@Andrea - you always seem to know the answers.

Hi @JHBEM ,

It is not possible to add data to the document tab. In this case, this would be a suggestion for improvement for the ideation area. 

As an alternative solution, you could add a new section in your employee information with attributes for the data you need to save regarding documents. This way, you would also be able to extract the data on a report.

Let me know if I can clarify anything else!

Best,

Andrea

Thanks @Andrea - if I do the alternative - does the data and document sync?
Does the document not come up in a report either?

Hi @JHBEM,

Sure thing, happy to help . In that case, there is no connection between the attributes and the documents. 

To understand this a bit better: What exactly would you like to analyze with the data for documents? What would be helpful from a report with documents and specific data about them?

Thanks for your response.

Best,

Andrea

The ability to report on the document - such as expiry date - VISA or Security clearances.
This would also avoid having to create a duplicated non-synced data field in the personal attributes.

I see creating a non-linked data field that is not on the document meta-data as a potential manual-entry error.

@JHBEM So you would use the report for documents to see if data has to be updated or employees have to upload a new document because the existing one is expired, correct? 

Yes - I think we are talking about the same thing - let me share a real-life example.

Person P has a visa permit that is going to expire in April 1st 2023.

The report would flag that this document is due to expire in say ‘in the next 30 days’ - which would prompt an alert/notification to HR and the Employee so that they renew this permit.

The same could apply say for Security clearances or Professional qualificiations which need renewing.

@JHBEM Thanks for the details, that confirms that I understood what you need . In this case, the best practice and the way users solve this, is by using attributes that can:

1. Trigger reminders to notify, for example, “please upload a new version of the document”, or “your visa expires in one month”. This reminder can be triggered for all employees and for HR managers too. Take a look at the following help center articles for more details about this functionality:

• Create reminders and workflows
• Best practice: Reminders

2. To use them as placeholders in document templates. This way you avoid adding the information in the employee profiles and in the documents.

Retrieving a report with documents and these data would require you to manually check the expiry dates and triggering notifications from a report is a functionality that is not needed, because Personio already has reminder workflows for this. 

I am aware that you are not a fan of our document template functionality, nevertheless this use case highlights maybe one of the comparisons you required about using another e-signature provider. If your documents are saved in Personio, there are plenty of other functionalities you can link them with, saving you manual work.

Let me know what you think.

Best,

Andrea

Hi Andrea I can see that the Reminders and Triggers due resolve the reminders use-case.

But to have the data on the document increases it’s accuracy - greater than it being stored separately.

However, the reason why the capbility of Document Storage Metadata and Reporting is so important is with regards to provision externally.

It also means that when running a report (in other HRIS perhaps) this meta-data and document can be pulled together and provided to external clients easily.

For example - we work with local, central governments etc. where pulling a report that can be easily shared is the use-case.

Therefore - I do want them on the meta-data directly on the document, not separately.

This is purely a comparison of Document Storage functionality and capability, not to be confused with Document Creation or Document Templates. Whether we use Personio or Docusign we would like to use the Document Storage within Personio - but we are identifying areas for improvement - i.e. Document Metadata which would enhance this feature.

I appreciate that the proposal does provide some elements of a work-around - sadly it doesn’t resolve the issue so I would say it’s a feature enhancement / functionality gap so will write up an ideation.

@Dorota - @jmd 
Do let me know if this makes sense to you as well to have metadata fields on documents?

I’d like to see this too. I would also find it useful to be able to run reports on the documents more easily and to be able to customise the info in the reports.

Visa, passport and garda vetting / police check documentation are all things that we have to track expiration dates of and it’s not a good solution to create an attribute and transfer info through that. It would be great to have the option to do that in the document itself either in the bulk upload option or in the individual upload option. 

I have converted this into a more thought through Idea and proposal here

@JHBEM +1 for the idea. I don’t think we’ve ran into this just yet but it sounds like something we’ll eventually hit