Patent ID: 8145670

Claim:
An electronic file system comprising: a storage that stores an electronic file including an operation file on which an operation is to be performed, and a restriction file indicating a restriction condition for restricting an operation on the operation file, and a request destination that approves a restricted operation on the operation file; wherein the restriction file further includes, as the restriction condition to be determined by the first determination part, at least one of a condition relating to a changing operation performable on the operation file or a condition relating to a copying operation performable on the operation file; and wherein the restriction file further includes, as the restriction condition relating to the changing operation performable on the operation file to be determined by the first determination part, at least either of an operation performable on a predetermined item or operations performable on a predetermined number of items or more; an operating device that accepts an operation on the electronic file; and an approval device that is used to approve a restricted operation on the electronic file; wherein the operating device comprises: a first determination part which determines whether an accepted operation to be performed on the operation file is permitted in accordance with a restriction condition described in the restriction file, and in a case where the first determination part determined that the accepted operation is restricted, a first transmission part determines the approval device for approving the restricted operation based on a request destination described in the restriction file, and transmits to the determined approval device an approval request for requesting approval of the restricted operation.