Comments, Notes and Audit Trail
Comments and notes support collaboration around a document. The audit trail records system and user actions for traceability.
The audit trail is especially important for approval decisions, status changes, imports, exports, and compliance-related document history.
Comments and Notes
Comments help users communicate about a document without leaving the document context.
Good comments are short, specific, and action-oriented. They should explain what was checked, what is unclear, or what another user should do next.
Examples:
- "Please verify the supplier bank account."
- "Amount corrected according to attached credit note."
- "Waiting for department approval."
- "ERP export failed because tax code is missing."
When to Use Comments
Use comments for:
- clarification,
- correction requests,
- approval context,
- handover notes,
- support information,
- decisions that should remain visible to other users.
Do not use comments as a replacement for structured metadata. If a value is needed for search, workflow, reporting, or export, it should be stored in a field.
Audit Trail
The audit trail records relevant actions on the document.
Typical audit entries include:
- document created,
- file imported,
- metadata changed,
- lifecycle state changed,
- workflow action executed,
- approval or rejection,
- export performed,
- warning or error detected,
- AI rule or automation applied.
Business Traceability
The audit trail helps answer:
- Who changed the document?
- When was the document approved?
- Which automation processed it?
- Was an export successful?
- Why did the document enter an error state?
- Which user performed an action during substitution?
Support Usage
For support cases, audit trail entries can be more useful than screenshots because they show the sequence of events.
When reporting a case, include:
- document ID,
- relevant audit entries,
- current status,
- expected next step,
- user who performed the last action.