Citavi and SharePoint

In this chapter we answer some common questions about using Citavi with SharePoint.

Summary:

  1. Can I share and edit local Citavi projects on SharePoint? — No.
  2. Can I save attachments on SharePoint? — Yes.
  3. Can I use the Citavi Word Add-In to collaborate on Word documents that are saved to SharePoint? — Yes.
  4. Can Citavi be further integrated with SharePoint? — No.

1) Local projects on SharePoint

For Citavi to edit a local project, the project file with the .ctv6 extension must be saved on a local hard drive or LAN drive.

That means, firstly, that collaboration via a WAN (Wide Area Network) is not supported. It is therefore not possible to give a collaborator the link for a SharePoint website and to work with a Citavi project saved there.

Additionally, Citavi's features may clash with SharePoint's synchronization services. This problem is described in more detail in this FAQ. For this reason, you should never save a local Citavi project to a local SharePoint folder.

2) Attachments on SharePoint

If your organization is using SharePoint, you can save the attachments for a Citavi project in a SharePoint document library. Further integration of Citavi with SharePoint is not supported by Citavi (for example, publishing bibliographic information on the SharePoint website).

Attachments for local projects und DBServer projects

SharePoint document libraries can be added in Windows as network drives. If Citavi is saving attachments to this network drive, they will automatically be displayed in SharePoint.

However, this integration can lead to problems in Windows (please see the notes in the article linked above). For this reason, we do not recommend using SharePoint document libraries as network drives.

Instead, a SharePoint document library can be synchronized with a local hard drive by using OneDrive for Business. This configuration is reliable, even in offline scenarios.

After you have set up the synchronization in OneDrive for Business, you can define the Citavi Attachments folder with the environment variable userprofile as follows: %userprofile%\SharePoint\[Project name] - Documents

This solution does have one disadvantage, however: the entire SharePoint document library is synchronized on all clients.

Please note:

If you are working with a local project, the project file (*.ctv6) MUST NOT be saved to the SharePoint document library, regardless of whether it is connected via network drive or synchronization (see "Local Projects on SharePoint" above). For use with SharePoint, we generally recommend Citavi for DBServer.

Attachments for Cloud projects

Cloud project attachments (for example, PDF files) are always saved in the Citavi Cloud. It's not possible to add an attachment to Citavi in such a way that it's automatically saved in a SharePoint library.

However, you can use a workaround if you want to use SharePoint with a Citavi cloud project. This workaround requires Citavi 6.2 or later and SharePoint Online (Office 365). It is not possible to use this workaround with On Premise SharePoint servers:

  1. In SharePoint, enable the option to create anonymous access links.
  2. Upload the document you want on the SharePoint page.
  3. Select the document and click Share. Select the option Anyone with the link can view and then click Copy Link.
  4. Create a new online address in Citavi (Ctrl+Shift+A).
  5. Enter the link you copied in the Address field.
  6. Citavi will treat the document as an external document (similar to other online documents). If you're working with a PDF document you can annotate it in the Citavi preview pane. When you see the warning message, make sure to select the "Continue annotating the online PDF" option.

Please note:

Citavi does not index any PDF files that are linked to a reference by a SharePoint link. For this reason, the full text search is not available for these PDF files.

3) Collaboration on Word documents on SharePoint

You can use the Citavi Word Add-In to collaboratively edit Word documents saved on SharePoint. Any citations added by one user will be updated and displayed to all users.

Please note these tips for using Track Changes in Word.

4) Further integration with SharePoint

Citavi does not support further integration with SharePoint, for example publication of reference information on the SharePoint website.