Hi babynus,
I'd like to propose a few enhancements regarding documents' properties:
- Define a new field "Client's document name" (or could be a more generic field name, such as "alternate doc's name", or something like that, perhaps the field's name even configurable through parameters), so that we can track both (our client's and our own's) doc's numbering (or naming, more accurately) scheme at the same time.
Even further:
1- Once a document has been internally approved, and is sent to the client, the file name should default to this client doc's name when the customer downloads it (unless it's blank).
2- It may be useful, in order to achieve 1, to create another configurable "client's doc reference", which would be defined on a per-client basis. That way, when you create a project, and define who (client) is it for, you're already defining the (already configured, assuming the client already existed in your database) "client's doc reference" schema. Since, most likely, this new client's reference is going to be a different combination of many of the same fields as in our own's.
3- To define a few more parameters for "document referece": client code, folder code (see 4), client's project code (that may or may not be the same as
our project code, see 5)
4- Folders should have a "code" and another "description" field. Being separated, you get the best of both worlds: folder code is useful in order to filter, and use these fields as parameters for references (see 3), and folder description is more human-friendly. Perhaps in the left-sided documents widget (the one inside the accordion) both of them should be displayed.
5- (not so doc related) Projects should have a "client code" that may (probably) differ from internal (our) code. Add a new field "client project code" for projects that can be used as a parameter for a new "client document reference" (see 3).
6- Up to now, the auto-numbering function is constrained within docs of the same
type (and, of course, the same project). I.e.: when I upload a new doc, Project'OrRIA checks among docs of the same type (and the same project) which is the one with the highest number, and automatically assignes a (+1) number to my new document. It'd be great if that behaviour could be configured: instead of checking proj+type, it could check just proj, or just type, or just folder code, or folder code+type, or even none (some companies define their numbering scheme as an overall consecutive numbering). (see 7)
7- (see 6) It would be useful (to improve the auto-numbering feature) if we could define a range of doc numbers for certain project / folder / type.
E.g.: within a certain project, I define sub-folders, that represent different areas (either location areas, or conceptual areas).
For example:
100- Folder 1
200- Folder 2
...
I may want every doc within the project to have a unique number, but perhaps I'd prefer them to have some sort of a prefix that allows a refined search. I.e.:
Docs in folder 100 -> auto-number starting on 10000
Docs in folder 200 -> auto-number starting on 20000
...
New fields for every folder (or project, or doc type) could be defined such as: "start auto-number" and "end auto-number".
In case they're left blank, Project'OrRIA would just ignore these and only take into account the (see 6) configured constraints for auto-numbering. These auto-number range-limits should be cross-checked, also, with the parameter that defines the number of characters desired for generated auto-numbers.
Look forward to hear your thoughts on these proposals, Babynus. (I hope I've managed to make myself clear
)
Cheers!