Shared and private views

There are two types of views: shared (available to many users) and private (available to one person). You designate the view type when you create the view and cannot change it later. A shared view can become a private view on first use, but a private view cannot become a shared view without recreating it as such.

Shared views

Shared views are available to any user with at least Reader access to the database. Most views that you design for databases are shared views. Users with Designer or Manager access can create shared views, as can Editors for whom the manager has selected "Create shared folders/views" in the access control list.

In addition to a basic shared view, you can create the following specific types of shared views:

  • Shared, contains documents not in any folders
  • Shared, contains deleted documents (used in conjunction with "Allow soft deletions" in the Advanced tab of the Database Properties box)
  • Shared, private on first use
  • Shared, desktop private on first use (saves private views in users' desktop.dsk files rather than in the database)

Shared, contains documents not in any folders

A "Shared, contains documents not in any folders" view is useful if users typically file most documents in folders. With this view, users can easily find the documents that are not in folders.

Shared, contains deleted documents

A "Shared, contains deleted documents" view allows users to view a list of documents deleted from the database. Users can recover deleted documents by dragging them out of the trash to a folder. This view assumes that the database manager has already selected "Allow soft deletions" at the Advanced tab of the Database Properties box.

The "Allow soft deletions" property keeps deleted documents in the database for a set number of hours. The hours are set by the database manager in the Advanced tab of the Database Properties box. After that time, the document is permanently deleted from the database.

Shared, private-on-first-use views

A "Shared, private-on-first-use" view begins as a shared view and becomes a private view as soon as a user accesses and saves the view. These views give you a convenient way to distribute personal views to multiple users. You usually create this type of view by using @UserName to customize the display for each user.

Note that this is the only way to make a view work with @username, because the view selection is only parsed when the view is generated. Thus, if Tom opened a shared view that keyed to @username, all of Tom's documents would display. But, if the view is still open when Jay accesses it, Jay sees all of Tom's documents, and does not see his own. So, to avoid this conflict, designate the view as "Shared, private on first use" when using @username in the selection formula.

After a user saves a shared-to-private view, the user's copy of the view no longer inherits design changes. For example, if you add a column to the view, anyone using a private version of the view won't see the new column. To obtain design changes, users must delete their private versions of the view and open the shared-to-private view again.

Shared-to-private views are not a security measure, as they do not protect data. If you create a shared-to-private view that omits certain documents, a user can still create a private view that includes them.

Shared-to-private views are stored in the database as long as they are shared. After the first use, Domino® uses the "Create personal folders/views" option to determine where to store the view.

Shared, desktop private-on-first-use views

If you want the shared-to-private view to be stored in a user's desktop.dsk file rather than in the database, choose "Shared, desktop private on first use" as the View Type when you create the view.

Private views

Users can create private views to organize documents in personalized ways by choosing Create - View.

If a user has the permissions to create private folders/views in the database access control list, private views are stored in the Notes® database. If the user does not have the access control list permission to create private folders/views, the user can only create and save private views in the user's personal workspace file (desktop.dsk).

Private views are not supported on the Web.