Document control for SOPs, policies and lab documents

Manage SOPs, policies and other controlled documents: drafts, approvals, the approved library, categories, search and review dates.

Document control looks after three kinds of controlled document: SOPs, policies and other documents. It follows each one from the first draft through approval, periodic review and revision until it is archived.

Where documents live

Document control has five pages:

• "Document drafts" holds documents being written. A draft is private to its author until shared with the organization.
• "Documents pending approval" holds submitted documents moving through their approval workflow, with the stage each has reached.
• "Approved documents" is the library of effective, archived and obsolete documents.
• "Document templates" holds reusable layouts for new documents.
• "Document workflows" sets who drafts and who approves each document type in each scope.

The approved library

The library is organized into categories you define, plus the "Favorites", "Uncategorized" and "Archived" folders. Search by title, document number or category, or use "Advanced search" to find a phrase inside document text. Use the filters to narrow the list by type, status, revision, site group, review status, review owners, effective date and next review date.

Open a document's "Actions" menu to see what your permissions allow, such as downloading it, opening its audit trail and linked documents, categorizing, reviewing, revising, making a minor edit, sharing a public link or archiving.

Scope

Every document belongs to one or more site groups and subspecialties, which decide who can read it and which workflow governs it. People see the documents in their own scope.

Connected work

Documents are where much of the rest of the lab starts. Training modules are built from published documents, publication can require staff to read and attest, and analytes keep a document trail linking SOPs to the validation studies behind them.