I have experienced an issue with updating documents for unique equipment.
The manufacturer issued a revised user instruction.
I found the original document in the Shared document library and used the “Replace” Function to upload the new version.
This has added the document to the Product library and removed the old version. The old version is now marked “inactive”.
When I went to the items themselves, the old document is still attached.
I then linked the items to the Product again to update them, the new document is added but the old document still appears and is marked “active”.
If you select all the items, and the “documents” tab you can see the old document but there is only functionality to add new documents to the items, no functionality to bulk remove old documents.
It seems the only way to remove or inactivate the old document is to edit each item one-by-one? I have over 250 unique items of this Product, so this will be extremely time-consuming. Is there a quicker way to remove documents that have been replaced by a newer version?
Hi @richard.stannard, since the revised shared document cannot be automatically updated in equipment with today’s functionality yet, I’ve moved your suggestion to Product ideas > New.
In the meantime, you can bulk remove old documents of many equipment at once by editing the documents’ active status; this functionality is already supported in the Equipment module.
In the screenshot below:
I selected 3 equipment
Opened the Documents tab
Selected the old shared documents, which are displayed under the same name
Select Edit all on the toolbar
Set their active status to “Inactive”.
I didn’t have to open each equipment and set each document inactive one by one.
Hope this helps.
When I tested on my end, I also didn’t see the edit options when I selected 300 equipment. But when I selected only 200 equipment, I got the edit options as usual.
Please let me check with the Development team to confirm if this is a bug, or if the edit options are only available for a limited number of selected equipment.
Hi @richard.stannard, we’ve noted your need to apply revised instructions to existing equipment and inactivate the previous version as part of the same workflow.
Our concern with automatically updating existing equipment is that a revised instruction may not apply to every equipment previously created/supplied. We also want to preserve the documentation originally delivered.
I’m moving this product idea to In Discussion while we gather more feedback, as a change to this workflow would affect all customers using the Shared document library.
To help us assess the right approach:
Do revised instructions normally apply to every existing item of that product, or might they apply only to certain units?
Would you expect replacing a document in the library to update existing equipment automatically, or would a separate “Apply update to selected equipment” action meet your need?
Would you prefer keeping the previous version accessible and active, or would you like it to be inactive/removed completely?
Hi @michael.vu , yes I understand the concerns you raise.
Do revised instructions normally apply to every existing item of that product, or might they apply only to certain units?
I suppose there could be a scenario where a revised document may only apply to certain equipment, for example, all items produced after a certain date. In the specific case I was working on, the updated document was to be applied to all items.
Would you expect replacing a document in the library to update existing equipment automatically, or would a separate “Apply update to selected equipment” action meet your need?
My initial thought was to apply automatically, but I think an “Apply update to selected equipment” option could work .
Would you prefer keeping the previous version accessible and active, or would you like it to be inactive/removed completely?
I think I would prefer to make previous versions inactive, otherwise version control becomes an issue.
