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Workflow Management

Automate document flow between teams, customers, and sub-suppliers

Whether driven by customer milestones or internal engineering reviews, every issue purpose brings its own revision rules, approval paths, and target dates. DocBoss ties these rules directly to your document codes, so every file routes through the right workflow automatically.

  • Approval cycles defined once and attached to document codes, from a single issue to a multi-stage sequence.
  • Reviewers assigned automatically according to where a document came back from and what happened to it.
  • Gates that hold a submittal until internal approval is in, and that stop a drawing reaching your sub-supplier late.
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5 ways to keep your project documents moving without friction

Embed your engineering sequence into every file, enforce critical approval gates automatically, and prevent mid-project handovers or rejections from stalling delivery.

01

Sequence

Part of the sequence comes from your customer’s specification. The rest comes from how your engineering actually works. Both belong on the document code rather than in somebody’s memory of what this job expects.

02

Gates

DocBoss enforces two critical gate checks. A document requiring engineer approval never goes out to your customer without it. And a drawing bound for a sub-supplier before manufacturing starts won’t sit forgotten in someone’s inbox.

 

03

Rework

A rejection costs you time, and most of that time goes on coordination rather than on the fix: working out who owns it, getting it to them, finding out whether they have done it. That path is mapped before the document comes back.

04

Language

Where your customer has specified issue purposes and approval codes, their terms appear on everything they see. Where they have not, yours do.

05

Continuity

People take holidays mid-project. Assignments hand over, temporarily or permanently, and revert on the 
date you set.

Enforce an exact approval cycle for every document type

Embed your engineering sequence directly onto your document codes. Schedule a demo to enforce internal review gates, stop unapproved drawings from reaching customers, and automate sub-supplier releases.

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HOW IT WORKS

Absolute control over every review, revision, and return.

Connect customer approval chains, sub-supplier gates, and internal sign-offs into a single automated workflow that never lets a document stall.

Issue purposes, and the sequence between them

Issue cycles run continuously until target return statuses close them, moving documents to the next step. Each stage sets its own target, expected return rules, revision behavior, and due date references.

Internal approval before anything leaves

Internal reviewers status documents as approved, pending, or rejected before submittal queues release them to customers or sub-suppliers. Disagreements defer to the latest status with full review visibility.

Routing to the people who have to look at it

Route files sequentially through roles like preparer, checker, and approver. Each stage completes before the next begins, and due dates recalculate automatically as documents advance.

Answering your customer’s comment sheet

Upload customer comment spreadsheets on return so they travel directly to engineering alongside active drawings. Completed sheets attach to new active files for seamless resubmittal.

Speak your customer’s language

Configure customer approval codes using their exact wording and numbering so returned documents are statused in their vocabulary. DocBoss identifies which codes close a cycle and which require resubmission

The gate back to your sub-supplier

Automate customer drawing approvals directly into sub-supplier manufacturing releases. Making this a required cycle stage prevents missed handoffs and provides clear proof of release dates.

Markups in the browser

Add callouts, text, and freehand markups in-browser, or import native PDF comments directly. Choose whether markups export to submittals, comment summary sheets, or spreadsheets.

Two cycles from one document

Handle split tracks, like releasing to fabrication while closing out minor approval changes, simultaneously using temporary parallel documents that merge back into the main record upon completion.

FAQs about Workflow Management

Get answers to questions about DocBoss’s Workflow Management

Still have questions?

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Who decides the workflow, us or our customer?

Whichever of you actually decides it on that job. Some customers specify the issue purposes and the order they run in, down to the codes. Others care only that the right document arrives approved, and the sequence in between is your engineering process. DocBoss holds either, attached to the document code.

Can we stop documents reaching the customer before our engineering has approved them?

Yes. Turn internal approval on for the document types that need it and the document stays out of the customer queue until it carries an approved status.

Our drawings have to go back to the sub-supplier once the customer approves them, and that gets missed. Can DocBoss handle it?

Yes, and it is a common enough failure to be worth designing for. Make it a stage in the cycle. When the approval lands, the document queues to the sub-supplier automatically instead of depending on somebody remembering, and the record shows when it went.

FAQs about Workflow Management

Get answers to questions about DocBoss’s Workflow Management

Who decides the workflow, us or our customer?

Whichever of you actually decides it on that job. Some customers specify the issue purposes and the order they run in, down to the codes. Others care only that the right document arrives approved, and the sequence in between is your engineering process. DocBoss holds either, attached to the document code.

Can we stop documents reaching the customer before our engineering has approved them?

Yes. Turn internal approval on for the document types that need it and the document stays out of the customer queue until it carries an approved status.

Our drawings have to go back to the sub-supplier once the customer approves them, and that gets missed. Can DocBoss handle it?

Yes, and it is a common enough failure to be worth designing for. Make it a stage in the cycle. When the approval lands, the document queues to the sub-supplier automatically instead of depending on somebody remembering, and the record shows when it went.

Still have questions?

Contact Us

Workflow guides

Guides to approval cycles, internal review and reviewer routing.