connect Google Drive, OneDrive, SharePoint, or Dropbox, and Uku keeps its own backup copy unless you turn that off. Setting this up is covered in Connect your document storage.

The tree you see in Uku is a view, not the drive itself. A folder exists in Uku the moment the template creates it, and it appears on your connected drive when the first file lands in it.

Each client’s own root folder is the exception on Google Drive and OneDrive. Uku creates it up front, so you can find the client on your drive before any file exists. SharePoint and Dropbox cannot hold an empty folder, so on those services the client root appears with its first file too. You choose how the root is named in the Documents app settings — by client name, client code, registration code, or a pair of those. If a client has no value for the field you picked, its folder is named ID plus the client number, for example ID1234.

Uku decides where a file belongs from where it came:

The file came from	Where Uku files it
A task or a task comment, added by a member	Private, in the year and month folder for today
A client or project note	Notes, or the year and month folder when the template has no Notes branch
A workflow or template file	Templates, or the year and month folder when the template has no Templates branch
A Client Portal upload, or an email from the Mailbox	New files
A member uploading in the documents browser	The folder that member chose

Filing happens before the file is copied to your drive. The folder you see in Uku and the folder on your drive are therefore always the same one.

Two questions decide this: whether the person is on your firm’s team, and what they may do.

• See the folders and download — any member with access to that client.
• Create folders, upload, rename, move — any member who can manage the client. On a firm that has not narrowed its team rights, that is every member with client access.
• Delete a folder, or delete a file completely — Company Owners, Company Admins, and Client Admins for that client only. No team right changes this.

There are no per-folder or per-file permissions. Everybody with access to the client sees the whole tree, apart from the Client Portal limit below.

A contact signed in to the Client Portal sees far less:

• The Public branch, and everything inside it.
• Their own uploads sitting in New files. Uploads from other contacts at the same client stay hidden.
• Recent, narrowed to the two items above.

Private, Notes, Templates, and any other branch are invisible and unreachable. A file attached to a task your client can open is still visible on that task, but it does not become a portal document. To share a document, move it into Public.

Path: Settings & Apps → Documents → Overview

1. Open Settings & Apps and find the Documents app.
2. On the Overview tab, activate the app.
3. Open the Settings tab and choose where files are kept. See Connect your document storage.
4. Open the Folder templates tab and check the structure Uku created for you. See Folder structure templates.
5. Open any client and click the Documents tab to see the result.

Uku creates a first folder structure template for you when you activate the app, so no client is left without a structure.

The client has no folder structure template. Open the client, click Edit, and pick one under Folder structure template. Uku builds the folders in the background, so give it a moment and reload the page.

Uku creates the folder on your drive when the first file is saved into it. Upload a file into that folder and check your drive again.

Check that the Documents app is active on the Overview tab. While the app is off, files still attach to their tasks and stay safe, but Uku files nothing into folders.

Two rules refuse it. A folder that still holds files cannot be deleted at all — move or delete the files first. A folder created from your firm’s template cannot be deleted on a single client — change the template instead. Deleting also needs Company Owner, Company Admin, or Client Admin rights for that client.

Month folders are numbers on purpose, so that every firm and every language reads the same folder. The order is correct in Uku: 9 is listed before 10.