Document relationships create a connection between two documents. For example, you could create relationships on a promotional piece to connect documents like drug study results. In that example, the relationship type might be called Supporting Studies. Vault includes standard relationship types and allows Admins to configure custom relationship types.
Unlike document link annotations, relationships do not have a specific location in either the source document or the targeted document. They may or may not be specific to a single version of the source or target document.
You can view a document’s relationships in the Relationships panel in the Doc Info pane.
Standard Relationship Types & Special Behaviors
Depending on your Vault’s configuration, you may have several standard, system-managed relationship types. Some of these relationship types have special behaviors:
- Document Linking: Vault automatically creates Linked Documents relationships between two documents when one has link annotations that refer to an anchor on another document. Users can also create this Linked Document relationship directly without creating an annotation.
Elements of a Document Relationship
Each relationship has several elements:
- Relationship Type: This dictates what the relationship is called (Linked Documents, Related Claims, and so on) and its configuration rules; for example, whether the relationship is version-specific or must be between two documents with the same Product.
- Source Document: This is the document on which a relationship originates. For example, “CholeCap HCP Presentation” has several Supporting Studies relationships where it is the source document. Each relationship originates from “CholeCap HCP Presentation” and points to a study supporting the claims made in the document.
- Target Document: This is the document to which the relationship points. For example, “CholeCap HCP Presentation” has a Supporting Studies relationship that points to “Study CC-3950.” “Study CC-3950” is the target document in the relationship.
Version-Specific Document Relationships
With version-specific document relationship types, you can relate specific source document versions with specific target document versions to reduce compliance risk and improve the traceability of your supporting materials.
Depending on the relationship type configuration, a given document relationship can be source version-specific, target version-specific, or both. In addition, the configuration determines whether relationships are carried forward when you create a new source document version or target document version.
Version-Specific Relationship Examples
The below examples use the Supporting Documents relationship type. The source document is Source v0.1. The target (supporting) document is Target v0.1.
Example: No Version-Specificity
With this option, users will always see the relationship reflected as the latest version of the source document, regardless of if they are looking at the source or the target. The following video shows you what this looks like in Vault:
Example: Source Version-Specific with Carry Forward
The following video demonstrates using the source version-specific with carry forward document relationship option:
With automatic carry forward of source version-specific relationships, when you version your source document, Vault carries forward all outbound relationships to the new document version, including relationships to other versions of the same target document. For example, Source v0.1 is related to Target v0.1 and Target v0.2. When you version Source v0.1, Source v0.2 receives all supporting documents from Source v0.1, including Target v0.1 and Target v0.2.
In Source v0.2, you can then click X in the Relationships panel of the Doc Info pane to remove any supporting documents that do not relate to Source v0.2. Removing supporting documents from Source v0.2 does not remove those documents from Source v0.1. If Veeva Support configures source version-specific relationships without automatic carry forward, Vault does not carry forward the target document when you version your source document. For example, Source v0.2 would not have any supporting documents.
Example:Source Version-Specific without Carry Forward
The source version-specific without carry forward option ensures that the latest version of a target document always stays associated with a specific version of the source.
Example: Target Version-Specific with Carry Forward
The following video demonstrates using the target version-specific with carry forward document relationship option:
With automatic carry forward of target version-specific relationships, when you version a target document, Vault automatically assigns the new version of the target document to the current source document version. Previous or future document versions do not receive the new version of the target document. For example, Target v0.1 is a supporting document for both Source v0.1 and Source v0.2. When you version of Target v0.1, Target v0.2 automatically relates to Source v0.2.
Vault automatically carries forward target relationships for attachments when the Attachments relationship type is configured to be target version-specific.
Example: Target Version-Specific without Carry Forward
This option ensures that the latest version of a source document always stays associated with a specific version of the target.
Example: Source Version-Specific with Carry Forward & Target Version-Specific without Carry Forward
In this configuration, when you version your source document, Vault carries forward the document relationships, including all related versions of the target document. However, when you version your target document, Vault does not relate the new target version to the source document. For example, when Source v0.1 has Target v0.1 and Target v0.2 as supporting documents, Source v0.2 also receives Target v0.1 and Target v0.2 as supporting documents. However, if you version Target v0.2, Vault does not relate Target v0.3 to any version of the source document.
This configuration is not available for the Attachments relationship type.
Example: Source & Target Version-Specific with Carry Forward
In this configuration, when you version your source document, Vault only carries forward the latest version of the target (supporting) document. When you version the target document, Vault assigns the new target document version only to the latest version of the source document.
For example, when you version Source v0.1, Source v0.2 receives Target v0.1 and Target v0.2 as supporting documents. Then, updating Target v0.2 to v0.3 assigns Target v0.3 as a supporting document only for Source v0.2.
Note: For relationship types with Source is Version-Specific and Carry Forward Source Relationships enabled, it does not work retroactively on source documents that were versioned before it was enabled. It only affects source documents that are versioned after it was enabled.
Viewing Source-Specific Relationships
With source version-specific relationships, the Relationships panel on the Doc Info pane lists only the relationships associated with the current source document version. Adding or removing a related document only affects the source document version in which you are currently working.
With target version-specific relationships, the Relationships panel lists only the versions of the target document that are related to the current source document version.