The Document Library

Finding Documents

The one screen that answers “what documents are there” rather than “what is on this record”.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → Data → Document Library. It can also be placed on a user-facing page, because it is an end-user screen rather than an administrative one.

Two halves, two engines

• Browse — filter by title or reference, type, state, classification, date added, and “only mine”. Where a document type is chosen, its own library columns become filters too.
• Search inside documents — the words in the files themselves, not their titles.

A third tab appears where you hold Read on a file store: see The File Store Bridge.

It is per document, not per record

A document on four cases appears once. The library is a view of the library, and if you want “everything on this case” that is the record’s own Documents pane.

Everything is gated, document by document

The list is filtered against your own access, one document at a time, rather than by a query that assumes anything. A document you cannot read is not in your results and does not affect your paging.

There are no totals, anywhere

Deliberate, and worth explaining because it looks like a missing feature. Paging is Previous and Next rather than “page 3 of 12”, and an empty result says “nothing matched” rather than “0 of 247”.

A total that includes documents you are not allowed to see is a disclosure delivered as a number — and one you could subtract your way to an answer from. The count you do get is this page.

Searching inside is not searching titles

The two find different things and the distinction catches people out. A scanned document has no text until it has been through OCR, and will never match a content search however clearly the words appear on the page.

The search tells you when your term is too short for the index rather than reporting no results, because “no results” for a term the index cannot hold is how somebody concludes a file is empty and stops looking.

Worked example

A legal team needs every insurance certificate expiring this quarter. Browse, filter to the certificate type, then filter on its Renewal column between two dates. Six documents, across four cases, in one list — a question that used to mean opening four cases and hoping.

Recommendations

• Filter by type first. It is what unlocks the custom columns.
• Use search-inside for phrases and browse for properties.
• Put the library on a page for teams who work by document rather than by case.
• Do not expect totals. Previous and Next is the whole of the paging.

Library Columns

The facts a document is described by, beyond its title. Which contract, which site, which insurer, what it is worth, when it renews.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → Data → Library Columns defines them. On a record, the Details panel of the Documents pane is where they are filled in.

The problem it solves

Without columns, every one of those facts has to live in the title. That is why document titles in systems that lack this eventually become 2024-118 Riverside - Aviva - 42000 - RENEWED.pdf.

A column belongs to a document type

“Insurer” is a fact about an insurance certificate and noise on a board minute. Columns are defined per type, with Every type available for the handful — “Department”, “Site” — that genuinely apply to everything.

A document gets its type’s own columns plus the global ones.

Five kinds, and a number behaves like a number

Text, number, date, choice and yes/no. The type is not cosmetic: a number column compares numerically and a date column compares as a date, so “worth more than 1000” and “renews before March” mean what they say.

Were values compared as text, a £900 policy would count as worth more than a £10,000 one, and every report built on it would be quietly false.

A choice column keeps one spelling

Values are matched however they are typed and stored as the definition spells them, so a column does not end up holding “Aviva”, “aviva” and “AVIVA” as three different answers.

Required does not block anything

It is reported, not enforced. A document arrives before anybody knows its details, and refusing the upload until somebody does would simply mean the details are invented. Unanswered required columns are listed by name on the Details panel.

Three things you cannot change afterwards

• The key. It is what filters and saved links name; the label beside it is free to change at any time. An editable key means renaming a column silently breaks every link anybody kept.
• The type, once there are values. Text to number on a column holding “about £40k” cannot produce a number.
• Removal, while values exist. The refusal counts them. What people almost always mean is “stop showing it”, which is the Enabled switch and loses nothing.

Worked example

A facilities team adds Site, Contractor and Next inspection to their certificate type, marks all three filterable and the first two as list columns. “Everything at Riverside due before April” becomes two dropdowns, and the titles go back to being titles.

Recommendations

• Get the type right first — it is the one thing you cannot revisit.
• Few columns, filled in. Twelve columns nobody completes is worse than three that are.
• Turn off rather than remove.
• Use "Every type" sparingly, for facts that genuinely apply to everything.

Previewing a Document

Look at a document without opening it in another application to find out whether it was the one you wanted.

Where to find it

On a record, the Documents pane → Preview. The current version opens in place, under the row.

A preview is a download

The most important thing about it. The browser has the file either way — showing it inline changes a header, not who is entitled to the file.

So a preview is offered only where a download is, and a classification that permits reading and forbids export forbids the preview too. It is not a weaker entitlement; it is a convenience.

What can be shown

PDFs, images, plain text, and audio and video. The list is the platform’s own, shared with the file-serving layer, and it deliberately excludes anything that can execute — HTML and its relatives are downloaded rather than rendered.

A Word document or a spreadsheet shows “this kind of file cannot be shown here” and offers the download instead, which is more honest than a blank frame.

It shows the current version

To look at an earlier one, open the history and download it. Previewing every version in place would make the pane a file browser.

Every preview is a recorded read

It passes the same gate as a download, so it appears in the access log the same way. Somebody who previewed a document read it.

The frame is sandboxed

A document is somebody’s upload, served from your own domain. The preview frame is given no scripting and no access to the page around it, which is the same reasoning that keeps executable types off the inline list in the first place.

Worked example

A caseworker with eleven attachments on a case is looking for the one signed copy. Three previews, five seconds each, rather than three downloads into a downloads folder that then needs tidying — and the access log shows three reads by a person doing their job.

Recommendations

• Preview before downloading when you are identifying rather than using a document.
• Do not treat it as a control. Anybody who can preview can save.
• Expect office formats to download; that is not a fault.