Add documents and notes to a product

Every product has its own Documents and Notes tabs. Use Documents for files such as technical sheets, certifications, supplier invoices and photos. Use Notes for short written messages with colleagues about the product.

Nothing written in Notes is attached to a file, and uploaded files do not appear in Notes.

Upload a document

1. Open Catalog, then View Products.
2. Click the product.
3. Select Product Page in the preview that opens.
4. Select the Documents tab. The number in brackets beside the tab name shows how many files are already attached.
5. Select Upload at the top right of the documents panel.
6. Choose a file. PDF, Word, Excel, CSV and images in JPG, PNG, GIF or WEBP format are accepted. Other types are refused with a message listing the allowed types.
7. Fill in Title. Upload File stays greyed out until it has a value.
8. Choose a Category if you want one.
9. Set Date if you want one.
10. Enter Notes if you want them.
11. Select Upload File.

Select Cancel instead to abandon the upload.

The Notes box on the upload form describes that file, not the product. For example, you could enter the issue number of a certificate. Product-level comments belong on the Notes tab.

Dragging and dropping requires Manage Documents, just like Upload. Without it, the page does not react to a dropped file. If you drop several files at once, only the first one uploads.

The largest file you can upload depends on your plan. An upload is also refused with a message if it would take your organisation over its total storage allowance. When storage is already full, Upload is greyed out and an invitation to a larger plan appears under it.

Find and open product documents

Each document shows a small picture of its first page for PDFs and images, along with its title, category, date and uploader. Select the picture or title to preview it, or select Download to save a copy to your computer.

Buttons above the list filter documents by category. They include All, each category with its document count, and No category when some documents have none. A line such as 3 of 12 documents shows how many are displayed. You can also select the category on a document to filter by it.

Select a document's edit control to change its Title, Category, Date and Notes. You cannot swap the file itself. To replace it, upload the new file and then delete the old one.

Manage document categories

Categories are shared across the organisation, not created per product. When you upload or edit a document, the Category list offers existing categories and No category. People with Manage Documents also get New category, which creates and selects a category in one go, and Manage in Settings. When no category exists yet, the list offers Create the first category.

1. Open Settings, then Documents, under the Inventory heading in the settings menu. Categories are in the Document Types section.
2. To add a category, type its name in New category name.
3. Select Create.
4. To rename a category, select the edit control on its row.
5. Change the name and save.
6. To remove a category, select the delete control on its row.
7. Confirm the deletion.

Documents appears in the settings menu only for people with Manage Documents. Its categories apply to product documents, not documents uploaded on a purchase order.

A category still in use cannot be deleted. Its delete control is greyed out, and hovering over it explains that the category has documents. The Documents column on the same row shows how many. Move those documents to another category first, or rename the category instead.

Find files across your organisation

Every file uploaded in your organisation, on products and on purchase orders, also appears on one page. Open Catalog, then Documents.

The page has All Documents, Purchase Orders and Products folders. Use Filters to narrow the list by Category, Supplier, Product, Type, and a From and To date. The list shows who uploaded each file and when, and you can switch between a list and a grid.

Select several documents to download them together or, with Manage Documents, delete them. A deletion on this page waits five seconds with an Undo before it goes ahead.

Search inside files

The search box on the Documents page matches names and titles. Tick Also search inside PDFs and images to search the text inside files as well.

This requires Document OCR Search, which the organisation's owner switches on in Settings, then Documents. It is included in the Starter plan and above, with a monthly allowance of scanned pages that depends on the plan.

Text is read from each file in the background after upload. A newly uploaded file may not be findable by its contents straight away, and a page whose text cannot be read never will be.

Add and reply to notes

1. Open the product's page.
2. Select the Notes tab.
3. Type your note.
4. Select Send.

You can also send a note with Ctrl+Enter, or Cmd+Enter on a Mac. To respond to an existing note, select Reply underneath it. Where a note already has responses, select the replies count underneath it to show them.

You can edit and delete your own notes. Those controls do not appear on notes written by anyone else, and a colleague cannot change yours.

The Notes tab shows the 50 most recent notes, newest first, with no control for paging further back. Replies do not count towards that 50. The number beside the Notes tab counts notes only, not replies.

Document and note permissions

Documents are controlled by View Documents and Manage Documents. Without View Documents, the Documents tab shows Access Restricted instead of the list, and Documents is not in the Catalog menu.

With View Documents but not Manage Documents, you can preview and download files, but Upload is greyed out and the edit and delete controls do not appear.

Notes need no permission of their own. Anyone who can open the product can read its notes and add one.