Document Control basics

Open: Documents > Document Control. Typical leads: Quality Manager and Document Controller; engineers and department managers can perform permitted document work. Purpose: keep an identifiable, approved revision in force and retain its history.

Create a document identity

1. Search the register to avoid a duplicate.
2. Select the create-document form. Enter a clear title and document type.
3. Leave Document number blank for automatic numbering, or enter an existing shop number if preserving your numbering system. Custom references must be unique and follow the form's allowed format.
4. Choose Create document. Open the new record and confirm its number, owner, type, and review interval.

Automatic document numbers combine the organization prefix, type, and sequence, such as QMS-WI-0001. Type sequences are separate. Existing shop references can contain letters, digits, dots, dashes, and slashes, up to 32 characters, beginning with a letter or digit. The document identity is separate from its revisions and files.

Tip: If your binders, customer surveys and the master list all say QP-8.7, keep that number. Renumbering during a migration is the fastest way to lose an auditor's trust in the crosswalk. Let Norma number only the documents you create from now on.

Prepare and approve a revision

1. Choose Create revision. Enter a unique revision label, up to eight characters using letters, digits, dots, or dashes and beginning with a letter or digit. Labels are normalized to uppercase.
2. For a later revision, enter the required change summary. Explain what changed in language an approver can assess.
3. Attach the revision file using Attach file, up to 25 MB. Confirm its filename and hash after upload.
4. If the revision supports in-app text authoring, open Edit, revise the Markdown text, inspect the preview, and save. Use Markdown headings, lists, and tables for structure. The editor is a document-content editor, not a replacement for Word's layout tools.
5. Add the required approvers by email and, optionally, the role or capacity in which they approve. At least one approver is required, and it cannot be you: as the form says, an author cannot approve their own revision, and the signature is refused if they try. The role is free text that appears on the signature exactly as typed, so agree the wording once.
6. Choose Send for review. The ordinary UI requires both a file and at least one approver.
7. Each named approver reviews the exact file and change summary, then signs their own line with password verification and an approval or rejection meaning.
8. When all required approvals are positive, choose Mark approved. Approval and effectivity are separate steps.
9. An authorized quality manager or administrator chooses Make effective, enters the effective date, chooses Retraining required — everyone re-reads this revision or No retraining required — prior reading stays current, and submits Set effective date. A date of today or earlier makes the revision effective at once. A later date schedules it (chapter 9, Schedule an effective date).

Confirm that the intended revision is Effective and that the former effective revision is Superseded with a named successor. The previous effective file remains the controlled version while a successor is being drafted or reviewed, and while an approved revision waits for its scheduled date.

Schedule an effective date

An approved revision can wait for a later effective date, so that the people who use it are trained before it takes effect. This period is the training window (chapter 11).

1. On the approved revision, choose Make effective and enter a date after today. "Today" is your organization's own calendar date, in its time zone.
2. Choose the training-impact decision as usual and submit Set effective date. The revision stays Approved, and the state reads Approved, effective {date}. The scheduling and the decision are recorded on the record chain.
3. On the date, a daily run (11:05 UTC) makes the revision effective, as system:effectivity, with the decision you recorded. The former revision stays in force on the document until that run. Training status already treats the new revision as in force from the start of the date on the organization's calendar, so between local midnight and the run a person not trained on it can read overdue while the document still shows the former revision.

The release re-checks the approvals and the training checks. If one fails, the revision is not released and stays Approved. Up to and including the date, the state still reads Approved, effective {date}, and the schedule control warns Will not be released on {date} unless this is resolved: … when the release would be refused. From the day after the date, the state reads Not released on {date} and the control gives the reason. Training status never treats a revision that was not released as in force: it reads as still upcoming. To change the date or the decision, open the state control and choose Cancel schedule; the cancellation is recorded, and you can then make the revision effective again. A scheduled revision with no training-impact decision is released as retraining required, and the chain entry says that the decision was the release default.

When the document is a training item (chapter 11), the date field proposes the last approval date plus 14 days, or today when that date has already passed; for any other document no date is proposed. For an item under the full rules, the no-retraining choice is not offered: the form reads Every person trained on this document retrains to the new revision. For an item with a test, the revision cannot take effect, at once or on its date, until someone confirms the test still fits it; the form reads Confirm the test still fits this revision before it takes effect. with an Open the test link to the item page.

Revision states

State	Meaning and next work
Draft	Prepare content, file, change summary, and approvers
In review	Named approvers review and sign; return to draft where permitted
Approved	Required positive approvals exist; authorized user makes effective, now or on a scheduled date (Approved, effective {date})
Effective	Revision currently in force
Superseded	Replaced by the identified successor
Obsolete	Withdrawn without a replacement through the permitted withdrawal action

File and approval controls

Before signatures, a draft or in-review revision can accept a file while the available controls permit it. Once any signature has been recorded, the file cannot be swapped underneath that signature. Create a new revision for changed content. A recorded signature cannot be edited or removed to make a rejected file appear approved.

Approvers can be added while draft or in review; the approval matrix closes after approval. An author cannot be an approver of their own revision: adding yourself is refused at the approval matrix, and a stale form that reaches the signature is refused there too, with the message that approval requires an independent approver. Older revisions approved before this rule can still carry an Author-approved marker on their approvals list; that marker is history, not permission. Use Remove only where the app offers it for an eligible approval requirement. An unavailable consultant approver may leave a work item that needs rerouting. Do not sign under their identity.

