Documents
Document types and confidentiality
What a document is filed under, and how each type decides who can see it.
Every document is filed under a type, such as Passport, Trial balance or Payroll data, and the type decides who can see it. This is the part of Documents most worth understanding, because when it is wrong it fails quietly. This article explains the rule and shows you how to set who may see each type.
Before you start
- Setting who may see a type needs permission to edit permission groups. Adding or renaming a type needs permission to manage capabilities. A firm administrator has both.
- Types are kept in Settings, under Document types.
The type is the access control
Each permission group has its own answer for each type: whether its members may View, Edit, Delete and Download documents of that type. A member in more than one group gets everything their groups allow between them. A business administrator always sees everything.
Change a document's type and you change who can read it.
Absence is a denial. A type no group has been given is visible to administrators only, and the list marks it No access configured. A new type starts closed rather than open, so a type created in a hurry never exposes anything by accident.
Members also see documents only for the clients they work on, so the type and the client both have to allow it.
Steps at a glance
Step 01
Open Document types
Open Settings and select Document types. The list shows each type with its code, who added it, whether the client can see it, and its position in pickers. Types your business added are marked Your business; the rest came with Orin.
Document types. 1: a type nobody has been given yet. 2: Set access. Step 02
Set who may see a type
Select Set access on the type's row. For each permission group, tick what its members may do, then select Save access.
Edit, Delete and Download all need View, and Delete also needs Edit, so ticking one turns on whatever it depends on. Anybody with Edit always has Download.
Access for one type, one permission group per row.
What success looks like
The type no longer shows No access configured, and members of the groups you ticked can find its documents.
Confidentiality in practice
Payroll, identity evidence and anything about a client's own staff are the usual candidates for a restricted type. The test is not how sensitive a document feels but who genuinely needs it.
The Client can see switch is separate: it decides whether the client sees documents of that type in their portal.
Next steps
- Task types and Document types: adding, renaming and retiring types.
- Access control: permission groups and who is in them.
Common questions
A colleague cannot see a document and I can. Their permission groups do not allow its type, or they do not work on that client. Check that the document is filed under the right type before widening the type for everyone.
I filed something under the wrong type. Change the type on the document. Who can see it changes with it immediately.
What happens if I deactivate a type? It leaves every picker, but documents already filed under it are not touched.