Synchronization allows you to share and collaborate on briefs by using an online repository instead of everyone having their own individual copies. It ensures that everyone has the latest version of the brief. With the click of a button, you can update your copy of a brief to be the same as everyone else's.
NOTE: This feature was designed before the ubiquitous appearance of cloud-storage services such as Dropbox and OneDrive. You may find it more efficient and reliable to set up a shared folder using a service like Dropbox, rather than using Factsmith's own (somewhat minimal) synchronization feature. The main advantage of the built-in feature is that it maintains a list of updated briefs (Tools > Updated Briefs); the main disadvantages are that you have to remember to click the Synchronize button, and it may potentially be less stable than big commercial hosting services.
Easy Setup: Syncbox
The fastest and easiest way to set up online synchronization is to create a free account on Syncbox, Factsmith's official synchronization host. Visit syncbox.cogdebate.com to create your account and get instructions on how to connect to it.
For manual instructions, see below.
Basic Synchronization
To connect Factsmith to an online archive, open the Options dialog (from the Tools menu) and click on the Storage tab. Check the box labeled "Enable synchronizing to an online brief database" and enter the database URL, username, and password in the boxes. Set the Synchronized Folder to a folder of your choice. You can also type in "(base)" (without the quotes) to use the same home folder as the brief tree.
To update the folder on your hard drive and the folder on the server, click the "Synchronize" button on the toolbar or the Tools menu. You should do this regularly to make sure that you always have the newest version.
IMPORTANT: Synchronize before editing any shared brief, to make sure you have the newest version. Likewise, always synchronize right after editing a shared brief, so the new version is uploaded to the server for everyone else to have. (Note that if two people are editing the same brief at the same time, odd things can happen. It's always good to periodically back up shared briefs, in case something unusual happens.)
Once you've set up the system, anything you do to your local copy of the synchronized briefs will also happen to everyone else's copy. This is very useful for collaboration, but be careful, especially about deleting briefs.
Setting Up an Online Archive
There are two ways to set up an archive: HTTP and FTP.
Setting up an FTP archive is as simple as creating an FTP folder on your server. (Refer to your server software documentation for instructions on how to do this; free FTP hosts can be found online if you don't have server space.) Anyone with the ftp logon name and password to this folder can now synchronize to it. (Note: Under some versions of Windows, you may get a connection error the first time you try to synchronize, even if the FTP folder has been correctly set up. If you can't connect, create a blank file called FILES.DAT in the FTP folder and try again.)
Setting up an HTTP archive is a bit more complicated. You can either create an account with Syncbox (easy) or install the Syncbox software on your own server (more complicated). To download the Syncbox server software, see the Factsmith website.