Document system overview
How documents move from draft to published version in Alchex, and the terms you meet along the way.
Alchex holds the written part of your management system — policies, procedures, forms, records and manuals — and keeps a record of who changed what, who approved it, and which version people are actually reading. This page gives you the mental model. Every section links to a page with the detail.
Where documents live
Everything sits under Governance, described in the app as "Policies, procedures & records". The list shows Name, Owner, Status and Version, and you can filter by status or owner. Each document belongs to a team, and you only see documents in teams you belong to. There is also a personal "My Documents" view that spans every team you are a member of and shows only the documents you created.
Open a document and you land in the document workspace: the editor in the middle, a side panel with document details, history and comments, and the state chip at the top telling you exactly where this document stands.
The lifecycle
A document always has two things at once: one working draft that authors edit, and (once it has been published at least once) one published version that readers see. They are never the same thing. Editing the draft does not change what readers see.
| Stage | What the chip says | What is happening |
|---|---|---|
| Draft, never published | "Draft — never published" | The document exists but readers cannot see it yet. |
| Draft over a published version | "Draft — readers see v1.2" | You are editing a working copy. Readers still see the last published version. |
| In review | "In review — requested by …" | The draft is sealed: nobody can edit it while an owner decides. |
| Changes requested | "Draft — changes requested" | A reviewer sent it back with a note. The draft is editable again. |
| Published | "Published" in history | The approved draft became the new version. A fresh empty draft opens on top of it. |
The route through those stages:
- Author. Someone with author access creates or edits the draft. See Creating documents and The editor.
- Request approval. The author clicks Request approval. This seals the draft, snapshots it as a checkpoint, and puts a pending request in front of the document owners. The author can Withdraw it. See Submit and approve.
- Decide. An owner opens Review & publish, compares the sealed draft against the published version, and either approves it or requests changes with a note. Approval publishes immediately.
- Publish. On approval the version label steps up by one minor increment (v1.0 becomes v1.1), the published pointer moves, and a new empty draft opens so work can continue. See Publishing.
- Next version. Editing the new draft starts the cycle again.
Two rules are worth knowing before you rely on them:
- A reviewer cannot approve their own request. The person who submitted the review is barred from deciding it, no matter what role they hold.
- An owner can publish the current draft directly, without a review — but not while somebody else's review is pending. That direct publish is logged as such.
Concepts you will meet
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Draft | The single editable working copy of a document. Sealed while a review is open. |
| Checkpoint / version | A saved snapshot of the body. Some are automatic restore points, some are the sealed copy sent for review, some are published versions. See Versions and history. |
| Approval request | A pending decision pinned to one sealed draft. Only one can be open at a time. |
| Thread | A comment anchored to a block of the document, with replies, and a resolve/reopen state. See Comments and threads. |
| Reference | A live link from your text to another record — a clause, a control, another document. See References. |
| External document | A file you uploaded (PDF, Word, Markdown) rather than authored in Alchex. See External documents. |
| Control link | The tie between a document and the control it evidences, so readiness views can see it. See Controls and evidence. |
Who can do what
Access has two layers: your workspace role, and your role in the team that owns the document.
| Role | Can |
|---|---|
| Reader | Read the published version and its history. Nothing else — no create, no edit. |
| Author | Everything a Reader can, plus create documents, edit the draft, request approval, withdraw. |
| Owner | Everything an Author can, plus approve or reject someone else's review, and publish directly. |
Workspace owners and admins are treated as team owners for documents in any team. Full detail in Permissions.
Things that cannot be undone
- Deleting a document removes its draft, every published version, its history and its review comments. Readers lose access at once. If you only want to retire a document, Archive it instead — archived documents stay readable and auditable, and you can restore them. See Activity and archive.
- Publishing moves the version that readers see. You can restore an older version into the draft and publish again, but the published history keeps every step.