Attachments and Documents

[cjohnsonuk]

What is the difference between Attachments and Documents in ESPO? Our database has 630+ attachments and 530+ documents. Some have the same names, some don't. We're trying to migrate our content to another system so I need to know the difference so I know which I need to export and where they need to be exported to.

I've tried attatching documents to the accounts and contacts and exporting lists of contacts to see if I can work out a pattern. These all appear in the attachments list with a related type of null.

Is there a guide that explains the difference or how they are used please?

[yuri]

As it stated in the description Attachments are all files stored in the system.

[cjohnsonuk]

OK So all files uploaded become Attachments. From this I assume if I export all my attachments then I will have all the files that have been uploaded.

What makes a file become a document?
How are attachments and documents different, what is the role of the document table?

I have attached 3 documents in my tests and all appear in the Attachment table but none are listed in the document table. I also have 22 Documents where the document.file_id is the same as the attachment.id but the attachment.name is different to the document.name.

[tanya]

Attachment could have any retated entity, like Document, Case, Email, Post in Stream and others.
Document name could be set manually, could be located in document folder. But it always have related attachment.
If you create a new document, you have +1 record in document table and +1 record in attachment table.