Multisite shared libraries Pro

A school trust, a council, an agency network: one central document library, dozens of sites that need to show it. On a WordPress multisite network, FileDeck Pro renders any site’s library on any other site with one attribute on the ordinary [filedeck] shortcode:

[filedeck site="2"]

There is no separate shortcode: site is an attribute of [filedeck], and its value is the blog ID of the site whose library you want (find it in Network Admin → Sites — it is the id= in each site’s edit link).

Every other shortcode attribute works as normal — category, layout, colours — so [filedeck site="2" category="policies" layout="folders"] renders the central site’s policies as folders. The Document Library block has no site picker, so on a sub-site use a Shortcode block (or your page builder’s shortcode element) for a shared library.

FileDeck Pro — shared libraries are included in all Pro plans, on multisite networks only. See pricing

How enforcement works (the part that matters)

The rendered library belongs to the central site: download links, search, pagination and signed URLs all point at it, so its own access rules, gates and activity log do the enforcing. A visitor who couldn’t see a document on the central site can’t see it through a shared render either — there is no second, weaker copy of the rules.

What it needs

Shared libraries are a Pro feature, and they only do anything on a multisite network. Three things have to be true:

• the install is a multisite network, with its normal shared auth salts (every standard multisite has these);
• FileDeck Pro is active (free FileDeck ignores site entirely);
• the blog ID names a site that exists and has FileDeck active on it — network activation covers this.

The two ways that last one can fail behave differently, on purpose. If the blog ID names no site at all — a typo, or a site since deleted — the site attribute is ignored and [filedeck] simply renders the current site’s own library, exactly as it does when Pro is inactive or the install is single-site. If the site exists but has no FileDeck, the shortcode renders nothing at all: better an empty space than the wrong library.

What it is not

Not a sync — there is exactly one library, rendered in more places. That’s the point: no copies to drift, no "which version is right".