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Casos de uso de la gestión documental

A document management system is configured, not installed. Each use case below sets out the taxonomy, mandatory metadata, approval chain and retention rule that make it work — contracts, policies, invoices, HR records, quality documents, ISO 27001 controls and a paperless office programme.

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Four decisions turn a repository into a process

Configuring a use case is not a feature question. It is these four choices, and each page below makes them explicitly so you can argue with them rather than start from a blank page.
  • The taxonomy — how documents are grouped, which is the hardest thing to change later
  • The mandatory metadata — which fields cannot be left blank, because those are what make retrieval and reporting possible
  • The approval chain — who approves what, and at what threshold a second approver is added
  • The retention trigger — what event starts the clock, which is almost never the document creation date

At a glance

The retention trigger and critical field by use case

The two settings most often got wrong, compared side by side. Each row links to the full configuration.
Retention trigger and the field you must not leave optional, by use case
Use caseWhat starts the retention clockThe field to make mandatory
Contract managementThe trigger is expiry or termination, not commencement or signature.Counterparty
Policy managementThe trigger for a policy version is the date it ceased to be effective, not the date it was written.Policy owner
Invoice processingThe trigger is the end of the accounting period or tax year in which the invoice falls, not the invoice date.Supplier
HR & employee recordsFor most classes the trigger is the end of employment, which is why employment end date must be a real field.Employee
Quality management (QMS)For a controlled document the trigger is the date the revision ceased to be effective, not the date it was created.Document number
ISO 27001 document controlFor documents the trigger is the date the version ceased to be effective.Annex A control reference
Paperless officeThe trigger is derived from the original document date, not the scan date.Record class

Use cases

Seven document processes, configured

Each page sets out the folder structure, the metadata fields, the approval chain and the retention rule — enough to build it, or to challenge it.

  • Contract management

    Almost every organisation can produce a signed contract if you give them a week. The problem is not storage — it is that the obligations inside the contract are invisible.

    Configure contract management

  • Policy management

    Policy management fails in a specific, testable way: an auditor asks which version of a policy was in force on a given date and who had read it. Most organisations can answer the first question with some digging and cannot answer the second at all, because "the policy was circulated by email" is not evidence that anyone read it..

    Configure policy management

  • Invoice processing

    Invoice processing is the clearest case for document automation because the work is entirely mechanical and entirely repetitive: an invoice arrives, someone reads it, someone retypes what it says into a finance system, someone else approves it, and someone files the original. Every step is necessary and none of it requires judgement until the approval..

    Configure invoice processing

  • HR & employee records

    An employee file is not one record with one sensitivity. It contains a contract that HR and payroll both need, a right-to-work document with a statutory expiry, an appraisal the line manager should see, and a grievance investigation that almost nobody should.

    Configure hr & employee records

  • Quality management (QMS)

    ISO 9001 clause 7.5.3 asks for something very specific and easily failed: documented information must be controlled so that it is available where needed, adequately protected, and — the part that trips organisations up — obsolete versions must be prevented from unintended use. A shared drive satisfies availability and fails prevention, because nothing stops an operator opening last year’s file..

    Configure quality management (qms)

  • ISO 27001 document control

    ISO/IEC 27001 certifies an information security management system, not a product, and the documentation is the ISMS made visible. Clauses 7.5.1 to 7.5.3 require documented information to be identified, reviewed and approved for suitability, available where needed, adequately protected, and controlled for distribution, access, version and retention.

    Configure iso 27001 document control

  • Paperless office

    Paperless programmes fail for a reason that is obvious in hindsight and almost universal in practice: they start by scanning the archive. A team is assigned, boxes are collected, a scanner runs for months, and at the end the organisation has a large quantity of image PDFs nobody searches and paper still arriving through the front door at the same rate as before.

    Configure paperless office

FAQ

Questions about implementing a use case

Process-specific questions are answered on each use-case page.
Which use case should we implement first?

The one where a failure is currently visible to someone senior. Policy acknowledgement if you have an audit coming; invoice processing if late payment charges are showing up in the accounts; contract management if a renewal was missed. Starting with the process nobody is complaining about produces a well-configured system nobody uses.

Can we run several of these at once?

Yes, and eventually most organisations do — they share one repository, one permission model and one audit trail. But implementing two at once means designing two taxonomies and two approval chains before either has been tested against real behaviour, which is how a rollout slips.

What is the single most common configuration mistake?

The retention trigger. Every use case on this page has a trigger that is not "document creation date" — contract termination, end of employment, end of accounting period, date the revision ceased to be effective. A schedule that starts every clock at upload is wrong for all seven, usually by years.

Do we need different metadata for each use case?

Yes, and that is a feature rather than an overhead. Metadata is defined per document type, so a contract carries counterparty and renewal date while an invoice carries supplier and amount. A single shared field set across all document types is the compromise that makes none of them reportable.

How long does configuring one use case take?

The system configuration is usually days. The decisions — what the taxonomy should be, which fields to make mandatory, where the approval thresholds sit, what the retention trigger is — are what take time, and they are decisions only you can make. Each page here is written to shorten that part.

Related routes into the product

Use cases describe what; industries describe who. Most evaluations need both.

Última revisión: 2026-09-01

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