Overview
The Show My Files Section setting controls whether a My Files area is shown inside a person’s profile and dashboard. This area gives Students, Teachers, and Parents (Guardians) a place to see documents that have been stored against their own record, such as certificates, forms, or reports. The setting simply decides which of these roles are allowed to see this area at all.
What This Setting Does
This setting is a multi-select list. An administrator chooses one or more roles that should be able to see the My Files area:
- Student
- Teacher
- Parent (Guardian)
Any role that is not selected will never see the My Files area, even if documents already exist on their profile behind the scenes. By default, no role is selected, so the My Files area starts out hidden for everyone until an administrator turns it on for the roles that should have access.
This setting only controls whether the area is visible. It does not control who is allowed to add files to a profile, or which file categories are used – those are handled by separate settings (see Notes below).
This setting is found under: App Settings > Basic Customization > Core Entities Settings.
Figure 1
Personal Files does not appear beacuse Franci Grixti is a student.(Figure 2)
Figure 2
Where It Is Used
When this setting is turned on for a role, the effect is visible in two places for that role:
- Profile page – a My Files section appears, typically toward the bottom of the person’s own profile, containing two groups of documents: Personal Files and Educational Files.
- Dashboard – a My Files shortcut/tile appears on the person’s dashboard, giving direct access to the same documents without needing to open the full profile.
Only the roles selected in this setting see these elements. Users in roles that are not selected (for example, office or administrative staff) never see this particular section, regardless of this setting.
Business Logic / Behavior
- Visibility is checked per role at login. It is possible, for example, to show the My Files area to Students and Parents (Guardians) while keeping it hidden from Teachers, or any other combination.
- The My Files area is split into two groups: Personal Files (documents specific to that individual) and Educational Files (documents related to that person’s education record). Both groups are hidden together for a role when that role is not selected in this setting.
- Turning this setting on does not create any documents by itself – it only reveals the area if documents already exist for that person. If no documents have been stored yet, the area may appear empty.
- Additional details next to each file – such as a note or a file category – can optionally be shown as well. This is controlled by a separate, related setting and only takes effect for roles that can already see the area through this setting.
Examples
Example 1 – K-12 school. At Alpha Institute, the administrator enables the My Files area for Students and Parents (Guardians), but leaves Teachers out. A student, Maria P., logs into her profile and dashboard and now sees a My Files tile; opening it, she finds a Personal Files tab with a signed permission form and an Educational Files tab with her latest report. Her father, Nikos P., signed in as a Parent (Guardian), sees the same section when he checks her profile. A teacher at the same institute, John S., does not see any My Files tile on his own dashboard, because Teacher was not included in the setting.
Example 2 – Higher education institution. At Beta College, only Teachers are selected in the setting. A faculty member, George K., can see his own My Files area with documents attached to his staff profile, while students at Beta College do not see a My Files section on their dashboard, even though documents may already be stored on their profiles.
When to Use
When to Enable
- The institute wants Students, Teachers, and/or Parents (Guardians) to have quick, self-service access to documents already stored on their own profile, such as certificates, signed forms, or reports, without contacting the office each time.
- The institute already has a process in place for adding files to profiles (for example, Teachers uploading files to a Student’s profile) and wants the people the files belong to be able to see them.
When to Disable
- The institute prefers that documents kept on a profile remain visible only to internal staff, and are shared with Students, Teachers, or Parents (Guardians) through other means, such as printed copies or email.
- The files currently stored on profiles have not yet been reviewed or organized, and the institute does not want end users to see incomplete content yet.
- A specific role should not have self-service access to its own files, even while the area remains enabled for other roles.
Notes
K-12 versus Higher Education mode: this setting works the same way regardless of whether the institute is set up in K-12 mode or Higher Education mode. No separate configuration is needed for either mode.
Prerequisites: for a role to see meaningful content once this setting is enabled, documents should already be stored on that person’s profile. Where relevant, upload-related settings – such as ‘Allow Teachers to upload Student profile files’ and ‘File categories enabled for Student profile files’ (see below) – should be configured first, so there is something for the enabled roles to see.
Related settings:
- ‘As part of the file entry, return also the following information (if available)’/Personal_Files_Shown_Information (App Settings > Basic Customization > Core Entities Settings) – controls whether extra details, such as a note or file category, are shown next to each file once the My Files area is visible.
- ‘Allow Teachers to upload Student profile files’/Allow_Teachers_to_Upload_Student_Profile_Files (App Settings > Teachers Portal Rights > Basic Teachers Settings) – controls whether Teachers can add files to a Student’s profile in the first place.
- ‘Teacher types allowed to upload Student profile files’/Teacher_Types_Allowed_to_Upload_Student_Profile_Files (App Settings > Teachers Portal Rights > Basic Teachers Settings) – narrows which Teacher types are allowed to upload such files.
- ‘File categories enabled for Student profile files’/File_Categories_Enabled_For_Student_Profile_Files (App Settings > Teachers Portal Rights > Basic Teachers Settings) – defines which file categories can be used when adding files to a Student’s profile.
