Template plus data
A document is always made of two parts: the template that defines its appearance, and the data for exactly this one report – customer, date and line items of an audit, for example. The application assembles the data and decides when a document is produced. It calculates totals, ratings and key figures beforehand; Reporting only fills them in.
Every signed-in person can produce documents from the templates they can see. No special role is needed for this. Roles only come into play when editing templates and when accessing stored documents.
Three modes nobody confuses
Every request names a mode. It decides whether Reporting keeps the document and how you can tell what it is:
- Preview: for checking while editing. It carries a visible watermark and is never stored.
- Final: the report that counts. It is stored as the next version of its document chain, sealed in addition if it is a PDF, and only then returned.
- Working copy: for downloading, printing or passing on – without a watermark, but marked as a copy in the document properties. It can only be produced from platform templates and only if the system allows it.
Checked data, sealed-off templates
A template can declare which fields it expects, with type and whether they are mandatory. Reporting checks the data against this before the template sees it and reports all violations at once – each with field and rule. A request can also just be checked, without producing a document.
Templates run in a sealed-off environment: they only fill in values and cannot reach files, other systems or addresses on the network. Images come from the approved template or, for photos of a site inspection for example, from the individual request; final documents are produced from template and data alone. Diagrams your application draws itself are checked against a list of permitted elements before they are inserted. Time and size limits protect the system from overload.
Origin in every response
Every result states what it was produced from: template, level, language variant and revision including its fingerprint. Your application therefore always knows which approved state was used. For a final document, the identifier of its revision is added, under which it can later be retrieved and verified again.
What you gain
Business teams get previews for testing templates safely, working copies for everyday use and originals for evidence – without anyone mistaking a preview or a copy for a record.