Updates to Document Control for 6/18

At MediaLab, we're continually working with our customers to enhance Document Control. The updates below will be made on Tuesday, June 18th. There's no action you need to take. The system will remain functional during the updates.

Terminology changes for "Supervisor" and "Clerical" users

Based on the feedback we received last week from users, we're changing the names of the permissions in Document Control to be more descriptive and to avoid confusion with employees' job titles. The permissions and abilities associated with these permissions will not change -- just the name.

Clerical user will change to Administrator

Supervisor will change to Administrator + Designated Reviewer

Site administrators (those with the ability to add permissions) will remain the same.

Flag a document as "Needs Updating" at any time

Previously, a document could only be flagged during the periodic review process. Now, administrators can flag a document at any time that issues are found. Flagged documents appear on administrators' "To-Do" lists.

Approval processes can override parent manual's approval process

Previously, a manual's approval processes were additive: if a parent manual and a submanual both had approval processes, the document would need to complete both processes. We've added an option so that a submanual's approval process can override the parent manual. This lets you apply more specific approval processes without resorting to labels.

Change the settings for an approval process by going to "Workflows and Customizations," and then "View and Edit" the applicable processes.

Upload viewable and editable versions of Documents

We try very hard to make sure that Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files display faithfully on-screen. But because of differences in Office versions, unavailable fonts, and spacing quirks, we can't achieve 100% faithfulness.

In cases where this is a problem for your document, you can now upload both the Word file (the "editable" file) and a PDF version that you create on your own computer (the "viewable" file).

When you create the PDF file on your own computer, the PDF converter uses your version of Office and your fonts; we can then display the PDF file with 100% fidelity. The viewable file will be shown on-screen to your users (including lab director and performing employees); the editable file will download when you need to make changes. Both versions are included in system backups.

To provide a viewable and editable file, click on a document's "Available Actions" box.

Because this makes the document updating process more complicated (you have to create and upload a PDF in addition to the edited Word file), we recommend using this option only for problematic documents.

Cancel an approval process at any time

Any administrator for a document can now cancel that document's approval process. This may be necessary when errors are discovered after the document is sent to approval and users do not want to "Reject" the document.

Published on 6/12/2013 9:13:54 AM.
Permalink: https://www.medialab.com/newspost65-updates_to_document_control_for_618.aspx

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