The document library

Documents, in the Work section of the sidebar, holds your company's controlled documents: procedures, standards, technique sheets, validation, the quality manual, work instructions, forms, accreditations, safety and training material. Each person reads what they are given; a download, where allowed, is a numbered copy stamped with their name. Owners and document controllers keep the library and decide who reads what.

Folders

The library starts with five folders, named in each reader's language: Procedures, Standards, Technique sheets, Validation and Other. When you add a folder you are offered six more of the usual kinds (Quality manual and written practice, Work instructions, Forms, Accreditations and approvals, Safety, Training), or you choose A name of my own. Folders go inside folders, as deep as you like. A fixed folder you rename becomes an ordinary one.

Owners and document controllers arrange the folders from the menu beside each one:

• Move up and Move down set the order everyone sees. Without an order, the usual folders come first, your own by name, and Other last.
• Hide from everyone's lists takes a folder you no longer use out of every list, without changing who may read it. Owners and document controllers still see it, greyed, behind Show folders hidden from the lists, and can choose Show in everyone's lists again.
• Delete folder removes an empty folder only: no folder, file or document inside, not even a withdrawn one, because documents are never removed. The menu says Delete: only an empty folder otherwise; hide it instead.

Who reads what

Every folder either follows the folder above it or has a list of its own. Open a folder and look at Who reads this folder (or Who reads the library at the top), then Change:

• Follow the folder above: whoever reads the folder above reads this one.
• A list of its own: only those named here. Add Everyone on staff, A role, A person, An office, Those certified in a method (at a level or above, valid today, so access follows the personnel register) or, in the library only, A client's portal users. Tick May download where a copy may be taken; without it, people read in the page only.

Owners and document controllers always read and download everything, whatever the lists say. A crew member reads the library only where a list names them or their role. A document can have a list of its own too, instead of its folder's.

The whole library starts with everyone on staff reading and nobody downloading. Someone who may read a folder deeper down but not the folders above it sees those marked On the way through: they can open what is inside, not what the folder itself holds.

The same lists work on a project's folders, on the project's Files tab. A project folder with no list above it is read and downloaded by everyone on staff. A folder with a list is kept out of every list of the project's files for everyone else, and clients still reach a project's folders through sharing, as before; see files and sharing.

Filing a document

Owners and document controllers file documents. Open a folder, then Choose a document to file here: PDF, Word, Excel, images or any other file. Under File a new document give it:

• Kind of document: procedure, standard, technique sheet, validation, quality manual, work instruction, form, accreditation, safety, training or other.
• Number: your own, such as PRO-UT-001, unique in the library. Leave it empty for a standard.
• Title, and Next review, the date it is due to be reviewed again. The dashboard says so a month before.
• Methods: reports of these methods offer the document first, and access can follow the certificates in them.
• Revision, as you write it (0, 3, C, or the edition of a standard), and What changed.

Its first revision is a draft that only those who keep the library see, until it is approved.

Revisions and approval

A document keeps every revision. The revision in effect is the latest approved one whose date has come; the one before it is then superseded and kept.

• Approve: a reviewer or a document controller approves a draft, choosing In effect from: today, a day ahead, or the day it really came into force when you file an older document. The approver's name and the certificates they hold that day in the document's methods are recorded with it. An approved revision never changes; a correction is a new revision.
• Discard sets a draft aside, on record; its label is free again.
• Choose the file of a new revision files the next one, a draft until it is approved. One draft at a time: approve or discard it before filing another.
• Withdraw from use, with a reason, takes the document out of everyone's reading. It stays in the library with its revisions, seen by those who keep it, and reports made to it keep it. Put back in use reverses it. A document is never removed.

Reading in the page

Read opens the revision in the page, with your name, your company and the time across every page. There is no download or print button, and every opening is recorded. Word, Excel and other office documents are read through a PDF made of them; images are shown the same way; other kinds of file are not shown in the page, and only those who may download them open them on their computer.

Controlled copies

Where your access allows it, Download a controlled copy gives you a numbered copy of the revision in effect, stamped on every page with the copy number, the document and revision, your name and the day, and a note to check the current revision before use. The copy is kept in the document's register under Controlled copies: copy number, revision, holder, when it was taken. Ask again and you get the same copy. A file that is not a PDF is handed out as the original, numbered and recorded all the same. A copy is handed out only while your access still allows it.

Read and confirm

A document can ask people to confirm they have read it. Under Asked to confirm reading, those who keep the library choose who: everyone on staff, a role, people, an office or those certified in a method, among those who may read the document. Each current revision asks again.

The people asked find the document under To read in the library and in the Documents panel of the dashboard, and confirm on its page with I have read and understood it. The document's page shows who has confirmed, with the date, and who has Not yet. The confirmation is kept per revision with the person's name and the time.

Finding documents

The library page lists the documents of the folder you are in and of every folder inside it that you may open. Search by number, title, kind or method, and choose:

• Look in: This folder, or This folder and those inside. A search or a filter always looks inside.
• State: In use, With a revision in effect, For me to read; and for those who keep the library, Draft waiting for approval, No revision approved yet, Review due within a month and Withdrawn.
• Kind and Method.
• Order: Folder order, then number, Name, A to Z, Name, Z to A, Newest revision first, Oldest revision first or Next review first.
• Show: All, All but hidden, Starred or Hidden.

The star keeps a folder or a document at the top of your own lists, and Hide for me greys it at the bottom. Nobody else's list changes. Your choices are kept on the device.

On reports

While a report is a draft, its Documents used card links the procedure, technique sheet or validation it is made to: Link a document, then Choose a document, among those you may read that have a revision in effect. Use as the procedure fills the template's procedure field. The linked revisions are printed on the report and frozen when it is issued; a revision of the report keeps them.

Before issue, the checks warn, without blocking, where the linked revision was not the one in effect on the inspection date, or the document has been withdrawn since; see issuing a report. The handover dossier joins these documents and lists them in its index.

What the client sees

A procedure or technique sheet whose list names a client's portal users appears under Documents in that client's portal. A client user reads it in the page, with their name and company across every page, and can approve it or send comments; both are kept on record with their name and the time, shown on the document's page under The client's word, and those who keep the library are emailed. A client takes a controlled copy only where the list ticks May download. See the client portal.

On the dashboard

The dashboard's Documents panel shows what is yours to read and confirm, reviews due within a month (with how long one is overdue), and, for those who keep the library, drafts waiting for approval, with Open the library.