Environment
Multiple users are working with Windows machines on NAS SMB file shares - results are media files / photos.
Backup is organized for the NAS. Nextcloud is running on external shared web hosting. Local data storage is in range of TB. Files to distribute is typically in range of 100 MByte.
Use Case for this question
Every user is working on files that need to be distrinuted later to business clients. Our Workflow is flexible and can be interrupted and continued on any machine since data is shared on SMB file shares.
We are looking for an efficient workflow to transfer a copy of the final data via Nextcloud to our business clients. Sending via FileLink is not preferred as many files and amount of data. We intend to send a link via email to our customrers with the information how they can download the files later. This email shall include some related and dedicated business text around. We appreciate getting a confirmation email once the customer has downloaded the files.
Possible solution
Use of Nextcloud Desktop Client to sync a local transfer folder on each (n-1) Windows machines except one that uses the SMB share for the sync with the Nextcloud.
Then use the Nextcloud Desktop Client feature to quickly generate (explorer integration) the share link pointing to the data stored in Nextcloud which shall be shared with the business client. The share link is copied into the email. In NC 12 there is notification introduced to make us aware of business clients having downloaded the files. The workflow using explorer looks most efficient compared with working with the NC GUI.
Question
Is there a way to avoid the local sync copies of the transfer folder on the n-1 Windows machines - or a better way to accomplish the use case ?
I personally use the web-interface of NC for files of this size.
I’m not sure if their is an easy way edit the email-template.
The activity app informs you when the folder was downloaded. So the functionality is there. I’m not sure if this info can be also send via email.
Yes this is possible, just configure it in your notification settings on the server
If all machines use the same SMB server, are you able to enable other protocols such as SFTP? You could then add it directly into the Nextcloud instance via external storage.
Also, where you have NC hosted externally, is it impractical to run it on your local network? That’d reduce the attack surface vs opening 22 for SFTP.
Finally, you could consider a script/workflow to upload files to NC using webdav, or mount NC webdav as a shared drive on a host machine and copy things that way?
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Thank you both for your kind considerations. The issue is not so much the transfer of the many large files - well there is some significant additional traffic since Nextcloud does not have LAN sync and as such the data will have to go through Internet for every Windows machine connected. But we are looking for a super efficient and easy way to quickly set and get the share link for use in the personal email we need to compile. This feature is perfectly available in the desktop client, but cannot be used if other protocols esp. WebDAV are utilized. We have excluded the WebGUI from UX point of view for this use case for now.
The perfect way would be to have all Windows machines accessing the same SMB share via the Nexcloud sync client to make the set/get link feature acessible but this obviously could not work - or is there a way to tell the client about one Windows machine to be the sync master ? I was thinking of installing the client on the NAS, but this would not make this feature available in the Windows explorer either - right ?
Another way could be to setup the Nexcloud sync client to just sync one PC dedicated transfer sub-directory on the SMB network share per Windows machine and deliver from there - for each PC - probably an option. Then we could use a script to delete old transfer files where link share time (standard option set) is elapsed anyway. Will set this up in the next two weeks when I am on site and if no other good ideas will arrive 