Setting Filename Policy

Because Access Connect sits in a key position between the file server and the Macintosh client, we can enforce policies on valid file names as well as file types to prevent the Macintosh users from breaking workflows. You can configure Access Connect to detect and reject the Macintosh client attempting to save (create, rename, move) files with characters that are “illegal” in Microsoft Explorer or other applications that don’t support the Unicode file system APIs. The administrator can configure what is allowed or deemed illegal. This list can include characters that cannot be displayed on Windows, “trailing spaces” Unicode characters not available in the default Windows font, any specified character, file names longer than “x” characters, or specific file extensions. Filename Policies do not affect existing files on the server or files that are copied using Windows file sharing.

Enforce Filename Policy

Checking this setting will allow you to enforce filename policies set in Access Connect.

Filename Policy Violations Report

A report listing all existing files and folders that violate the presently configured filename policy can be created by clicking the Generate button. A confirmation dialog box will appear and allow you to access the folder containing the report’s output. This folder will contain a Report Summary text file and individual, comma-seperated summary files for each Access Connect volume on the server. These CSV files can be viewed in a spreadsheet application or text editor.

Apply policy to all volumes

You can enforce filename policies globally or on a per volume basis. A globally enabled feature takes precedence over a pervolume setting. Checking this setting applies filename policies across all Access Connect volumes and overrides individual volume policy settings.

Limit error messages to clients to one every

Checking this setting limits the number of error messages to one for each client at the specified time interval. You can set the time interval.

Log failures to Windows Event Log every

If you check this setting, the server will log errors to the Windows Event Log at the specified time interval.

Custom message on error

You can specify a custom message that will be appended to the standard filename policy error messages. For example: “This action violates company policy regarding filenames.” would lead to the following message being sent to the user: “File ‘foo.mp3’ cannot be created because the ‘mp3’ extension is not allowed. This action violates company policy regarding filenames.”

Do Not Allow

In this section, set characters, filenames, and extensions that your Macintosh users will not be able to save to your file server.

• Characters illegal in Windows file or folder names — If you check this setting, users cannot save files with names that include characters illegal in Windows. The characters are / ? < > \ : * | and trailing spaces and trailing periods.
• Characters Not Displayable in Windows Explorer — If you check this setting, users cannot save files with names that include characters that cannot be displayed in the font used by Windows Explorer (the default is Tahoma).
• Custom error message - Custom message that will be added to the built-in description for each error.
• Specific Characters - You can specify additional characters that you do not want users to include in filenames. Type the characters in this field without separators.
• File names over —You can limit file names to a specified number of characters.
• Folder names over —You can limit folder names to a specified number of characters.
• Extension —You can restrict users from saving specific file extensions, such as mp3, mov and wav, by typing in the extension without the (.) dot precursor and clicking Add. To remove extensions from the list, highlight the extension and click Remove.