Controlled documents & compliance — overview

New to rooms entirely? rooms is a system for publishing auth-gated document collections. You (or Claude, on your behalf) create documents; the people you invite read them in a browser after signing in with their work email and a one-time code — no account, no password, no software to install. A room is one such collection. Read How it works for the 60-second version, then come back.

What a controlled document is

An ordinary document in rooms follows "latest edit wins" — you change it, readers see the change. A controlled document adds the controls a regulated or governed process needs:

• Immutable versions — every save is snapshotted and kept; you can always show exactly what was live on a given date.
• A formal lifecycle — a draft is reviewed, then approved by named people, and only then published. Readers never see anything but the current published version.
• Sign-off by specific people — approval is limited to the exact approvers you name, and this is enforced by the server, not by the interface. Nobody can approve who wasn't assigned, and it can't be faked through the Claude chat.
• Acknowledgements — after publishing you distribute the document to an audience; each person acknowledges ("I have read and understood this") and that attestation is recorded with their email and a timestamp.
• An append-only audit trail — every edit, review, approval, publish, distribution, and acknowledgement is logged with who did it and when, and can never be edited or deleted.

You turn on all of this by making a room a controlled (governed) room. Every document in that room then follows the lifecycle. It works for policies, SOPs, contracts, board resolutions, safety notices — anything that needs sign-off and proof of receipt.

The end-to-end flow

Reading left to right, one controlled document travels this path:

1. Author & version — someone with the editor role drafts the document (by chatting with Claude, or in the web app). Each save is a retained version.
2. Review — the draft is submitted to its assigned reviewers, who read it and either mark it reviewed or request changes with comments.
3. Approve — the draft is submitted to its assigned approvers. Every approver must approve the same version before it can be published; any single rejection sends it back to draft.
4. Publish — once fully approved, an editor publishes. That version becomes what readers see, stamped with an effective date and a review-due date.
5. Distribute — the published version is handed to a named audience (a group like all-employees, and/or specific people). The audience is snapshotted — recorded as "this version went to these people on this date."
6. Acknowledge — everyone in the audience is notified (Slack DM or email), opens the document, and acknowledges it on the page. Their attestation is recorded against the snapshot.
7. Prove & re-review — admins track coverage and export a compliance record at any time. When the review-due date passes, the document is flagged so an owner refreshes it, and the cycle repeats.

Where each step lives

Detailed instructions are split across three pages — this overview links into each:

Who can do what — roles & separation of duties

rooms has four company roles, ranked viewer < editor < admin < platform-admin. On top of those, a controlled document names its own reviewers and approvers per document — so the person who writes a policy need not be the person who approves it. Every rule below is enforced in server code; the web app and the Claude connector are just two front doors to the same enforced engine.

* Reviewers and approvers are assigned per document. Being assigned is what lets them open the draft even if they aren't otherwise a member of the room — so you can route a policy to Legal or the CFO without giving them the run of the room. They still can't edit, publish, or approve anything they weren't named on.

Two ways to do everything: the app and Claude

Every capability here is available both in the branded web app (the console) and by asking Claude in natural language through the connector. Use whichever suits the moment — an admin curating groups and watching a dashboard will prefer the app; an author drafting and submitting a policy will prefer Claude. They act on the same data and obey the same rules. Each detail page shows both paths side by side, and names the underlying Claude tool for reference.

What you can prove afterward

For an audit you can produce, per document: every version and when it was effective; who reviewed and approved each version and when; who it was distributed to and on what date (a frozen snapshot, unaffected by later joiners or leavers); who acknowledged, when, and the exact statement they attested to; and a complete, append-only activity log of every action. The per-document report downloads as CSV. See Producing evidence for an audit.