Putting Back a Removed Document
Detaching the wrong document is the commonest accident there is with documents. It is also, now, reversible.
Where to find it
On a record, the Documents pane → Recently removed. It lists the last ninety days, with who removed each one and when.
Removing was never deleting
Detaching a document from a record has always kept the link rather than destroying it, because “this document used to be on this case” is itself disclosable — a disclosure schedule that cannot show what was removed and when is incomplete.
What was missing was any way to see that, or to undo it.
It shows what you could still read
The list is trimmed to documents you have access to. Being removed from a record revokes nobody’s interest in a document, and a list of everything ever taken off a case would name documents precisely because they are no longer visible on it.
Putting one back is the same act as attaching
So it carries the same rule: you must be able to read both the record and the document. Seeing something in the list is not enough on its own.
That second check is not redundant, and the case is worth stating. A removed link is exactly the state in which the record no longer grants the document — so somebody who can read the case but reached the document only through that link must be refused, or the check would let them hand it back to themselves.
It re-grants access
Everybody who can read the record can read the document again. Restoring is not a quiet correction; it is the same access decision that attaching was.
Putting it back twice is harmless
If somebody has already re-attached the document by hand, restoring does nothing rather than giving the record the same document twice.
Documents themselves are never soft-deleted
There is no “delete this document”. A document leaves a record by being unlinked, and leaves the system only through retention disposal, which is authorised and certificated. So this is a recycle bin for attachments, and a document nobody can reach is found through the library instead.
Worked example
A caseworker tidying a cluttered case removes four attachments, one of which was the signed agreement. It is back on the record inside a minute, the removal and the restoration are both recorded, and nobody has to find out who has a copy.
Recommendations
- Check here first when a document has “disappeared” from a case.
- Remember it re-grants access — the same care as attaching applies.
- Do not use detach as a filing tool. Roles describe what a document is; removing it says it does not belong.