Document settings

Administration → Documents (the screen is titled Document configuration) is where you decide how long files are kept and what happens when that time is up, how documents are classified, and which tags people can put on records.

If you don’t see this in your navigation, your administrator can switch the module on under Administration → Modules, or it may not be included in your plan.

The document configuration screen with its warnings, retention policies and categories

Changing anything here takes Add configuration entries or Edit configuration entries — System Administrator, Maintenance Administrator and Maintenance Manager by default. See roles.

The header and warnings

Element	What it shows
categories	How many document categories exist
retention policies	How many retention policies exist
tags	How many tags exist
A red warning, such as Work photos — 2 years destroys files	A policy that deletes files at expiry rather than archiving them, with how many files are on it today. There is nothing to recover after a delete
An amber warning, such as Certificates asks for an expiry date and does nothing with it	A category that demands an expiry date but has no retention policy, so the date is collected and nothing acts on it

Retention

How long a file is kept, and what happens when the time is up. Legal hold suspends expiry entirely — a file under one is kept whatever its policy says, until the hold is lifted.

Column	What it shows
Policy	The policy’s name, with default on the one used when nobody chooses
Keeps for	The period in months, or indefinitely
Then	What happens at expiry: archive, review or delete (and legal hold when one is on)
Applied to	How many files are on the policy and how many categories use it

Add opens New retention policy; clicking a policy opens it for editing.

Field	What it means	Notes
Name	What the policy is called where it is chosen	Required
Description	What it is for	Optional
Default	Pre-selected when nobody chooses	Only one policy can hold it
Retain (months)	How long a file is kept after it is uploaded	Ignored when Keep forever is on
Keep forever	Never expires	For records that must outlive the equipment — pressure vessel certificates, statutory test reports
Action at expiry	What happens when the period runs out	archive (the default) keeps the file and takes it out of the way; delete removes it and cannot be undone; review asks somebody before anything happens
Legal hold	Suspends every expiry rule while it is on	For files caught up in a dispute or an investigation
Active	Whether the policy is offered	Turning it off keeps everything already recorded and stops it being offered for anything new

A delete policy does what it says. Set it only where you are sure the period is right — a statutory inspection photograph deleted at three years, on a regime that requires seven, cannot be recovered.

Categories

A category is not a folder — it hands its retention policy to everything filed under it, and can demand approval before a document counts as current, or an expiry date after which it does not.

Column	What it shows
Category	The category’s name
Demands	approval, expiry date, both, or nothing
Retention	The category’s policy, or none — kept forever
Documents	How many documents are filed in it

Add opens New document category:

Field	What it means	Notes
Name	What this group of documents is called — Test certificates, Manuals	Required
Inside	The category above this one	Empty for a top-level group
Requires approval	A document filed here must be approved before it counts as current	Use it where an out-of-date drawing treated as current would cause harm
Requires expiry	A document filed here must have an expiry date	A certificate with no expiry cannot be chased before it lapses. Give the category a retention policy too, or the date drives nothing
Retention policy	Applied to documents filed here unless one is chosen on the document	Empty falls back to your default policy
Active	Whether the category is offered

Field	What it means	Notes
Name	What the tag reads as wherever it appears	Required
Group	Type the same group name on related tags to keep them together — Shutdown, Safety	Empty for a tag that stands alone
Color	Tints the badge, so it can be recognised without reading it
Active	Whether the tag is offered

Document templates

The bottom of the screen lists the templates documents are produced from — a work order pack, a gate pass, a calibration certificate — with whether each is In use. Editing one changes what is produced from now on; documents already produced keep what they were written with. Templates are designed in Document studio: opening one here, or Add for a new one, takes you to the studio with it open in the designer.

Where files live

Files attach to records — manuals on assets, photographs and signatures on work orders, signed agreements on contracts — and are reached from the Files tab of whatever they belong to. Photographs and signatures captured on the field app arrive as files against the job. The controlled document library itself is described in Documents.

Setting up

Configuration

The header and warnings

Retention

Categories

Tags

Document templates

Where files live