Choose where documents are stored

1See where your documents are going now

Click Admin, then Storage.

The line under Document storage names the store your next document will be saved to, for example New documents are being saved to Diract storage.

Under WHERE TO STORE DOCUMENTS, Diract storage is always listed. Your Google Drive and Your SharePoint or OneDrive appear once they are connected. Each store shows its own status. Reachable means Diract can save there right now. Not set up means it has no connection yet, or the connection has stopped working.

Both connections are set up further down this same screen, under Google Drive and SharePoint or OneDrive. Each names the account it points at, and carries its own status: Connected, Not connected, Finish setup when Microsoft has approved Diract but no site has been added yet, or Not working when the account can no longer be reached.

2Pick which store Diract tries first

All three stores are listed whether or not they are connected, so the choice is visible before you set anything up. Click the store you want. The choice saves straight away, and the line at the top changes to name it.

A store you have not connected is greyed out and cannot be picked. It says what to do instead: Connect it below to make it your first choice for a drive of your own, and for Diract storage, ask us to switch it on for your company.

Click No preference to use the default order: Diract storage first, then your own drive if Diract storage is unavailable. Picking your own drive above is how you turn that around.

Pick your own Google Drive or SharePoint or OneDrive when the documents need to stay in your own account, for example where a client file has to remain in your custody.

3Connect your own Google Drive

On Admin, then Storage, find Google Drive at the bottom and click Connect Google Drive.

Diract creates a single folder called Diract in your Google Drive and files documents there. Nothing else in your Drive is touched or visible to Diract.

The line under Google Drive then names the Google account the folder lives in, and who connected it, and Your Google Drive becomes selectable above. The account shown is the Google one, which is often not the same address as that person's Diract login.

Click Disconnect to stop using it. The folder and every document in it stay in Google Drive.

4If Connect says your Google account is too old

If you see Your Google connection predates the Drive permission, your Google account was connected before Diract asked for Drive access, and clicking Connect Google Drive again will not fix it.

Go to Admin, then Email. Disconnect Google and connect it again, approving the Drive permission when Google asks.

Return to Admin, then Storage, and click Connect Google Drive.

5Connect SharePoint or OneDrive instead

On Admin, then Storage, find SharePoint or OneDrive below Google Drive and click Connect with Microsoft. Your Microsoft 365 administrator approves it once, on Microsoft's own screen.

Back on this screen, choose what to connect. A SharePoint site is a library the company owns, for example a Microsoft Team's own site: paste its URL up to the site name only, for example https://yourcompany.sharepoint.com/sites/TeamName, with nothing after it. For a Team, open it in Teams, click the "..." next to its name, choose "Open in SharePoint", and copy the URL from your browser's address bar.

Somebody's OneDrive is one person's own drive: give the work email they sign in to Microsoft 365 with. Use this when the matters live in a partner's My files rather than in a team site. The address bar while you are looking at My files is not a site URL, which is why the site option cannot accept it.

Your SharePoint or OneDrive then appears above and can be selected.

Matters folder path is optional. It narrows the folder search a Matter's Files tab uses to one subfolder, for example "Matters", instead of searching the whole library.

Click Disconnect to stop using it. Every document already in the library stays there.

SharePoint or OneDrive is included from Professional. On Essentials, SharePoint or OneDrive lists what the section does instead of its controls, and an admin can click Upgrade to use it. A drive connected before then stays connected.

6See what is in the drive, and link its folders to your records

On Admin, then Storage, under SharePoint or OneDrive, click Browse the files in this drive to see what is actually in it. Folders open, and the trail at the top takes you back out.

Click Link these folders to your records to join what is in the drive to what is in Diract. Most firms already keep one folder per matter, named the way they name matters, and this is what finds them.

Choose the table, then open the folder that holds the records’ folders. Whatever folder you are looking at is the one that gets searched, and the button beside the table name says which. Click Find matches.

The line under the button says what it read, for example Searched 423 folders in Matters against 380 records. If that count is smaller than you expected, you are searching the wrong folder: open the right one and click Find matches again.

Each proposal names the record, the folder, and the reason it was proposed, for example Folder starts with 260501, this record’s number.

If your folders are named differently, change how it looks before searching again. Reference and name compares both; Reference only ignores the words; Name only is for folders that carry no reference. Reference at the start expects 260501 to lead the folder name, Reference anywhere finds it wherever it sits. Names close enough is the default; exactly proposes nothing but identical names, loosely similar proposes more and asks you to read them.

To match one yourself, or to correct one: click the folder name on any row and search the folders in the scan. A row you set reads Yours. Click Show N with no folder, to match by hand to bring in the records nothing matched, and Leave this record unlinked on a row to reject a proposal outright.

