A document that does not block anything is not a control.
Most document management stores files and reports that they exist. The useful question in a regulated process is different: can the case advance without the evidence? If it can, the requirement is a convention — and conventions are what audits find missing.
Evidence attached to the case, not filed beside it.
Documents live inside the record they belong to: the contract on the agreement, the disposal certificate on the asset, the test result on the change, the signed authorisation on the request. They carry version trees, permission-controlled access, the physical location of the original on record and their own audit history; documents issued from templates can carry a handwritten signature, an RFC 3161 time stamp and a QR code that validates them.
The part that changes behaviour is the gate. A workflow transition can require a specified document type and refuse to advance without it. That turns “the policy says you must attach the certificate” into a condition the engine enforces — which is the difference between a documented control and an operating one.
What it does
Governed content, reachable from the process
The controls that make a document usable as evidence rather than as a copy of something.
Version trees →
Prior versions stay reachable and permission-controlled. The active version and the superseded ones are distinguishable, which is what makes “the approved version” a fact rather than a filename convention.
Gates in the workflow →
A lifecycle transition can require specified document types or evidence before it is authorised. Mandatory tasks and evidence gates hold the record until the condition is satisfied.
Signature, time stamp and QR
A handwritten signature captured on screen, an RFC 3161 time stamp that certifies when the PDF was issued and that it has not changed since, and a QR code to validate it. It certifies the moment of issue and the integrity of the document. Templates are issued as archival PDF/A-2b with the time stamp on it, as editable Word or as HTML; whoever scans the QR sees the document, its signers and how many times it has been validated.
History and custody
Every document keeps its history of versions, authors and dates, and the physical location of the original is on record. Retention policy is modelled on the process that governs the document's life cycle.
A repository that opens
Office documents, spreadsheets, PDFs, images, audio and video, opened in the integrated viewer with permission-controlled download — so reviewing evidence does not require distributing it.
Attached to any object →
A document can belong to an asset type, a model, an individual asset, a contract, a procurement record, a disposal record or an agreement, and stays reachable from each of them.
Definitive versions
Software records identify the definitive source, the controlled location, the approved version and its status — so what should be deployed is a governed record rather than institutional memory.
Encrypted cloud store, complete export →
Documents can live in Azure Blob Storage, compressed and encrypted by the application before they leave the server — AES-256 with HMAC-SHA512 authentication and a key of each deployment — migrated from the database in the background, each one verified before removal. An on-premises installation moves to Azure in phases: a selection rule chooses the documents the operation needs, each one is verified on arrival, and the original is left untouched. The whole repository, or a filter of it, exports in the background to ZIP parts or a delivery container, with a manifest that keeps every document tied to its cases.
Physical files, on loan →
Loans of physical documents and files are recorded with their requester, lent with a due date or rejected, and returned; the platform shows what is out, what is overdue and by how many days, and who recorded each step.
Where it bites
Where a document stops being paperwork
These are the moments where a missing attachment is not an administrative oversight but a control failure. In each of them the requirement is a condition on the transition, not a line in a procedure.
| The moment | What the engine requires, and what that prevents |
|---|---|
| Authorising a change | Test results, remediation plan, communication and training evidence — so a change is not approved on the assurance that testing happened |
| Retiring an asset | Licence recovery, data sanitisation, approval, and the destruction or provider certificate — so nothing is written off with the data still on it |
| Publishing an agreement | The signed version, with prior versions still reachable — so a commitment can always be produced in the form it was agreed |
| Closing a case | The evidence the model declares mandatory on closure — so no record closes clean and cannot afterwards be reconstructed |
Precision
The distinctions this module preserves
Three pairs of terms that are used as synonyms and are not.
The proof
Evidence is the reason the chain holds
Executable business architecture ends at evidence. A process that cannot produce the document justifying a decision is not traceable, whatever its diagram shows. Document control is not a peripheral module here: it is what keeps the chain that runs from strategy to indicator attached to something verifiable.
See the traceability chain →The other capabilities of Dexon BPM
Workflow
Conditional routing, parallel tasks, dynamic approvers, deadlines on business calendars and append-only history — the same engine across every record type.
ETL & integration
REST API, scheduled and event-driven exchange with databases, files and web services, plus directory, email and discovery — with the authoritative source of every attribute on record.
BI & KPIs
Scorecards under strategic objectives, targets by period, drill-down from the aggregate to the source record, and projection that never overwrites a measurement.
IT asset management
Inventory through the Dexon Agent, a CMDB that maintains itself, SNMP network discovery, licensing measured on real usage, and remote control recorded on the case.
Bring the control that lives in a procedure
The attachment everyone knows is required and half the cases are missing. We turn it into a condition the engine will not pass.