Working with Single-Document Change Control (QualityDocs)

You can use the Change Control feature to regulate the processes of creating a new draft, moving a draft into its steady state (releasing it for use), or withdrawing an existing, approved document. Admins can enable change control for specific document types, so your Vault may require some documents to go through the change control process, but not others.

How to Open Change for Single Documents

To open a change control from the changing document:

1. From the changing document’s All Actions menu, choose Open Change Control. Vault creates a new document placeholder with the type Document Change Control.
2. Fill in fields for the new document. Depending on your Admin’s configuration, your selections may impact the options you have on the change control document. For example, in the default configuration, your selection for the Document Change Action field controls whether your document goes through the withdrawal workflow or the draft creation workflow.
3. Review fields that are automatically populated to be sure they are correct for your process. In many cases, Vault suggests values for fields on your change control document based on the corresponding values of the changing document.
4. Optional: Upload a source document for the change control document.
5. When you are confident that your change control document reflects your process, use options in the change control document’s All Actions menu or Workflow Actions to modify the changing document. For example, in the default configuration, you can choose from various workflows to close the Document Change Control, start the change approval workflow, start the withdrawal approval workflow, or complete an emergency change control approval.

To open a change control by creating a change control document, if your Admin’s configuration allows this option:

1. Create a new document, with or without a source file, and select Document Change Control as the document type.
2. Populate fields for the new document. Depending on your Admin’s configuration, these document fields may affect the options you have on the change control document. For example, in the default configuration, the Document Change Action field controls whether your document goes through the withdrawal workflow or the draft creation workflow.
3. Save the new change control document.
4. On the fields panel of the Doc Info page for the change control document, open the Target of Change relationship panel. Add a relationship to the changing document.
5. When you are confident that your change control document reflects your process, use options in the change control document’s All Actions menu or Workflow Actions to modify the changing document. For example, in the default configuration, you can choose from various workflows to close the Document Change Control, start the change approval workflow, start the withdrawal approval workflow, or complete an emergency change control approval.

How to Close or Cancel Change Controls

There are various ways to close a single document change request:

• Move either the change control document or the target document into its lifecycle’s Obsolete State. If your Vault uses default configurations, you can do this to the change control document using the Close this DCC action from the Initiated state.
• From the change control document, delete the Target of Change relationship manually.
• Delete the change control document or the target document. You cannot delete documents that are in their Steady State.
• Move the changing target document into Steady State.
• Move a Steady state change control document out of its Steady State. If your Vault uses default configurations, you can do this by using the Create a Draft option from the All Actions menu on an Approved document.

With the exception of deleting either the change control document or the target document, all of the above situations will create a new relationship between the change control and changing documents using the Prior Target of Change relationship. From this relationship type, you can re-open or “refresh” the Target of Change relationship.

How to Refresh Target of Change Relationships

In the Prior Target of Change section of the Doc Info fields panel, for the change control document, click Re-establish relationship. Vault recreates the Target of Change relationship that previously existed but does not make any updates to the changing document or the change control document. Vault cannot re-establish the Target of Change relationship in the following situations:

• The document version specified for the relationship is not the most current version of the target document.
• You do not have access to open a change control on the latest version of the specified target document.
• The document version specified for the relationship already has another active change control.