Attach a file to a contact
Keep the quotation, the signed form or the site photos with the person they belong to — from the record, or straight from the table without opening it. Takes seconds.
Before you start
- A files field on this database. Files live in a field your workspace set up, so if there is no files field anywhere on the record, ask whoever set the database up to add one
- Permission to edit this contact. A member who cannot edit it can still download what is attached, but cannot attach or remove anything
Where files live
There is no Files tab and no file manager in Raion Hub. A files field is an ordinary field, and it sits wherever your workspace filed it — inside one of the record’s sections, or up in the pinned header if it was pinned.
There are no folders. You separate things by having more than one named files field: “Documents” in one section, “Site photos” in another.
You will meet the same files in three places:
| Where | What you get |
|---|---|
| The record | The full grid of tiles — add, open, download, remove |
| A table cell | A compact strip you can also attach to |
| The preview | A full-screen viewer for images and PDFs |
Steps
Open the contact and find the field
Click the contact’s row to open its record, then scroll to the field — or press its section’s tab in the row at the top of the panel. A files field shows as a grid of tiles, two to four across depending on how wide the panel is.
Each tile carries a thumbnail for a photo, or a glyph with a type badge. The badge is the file’s own extension — PDF, DOCX, XLSX — and falls back to its family when the filename has no extension to show: IMG, VIDEO, AUDIO, ZIP, or FILE for anything unrecognised. Underneath it sit the filename and its size. Hover a tile and the tooltip gives the full filename, and on a second line Uploaded by Priya Kaur with the date.
Each tile keeps its download and remove controls on show — they are not hidden behind a hover
Attach a file
The last cell in the grid is the add tile. Its label is Add followed by the field’s name — Add Documents for a field called Documents, and Add more Documents once something is in it. On an empty field that tile is the whole empty state; there is no separate placeholder.
Press it and your device’s file picker opens. You can pick several files at once, unless the field is capped at one.
Each file uploads immediately and one at a time. Its tile appears straight away and carries its own percentage as it goes. A file that fails removes its own tile and gives the reason in place; the rest carry on.
What you can attach: Raion Hub stores images and documents only, so even a
field set to Any means that pair. Documents are .pdf, .doc, .docx,
.xls, .xlsx, .csv and .txt. A field set to Images or Documents
narrows it further. Anything else your picker let through is reported as 2 files
skipped — only images and documents are allowed.
Attach from the table instead
You do not have to open the record at all. A files column shows a compact strip on each row: a paperclip with a count until the cell has loaded its list, then the files themselves — extension labels only on Compact density, and the extension above the filename on Cozy and Comfortable.
The + chip sits inside that strip, after the last file, so on a contact with several files you scroll the strip sideways to reach it. Its tooltip reads Attach to followed by the field’s name.
Pressing anywhere in the cell that is not a file also opens the picker — and that press does not fall through to the row, so attaching from the table never opens the record by accident.
The + is the last item inside the strip, not pinned at the edge — scroll the strip to reach it
Open a file
Press a tile, or a file in a table cell, and it opens full-screen on a black stage with the filename in the bar — and 3 / 7 when the field holds more than one.
PDFs open inside Raion Hub, with zoom controls in the bar: Zoom out, a percentage button that resets the zoom when you press it, and Zoom in. The range is 50% to 400%, and pinch works too.
From the keyboard: ← → for the previous and next file, + and − to zoom a PDF, 0 to go back to fit, Esc to close.
Anything that is not an image or a PDF has no preview. You get a card reading No preview for .xlsx files and Download it to open in its own app., with a Download button.
The percentage in the middle is a button — press it to go back to fit
Download or remove a file
Every tile keeps its controls on show all the time, rather than revealing them on hover. The download control is there even for a member whose access is read-only. The trash control only appears if you can edit the contact.
The trash asks first, with Remove file? and then Remove “quotation.pdf” from documents? This cannot be undone. Press Remove and the tile goes at once.
What the field’s own settings control
A files field has exactly two settings, set in Database Configuration:
- Any / Images / Documents — which of the two families it accepts.
- Max files — a number, whose placeholder reads No cap. Out of the box there genuinely is no cap. The limit counts per field, per contact.
When a field reaches its cap the add tile stops working and its tooltip reads Max 5 files. Nothing is written on the screen itself. (The Add form does print a line when it hits a cap; the record does not, so do not wait for one.)
Things worth knowing
- No file-size number is set in the app. The size limit is enforced on our servers, and you meet it only as File is too large. The 10 MB limit you may have seen belongs to the spreadsheet upload in Import contacts, which is a different thing.
- Files are kept per owner, exactly like field values. If your list is showing every owner’s values at once, the files there are read-only.
- Download links are short-lived. They are created fresh each time the list loads, so a link copied out of the page stops working. Open the record again and download from there.
- A files column does not travel with the table. The cell has only a count until it loads its own list, which is why the names and types appear a moment after the row does.
- Who uploaded a file stays with the file, through a transfer and after someone leaves the workspace.
If something goes wrong
| What you see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| File is too large. | Our servers refused the size | Save a smaller copy — flatten a PDF, or resize a photo before attaching it |
| That file type isn’t allowed for this field. | The type is outside this field’s setting | Check whether the field accepts Any, Images or Documents, or use another field |
| This field is at its file limit. | The field’s Max files cap for this contact is reached | Remove one, or ask for the cap to be raised in Database Configuration |
| Storage is full or you can’t edit this field. | Out of storage, or you are not allowed to edit this field | Ask a Workspace Owner to check both |
| Upload failed — check your connection. | Anything else | Try again on a steadier connection |
| 2 files skipped — only images and documents are allowed. | Your picker let through a type we do not store | Convert it first — a PDF is almost always accepted |
| Couldn’t load files. | The list could not be fetched | Close the record and open it again |
| Couldn’t remove file — check your connection. | The removal was refused, so the tile came back | Try again in a moment |
| A toast titled Upload failed | The upload came from a table cell rather than the record | Its description names the reason; the fixes above apply the same way |
| The add tile does nothing | The field is at its Max files cap | Hover it — the tooltip reads Max 5 files. Remove a file, or raise the cap |
| A dashed + Documents chip instead of an add tile | Your access to this contact is read-only | Downloading still works. Ask for edit access to attach anything |