Controlled documents
Some documents need more than "latest edit wins" — they need retained versions, a formal review, sign-off from specific people, and a permanent record of it all. Make a room a controlled (governed) room and every document in it follows a review → approval → publish lifecycle. It fits policies, SOPs, contracts, board resolutions, safety notices — anything that needs sign-off and proof.
Turn a room into a controlled room
Only an admin can do this, and it's a property of the whole room: once a room is governed, every document in it follows the lifecycle. A governed room holds documents only (not slide decks, prototypes, or verbatim files) — the system won't convert a room that already holds those.
Create a controlled-docs room
In the left navigation, open the Controlled documents section and click New — the room is created governed. The app creates new controlled rooms; converting an existing room (or setting a custom review period) is done through Claude.
Make any room governed
Tell Claude to make a room a controlled/governed room — this also converts an existing room, and takes an optional review period in days (how long until a published document is due for re-review; default one year). Claude tool: setCollectionType.
The lifecycle at a glance
Every controlled document moves through these states. Readers only ever see the published version — drafts, prior versions, and the whole review history stay internal.
| State | What it means | Who advances it |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | Being written or revised. Every save is a retained, immutable version. | editor |
| In review | Submitted to the assigned reviewers, who read it and respond. | editor submits; reviewers respond |
| In approval | Submitted to the assigned approvers for sign-off. | editor submits; approvers decide |
| Approved | Every assigned approver has approved this version. Ready to publish. | reached automatically on the last approval |
| Published | Live and visible to readers, with an effective date and a review-due date. The prior published version becomes superseded. | editor |
| Retired | Withdrawn — removed from the reader plane and from search. History is kept. | editor |
A rejection at the approval step sends the document straight back to Draft and notifies the author. There is no separate "re-review" state: when a published document passes its review-due date it's simply flagged overdue so an owner can revise it and run it through the flow again.
Assign the reviewers & approvers (per document)
Each document names its own reviewers and approvers — set by an admin. This is where separation of duties lives: the author, the reviewers, and the approvers can all be different people. Everyone you assign must already be a member of the company or of this room (otherwise they'd be notified about a document they couldn't open). Being assigned is itself what lets a reviewer or approver open the draft — so you can route a policy to Legal or the CFO without adding them to the room for everything else.
While you're here you also set the two things the acknowledgement step later depends on: the attestation statement (the exact sentence people attest to, e.g. "I have read and understood this policy") and an optional acknowledge-by deadline.
The Govern panel
Open the room, then a document's Govern button. Set reviewers, approvers, the attestation statement, and the acknowledge-by deadline, and drive every lifecycle step from the same panel.
Describe the assignments
Name the people and Claude sets them. Claude tool: setDocGovernance (reviewers, approvers, and the attestation statement). The acknowledge-by deadline is set on the Govern panel.
Drive it through the lifecycle
These are the steps in order. Each is available in the Govern panel and by asking Claude; the enforced rule is noted so you know what can and can't happen.
1 · Submit for review
An editor submits the current draft. Its assigned reviewers are notified (Slack DM or email). Claude tool: submitForReview.
2 · Review — mark reviewed or request changes
Only an assigned reviewer can respond, and the server enforces that — no one else's "review" counts. A reviewer either marks the document reviewed or requests changes, and can leave anchored comments on the draft. Requesting changes doesn't force a state change; the editor revises and re-submits. Claude tool: addReview (status reviewed or changes requested).
3 · Submit for approval
An editor submits it to the approvers. You must have assigned at least one approver first, or this step is refused. The approvers are notified. Claude tool: submitForApproval.
4 · Approve or reject
Only an assigned approver can decide, enforced server-side — it cannot be faked through the Claude chat or the app. Approval is unanimous: the document becomes Approved only when every assigned approver has approved this exact version. Until then it shows who's still outstanding. Any single rejection immediately returns the document to Draft and notifies the author. Claude tool: approve (decision approved or rejected).
5 · Publish
An editor publishes once the document is fully Approved (publishing before that is refused). Publishing:
- makes this version the live one readers see, and marks the previous published version superseded;
- stamps an effective date (the moment you publish) and a review-due date (effective date + the room's review period, one year by default);
- adds an Acknowledge bar to the bottom of the page readers see — the clean version snapshot kept for the record does not include it.
Publishing does not automatically send the document to anyone — that's the separate distribute step. If this document had been distributed before and this is a major re-publish, Claude and the Govern panel will remind you it needs re-distributing. Claude tool: publish (with an optional minor flag for non-material fixes — see Re-publishing).
6 · Retire (when it's no longer in force)
An editor retires a document to withdraw it: it's removed from the reader plane and from search, but every version and the full history are kept. Claude tool: retire.
Effective dates & scheduled re-review
Every published version carries an effective date (when it went live) and a review-due date. When the review-due date passes, the document is surfaced as overdue for review so an owner can refresh it — it stays published and readable in the meantime; nothing is withdrawn automatically. Admins see overdue documents on the Compliance dashboard; editors can ask for the list. Claude tool: listOverdue.
Reviewers & approvers get real tools
Anyone assigned as a reviewer or approver can open the draft and leave comments on it — anchored notes, questions, change requests — even if they're not otherwise a member of the room. They also get a personal My tasks view listing every document waiting on their review, approval, or acknowledgement, and they're notified the moment something is submitted to them. See My tasks and Comments on a draft.
Everything is on the record
Every action — each edit (with its version), every review and change-request, each individual approval and the moment full approval is reached, publishing, retiring, distributions, and acknowledgements — is written to an append-only audit trail stamped with who did it and when. It can't be edited or deleted. Open a document's Govern panel, or ask Claude for its history, to see the full timeline, the version list, and every review and approval. Claude tool: getHistory. (The history is visible to editors in the room and to the document's assigned reviewers/approvers — not to ordinary readers.)
What readers see
A reader opening a controlled document sees exactly one thing: the current published version, plus an Acknowledge bar if they're being asked to attest. They never see drafts, prior or superseded versions, the review/approval workings, comments, or the audit trail. That separation is the point — the controlled machinery is invisible to the audience.
Every action, both ways
The complete author-to-publish surface, in the web app and as a Claude request. Distribution and acknowledgement actions are on the Distribution & compliance page.
| Task | In the web app | Ask Claude — tool |
|---|---|---|
| Create a new controlled-docs room | Left nav → Controlled documents → New | setCollectionType |
| Convert an existing room to governed | — | setCollectionType |
| Assign reviewers/approvers & attestation statement | Govern panel | setDocGovernance |
| Set the acknowledge-by deadline | Govern panel | — panel only |
| Submit for review | Govern → Submit for review | submitForReview |
| Mark reviewed / request changes | Govern (reviewers) / My tasks | addReview |
| Submit for approval | Govern → Submit for approval | submitForApproval |
| Approve / reject | Govern (approvers) / My tasks | approve |
| Publish | Govern → Publish | publish |
| Retire | Govern → Retire | retire |
| See full history / versions | Govern → History | getHistory |
| List documents overdue for review | Compliance dashboard (admins) | listOverdue |