A document type is the model your team uses to create documents for a specific category — such as Safety Flash, Lessons Learned, One Point Lesson (OPL), Work Instruction, or Best Practice. It defines:
Which fields are required, optional, or hidden
The template that guides the writer
Whether third-party validation is required before publication
Document types are the standards of your documentation system. They standardize knowledge across teams, improve search relevance and audit readiness, and prevent everyone from writing documents differently.
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Investing 30 minutes in a clear document type can save hours every week and make knowledge much easier to find and reuse.
Who can create document types?
Because document types act as standards, only the organization's admins can create or edit them. Regular users can use the types when creating documents, but cannot modify them.
Access the document types page
You can access the document types page from the organization's admin page:
Step 1 — General settings
Configure the basic identity and approval workflow of the document type:
Name — choose an explicit name such as Safety Flash, Lessons Learned, Work Instruction, Best Practice, or OPL. Avoid vague names such as “Document” or “Note.”
Third-party approval — decide whether a document of this type must be validated before publication by another user, such as a member of the Quality, HSE, or Methods team.
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When should approval be required?
Enable it when a publishing mistake could have safety, quality, or regulatory consequences. For lighter content such as best practices or internal notes, leave it optional to keep authors moving quickly.
Step 2 — Fields
For each available field — title, summary, equipment, area, criticality, attached files, and others — choose one of three states:
Optional — available but not mandatory
Required — the document cannot be published until the field is completed
Hidden — the field is not displayed for this document type
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Rule of thumb: keep required fields to a minimum. Requiring two to five fields is usually the sweet spot: enough to make documents searchable and reusable, but not so many that operators avoid creating them.
Step 3 — Template
Define the template that appears in the editor when someone creates a document of this type.
Think of the template as a structured prompt: it gives writers section headings, instructions, and a logical order rather than leaving them with a blank page.
A good template usually contains:
A short introduction reminding the writer of the document's purpose
Two to five section headings
Optional instructions in italics under each heading
Space for tables, images, videos, or PDFs where relevant
Editing a document type
You can edit a document type's template at any time, but you cannot change its other settings, such as which fields are optional or required.
Existing documents created from the previous version remain unchanged.
Only new documents created after the change inherit the updated template.
Next step: create a document
Once your document types are configured, your team can start creating documents.
→ Read next: Create a document.
If you have any questions, our support team is one click away.