Creating a Custom Document Type

Creating document types in fosslook is very simple. For example, you have a real document "Auto Loan Agreement", and you want to create its digital representation within the system. Let's look at the ways how you can do this.

A document in the FossLook system is presented as a set of fields (like “Creation Date”), tabs and functions available for this type (like "Approval", "Reviewing"). With FossLook, you can create a virtual representation of almost any document and store it in the library. The number of the document types that can be created in the system is not limited. New document types are usually created by administrator.

All right, the first step we have to make is to create a document library.

Creating a Document Library

Document library is a set of document types, folders, dictionaries, and other objects. You can create a new document types in any existing library, but it's usually better to create a new one.

To create a library, open FossLook Administrator , select “Documents library" tab and click “Create” button.

Enter library's name and description, click "Save" button.

Once you've done that, it's time to create a document type. To simplify things, our library is going to have one type – “Auto Loan Agreement”.

Creating a Document Type

While in the library window, click "Create" button in the "Document type" section.

A new document type window will appear. In this window, create a set of fields in the document with the following names and types:

• "Agreement date" – Date;
• "Agreement Number" – Numeric;
• "Summary" – Multi string (indexed);
• "Customer" – Dictionary;
• "Total Sale Price" – Currency;

Finally, select a couple of functions like "Attached files" and "Approval".

That’s it, it’s really that easy. You've succsessfully created a digital representation of the real document.

Folders Management

When you create a new document type, the system automatically creates a folder to store it with the same name as the document type.

You can change the folder's name by selecting the folder and modifying it's name in the “Folder options" tab.

Initially, system users do not have access to the newly created folder. To allow access, go to the “Access” tab and break the inheritance rights from the parent object by clicking the blue link “Click here to setup access...”

For example, if you want to provide access to this folder for all users, click this button:

then, select the “Everyone" group and

set “Full access" in the "Permission level" column.

Working With Documents

After we've successfully created our new document, we need to make sure that our users are able to work with the "Auto Loan Agreement" document. To do this, log in to the system using any user login, and make sure that the folder "Auto Loan Agreements" appears in the folders tree.

Next, create the document "Auto Loan Agreement" by clicking on "Create" button and fill in all its fields.

That's it, now we made sure that our users can work with this type of document. Next, you can try to organize users collaboration, configure the history of documents, customize views in folders or implement any other system functionalities.

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