About File Associations

A file can be associated with multiple download packages or with none at all. A file only appears in the End-User Portal within the download packages with which it has been associated. Therefore, you can control the visibility of a file and your customers’ access to it (in part) by managing the file’s associations with your download packages.

You can manage a file’s download package associations from the file’s View File page. There, you can see which download packages a file is associated to, make new associations, or remove existing associations. Use the following commands on the View File page:

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View > View Where Used—To see existing download package associations. See Viewing Where a File Is Used.

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Associate > Associate to Download Packages—To make new download package associations. See Associating a File to Download Packages.

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Associate > Associate Where—To make download package associations that match the associations from one or more existing files. See Using Associate Where to Copy Associations from Another File.

Persistence of Associations

A file’s download package associations remain even if the file is edited, reidentified, or if its file image is deleted.

Aliases behave just like separate files after they have been created with one exception: they always use the same file image as their original file. At creation time, an alias is a copy of the original file and includes its file associations and other file attributes. After it is created, any changes made to the alias apply only to the alias itself; they have no impact on the original file. Therefore an alias can be altered to have download package associations that differ from the original file.

The Association Where Command

Typically, simple download package associations can be quickly defined using the Associate to Download Packages command—explicitly specifying one or more download packages. In some cases, though, it may be cumbersome to itemize all the download packages to which you want this file associated. Associate Where is a shortcut that copies the download package associations of another file. That is, the Producer Portal associates the current file with all the download packages with which another file is already associated.