When you need to send documents to someone who does not have ProjectWise, you can either email them a copy of the document(s) directly from ProjectWise Explorer, or you can export those documents from ProjectWise Explorer to a folder outside of ProjectWise.

Email may be ideal when you only need to send one or two documents, but export may be a better option if you are sending multiple documents, or if the document you are sending has attachments because export will download the master document and all its attachments. Also, export is required if you need to have those documents edited, so that you can later import the changes back to ProjectWise.

Use Document > Export when you want to export individually selected documents, and use Folder > Export when you want to export an entire folder or work area of documents. Each method opens a wizard that walks you through the process of exporting documents.

In either wizard, there are two types of export you can perform: managed and unmanaged. Both types of export download copies of the selected documents, however a managed export (simply labeled Export in the wizard) will lock the selected documents so that no other user can check them out or export them while you have them locked, while an unmanaged export (labeled Send to Folder in the wizard) does not lock any documents. After performing a managed export, for you the document's icon changes to a diskette, while other users will see a lock icon. The document’s icon does not change after performing an unmanaged export. Once the documents are downloaded you can zip up the files on the file system and send them out for editing or review as needed.

To perform a managed export of a document, the document must have a Checked In status, and you must have Read, File Read, and File Write security permissions to that document. To perform an unmanaged export, you simply need access to the document, and it does not need to be checked in.

After performing a managed export, and the exported documents are returned from being edited, your next step is to import them back into ProjectWise. An import is essentially a check in, but for exported documents.