Confirm the ones that are right. Only the certain ones ticks the matches made on a record's own number, which are the ones worth accepting without reading. Nothing is linked until you click Link.

7Work with a matter’s documents from the matter itself

Open the Matter and click its OneDrive Files tab. It opens on the folder this matter is linked to, and shows what is in it. If no tab is there, click + on the tab bar and add OneDrive Files.

Click a folder name to open it. The trail at the top takes you back out, and the small arrow beside it opens the same folder in OneDrive.

Upload adds files to the folder you are looking at, and you can drop files onto the list instead. New folder makes one inside it.

Tick the rows you want, then Download, Rename, or Delete. Deleted items go to your own OneDrive recycle bin, so a mistake is undone there.

To move something, tick it, click Cut, open the folder it should go in, and click Paste. Copy works the same way and leaves the original where it is.

Under the list, Activity shows what has been done to this matter’s documents and who did it. The same entries appear on the Outlook screen’s activity list, alongside the emails.

8Give every new record a folder of its own

On Admin, then Storage, under Folders for new records, click Choose a folder. Open the folder your matter folders live in, so the line reads Save turns this on: a new record will get its own folder in it, then click Save. Nothing changes until you do: until then the setting still reads Off.

From then on a new Matter gets its own folder inside it, named the way the matter is named. That includes a matter opened from the Gmail add-in.

Under Which records get a folder, tick any other table whose new records should get one too, for example Contacts. Only Matters is ticked to begin with, so an invoice, a receipt or a time entry gets no folder. It saves as you click, and unticking a table stops it.

The line then reads A new record gets its own folder in, followed by the folder. Change picks a different one and Turn off stops Diract creating any.

Records that already exist are covered from the same screen: find matches for the table, and under the proposals Create folders makes one for each record that has none. Folders already linked are left where they are.

One record at a time: open it, go to its OneDrive Files tab, and click Create a folder for this matter. If that button is not there, this setting is off, and the tab says so with a link back here.

9Save new PDFs in the matter’s folder

Link your matters to their folders first, under Link these folders to your records. A PDF is only saved for a matter that has a linked folder.

On Admin, then Storage, find New PDFs in the matter's folder and click Set up. Beside each kind of PDF, type the folder it belongs in, for example Account beside Invoices and Receipts, and Trust beside Trust receipts. Leave a row blank to save nothing for it, then click Save.

From then on each new PDF is saved into that folder inside its matter's folder, named the way its download is named. An invoice is saved when it is created, a receipt when a payment is recorded, a trust receipt, trust payment or trust cheque when it is made, and a precedent when it is issued. A trust receipt covering several matters is saved into each matter's folder.

For a settlement statement, click Save to OneDrive beside Print the statement. The button only appears once Settlement statements has a folder.

Each time, Diract says whether the PDF was saved: in the notice at the bottom right for an invoice, receipt or trust document, on the Document issued screen for a precedent, and under the buttons for a statement. For example Saved to the matter's Account folder, or Not saved to OneDrive: the matter's folder has no Account folder.

10Send an archived matter’s documents to one place

On Admin, then Storage, under Folder for archived records, click Choose a folder. Open the folder closed matters should end up in, then click Save. The sentence beside Save names what it is about to change, and nothing is saved until you click it.

The line then reads Archiving a matter moves its folder into, followed by the folder. Change picks a different one and Turn off leaves archived folders where they are.

From then on, archiving a matter moves its whole folder into that one. The matter’s own OneDrive Files tab keeps working and keeps showing the same documents: the folder has moved, not changed.

11Move documents you already have into those folders

On Admin, then Storage, under Link these folders to your records, find Move existing documents into these folders and click See what would move. Nothing moves yet.

You are then told how many files, how big they are, how many records they belong to, where they are going, and roughly how long it will take. Folder by folder lists every one, so you can check before agreeing.

Click Start copying to begin, or Not now to leave it. While it runs you get a progress bar naming the record it is on, and you can close the tab: it keeps going.

When it finishes it says how many files it copied. Any it could not copy are listed by name with the reason, rather than being folded into a count.

12Keep Diract and your drive in step

On Admin, then Storage, find Keep both in step and click Turn on. From then on a file added in Diract appears in your drive, and a file added to your drive appears in Diract, checked every quarter of an hour.

It is off until you turn it on, because it means every document lives in two places.

The line underneath says when it last checked. Where something needs you, it says so: 2 files need a decision.

13What happens when your plan changes

Adding and changing documents is part of the free trial and of Enterprise.

On any other plan once the trial has ended, this screen shows a note saying your documents are all still here and can be opened or downloaded.

Reading is never switched off. Every document you have stored stays available to open, search and download, whatever your plan is.