Documents & information
Todayreport_final_new_3.docx – and the template came from a job in 2021.
A report, a quote or an expert opinion consists largely of details that already exist in the company. They still get retyped, and afterwards the file sits somewhere. We make sure documents fill themselves from existing data and land in a structure everyone understands.
Where it usually gets stuck
- It is unclear which version is the current one.
- The same details are retyped into every document.
- The folder structure grew over years and only insiders can read it.
- Documents sit partly locally, partly in the cloud, partly as attachments.
A document consists in large part of details that are already in the house: address, contact, object, number, date. They are retyped anyway, because the document knows nothing about that data.
After the writing comes the second part: the filing. It has grown over years and follows a logic only the person who set it up really knows. That is why someone spends ten minutes searching later on.
What that looks like in the workflow
01 Data
What is already there
Customer, object, case and the people involved are already in the system.
02 Template
It knows the fields
The draft comes out of the template and the data, without retyping.
03 Document
You only write the content
The specialist part stays your work – everything else is prepared.
04 Filing
It follows from the case
Not from the habit of whoever happens to be saving.
05 Finding again
In three years as well
Full-text search across current files and archive.
What gets built
- Templates that fill themselves from customer and project data
- A filing structure with fixed rules instead of folders that just grew
- Documents attached to the case and reachable from there
- Full-text search across current work and archive
- Traceable versions and approvals
What changes
- Details already recorded can be reused in documents instead of typed again.
- Which version is the current one is recognisable.
- Documents are reachable from the case.
- Older files are searchable too.
From applications we have built
What follows are excerpts from applications we have actually built. No mocked-up interfaces and no invented figures.
Questions about Documents
Can we stay with Word?
Yes. Templates can be built so that they fill automatically and are filed as PDF afterwards.
What happens to the old material?
It stays reachable. Whether it gets reorganised is a question of effort versus benefit.
What about retention periods?
Retention rules can be attached to the filing system. The legal assessment, however, belongs to your tax adviser or lawyer, not to us.
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