Your workspace
Where does everything live?
The map of what lives where, so you stop looking in the wrong place.
Most of the time lost when starting is not learning how to do something: it is finding where it is. Here is the map, and with it nearly every navigation question disappears.
| If you are looking for… | It is in… | And it is organised by… |
|---|---|---|
| A specific document | The case it arrived in, or search | Its content: search by tax ID or number, not filename |
| What you asked someone for | That matter's case | Who is involved and what they are missing |
| What you sent for signature | The request, under signatures | Its state: sent, opened, signed |
| A company's details | Its contact record | The organisation, with its people inside |
| What you signed for others | Your participations | The other party, not you |
| What is stuck | The list, filtered by age | Whatever has waited longest |
Important
The commonest confusion is between **case** and **document**. The case is the matter — onboarding a supplier, a site; the document is one of the things inside it. If you cannot find a loose document, look for the matter it belongs to.
The rule that saves most time
Search by what the document says, not by where you think it is. Search looks inside content, so a tax ID, a registration or a policy number finds in a second what navigating takes half an hour to reach.
Watch out
If you cannot find something someone swears they uploaded, check two things before searching harder: which organisation you are in, and whether you have permission to see it. Those are the two commonest causes and neither is a search problem.
Worth knowing
What repeats weekly deserves a saved filter. Navigating to the same place five times is the sign it should be one click away.
›Can a document be in two places?
It is linked rather than duplicated, and takes no double space.
›Where do I see what expires?
By filtering on expiry date.
›What about what I deleted?
It depends on your retention policy; do not count on recovering it.
A real case
The situation
Someone new spends twenty minutes looking for a certificate by filename.
What you do
- Searches the supplier's tax ID
What you get
Finds it in seconds, and from then on always searches by content.
The situation
Nobody can find a document they know exists.
What you do
- Searches by content rather than by folder
What you get
You get there without walking the structure.
The situation
Each person files things wherever they think best.
What you do
- Agrees where each document type goes
What you get
Anyone reaches the same place.
The situation
A file exists in two places.
What you do
- Checks which is the good one and merges
What you get
There stop being two versions.
The situation
Somebody new does not know where to look.
What you do
- Shows them the structure and the search
What you get
They find their way on day one.
The situation
What is being looked for sits in somebody's inbox.
What you do
- Uploads it to the file on receipt
What you get
Information lives where people look.
This article answers
- where are documents stored
- where do i see what i sent
- i do not know which screen to look at
- difference between case document and contact