Use Return to draft if the available workflow allows more preparation. A return does not erase recorded signature evidence. If a rejection or signed content prevents completion, start the next valid revision instead of attempting to overwrite history.

Record a periodic review

When review is due and no open revision takes priority, an authorized reviewer or the document's owner may see Record periodic review.

1. Open the effective document and compare it with the actual process, current references, and known changes.
2. Choose Still current — no change needed or Needs revision — start the next revision.
3. Write what you checked and found, within the 280-character note limit, and submit.
4. Confirm the review event and updated review due date. Both outcomes restart the review clock. The needs-revision outcome creates the next draft when a next label can be derived.

A periodic review can therefore provide evidence without forcing a no-change revision. If there is an unfinished revision, finish its workflow first. If the app cannot derive your next revision label, create and name the revision manually.

Example: WI-2208 is due for its annual review. The supervisor opens the effective file, walks the operation with it, and records Still current — no change needed with the note "Walked op 020 on job 4581 on 2026-09-14 with the instruction in hand; steps, gages and limits match." That note is the review evidence; the clock restarts without a pointless Rev F.

Reading and training impact

During effectivity, the app shows the affected reading population when requirements exist. Choose Retraining required to make assigned people read the new revision, or No retraining required with a rationale. The latter preserves eligible prior current reading; it does not make an already overdue person trained. Review the Training matrix after release. A document under the full training rules (chapter 11) always retrains: its form offers no no-retraining choice.

On an effective document assigned to you, I've read Rev … records your own reading. Read the file before selecting it. Approval of a document and completion of reading are separate records.

Temporary deviations

A temporary deviation lets the floor work to a different, approved instruction for a limited time when a controlled document cannot be followed as written: a fixture is out for repair, a machine is down, a material substitute is in use. It does not change the document. Every deviation page states that it is Not a customer concession. A change to what the customer ordered goes through a nonconformance concession. (chapter 24).

Open: Document Control > Temporary deviations (beside the register's CSV link). A document's own page also lists, under Temporary deviations, the deviations in force on it, with Raise a deviation for those who may raise one. A quality manager, document controller, engineer or department manager can raise a deviation; only a quality manager can approve one.

1. Under Raise a temporary deviation, enter a Title, choose the documents it Departs from (documents) (at least one), and write the Temporary instruction (what to do instead, step by step) and the Reason.
2. Optionally, under Limit it to (optional), choose Parts, Work centers or Jobs. Left empty, it applies to every operation that uses the documents. Optionally link what will make it permanent under Made permanent by (optional): a CAPA, a change request, or a revision.
3. Optionally set an End date (optional), from today up to 60 days ahead. Left blank, it ends 60 days after approval.
4. Choose Save as draft. The deviation is numbered DEV-0001, DEV-0002 and so on.
5. Open it and choose Send for approval. From then on, the text, documents and scope are fixed.
6. A quality manager who did not write it reads the statement I approve temporary deviation {ref}, "{title}", to apply from my approval through {date}., enters Your password, and chooses Approve and sign. The author is refused: A deviation needs an approver who did not write it. That includes the author of a deviation it extends. Reject needs a Reason for rejecting.

A deviation is in force from the approval day through its end date, inclusive, on the organization's own date. The day after, the daily run (11:05 UTC) records it as Expired. If it is Made permanent by a revision and that revision takes effect on or before the deviation's end date, the deviation closes as Superseded at the next daily run; if the revision takes effect only after the end date, the deviation has already expired. Each approval and each end is recorded on the deviation's chain and on the history of every document it departs from. The author receives a My Work item, Review DEV-… (ends …), from seven days before the end date.

Under Extend or end, Raise an extension with a New end date creates a new deviation with the same text, documents and scope that names the one it extends, and sends it straight for approval. The original stays as approved until the extension is approved, then closes as Superseded. Only one extension can be open at a time. End it now stops it applying from today; it is recorded as Ended early.

Who must acknowledge. While a deviation is in force, everyone on the training for one of its documents (chapter 11) gets a line under Temporary deviations on Your training, due on the approval date and overdue after it. Read and acknowledge opens the deviation. The person reads it and signs I have read temporary deviation {ref} and will work to it until it ends. with Your password and Acknowledge. There is no test and no trainer. On the shop-floor tablet, the operation screen shows the deviation in a panel, and the person acknowledges it with their PIN. Until a person has acknowledged a deviation that applies to an operation, the tablet refuses their sign-offs on that operation (chapter 11, The floor block and temporary deviations). The Acknowledgments card lists who has acknowledged and who is still asked.

A running job changes only through a deviation. A job keeps the work instruction revision it was released on. A revision that takes effect later does not change that job's instruction, so a deviation on the instruction's document is how a change reaches a job already on the floor.

Who sees a deviation. A viewer sees a deviation when they can see at least one of its documents under the unit rules every register applies (chapter 4). Its other documents are shown as a document outside your area, with no number or title. A person asked to acknowledge can always open an approved deviation through the documents they owe training on. An auditor sees only approved, expired and closed deviations. A signed acknowledgment stays on the list after the signer leaves the documents' training or is deactivated.

Evidence to check

The document page retains revisions, files and hashes, approver decisions, change summaries, effectivity, periodic reviews, reading information, and library provenance where applicable. Use Activity and Record chain to trace who performed each action. Download or print the correct revision rather than an old local copy.

In the user guide

This article is chapter 9, "Document Control", of the NormaQMS User Guide (NORMA-UG-001), which is under Help > User guide. Chapter numbers in the text refer to that guide.