Delete document versions

Background:

When documents are authored for items such as raw materials and formulations, they can be automatically updated based on changes to key information. A document update results in a new version of the document being authored. This can sometimes be unexpected and you may want to delete the latest version.

How to delete unwanted document versions:

If you have an unwanted document version for an item, you can delete the current version to remove it. You can continue to delete versions of the document as long as the document has not been supplied.

1. Use ‘View Documents for an Item’ to find the unwanted document version.
2. Highlight the required document for the focus item and click “Delete Current Version”:

The version will be deleted, if it has not already been supplied. You will see the version has been changed:

If the document has been supplied to a company (which means you logged the supply of the document for the company), you will get the following error, and cannot delete.

Reset Document

Please notice, there is also ‘Reset Document’. This allows you to remove all versions and history, so please use it with extreme care. An example of appropriate use is if you have a new document for testing and you want to remove version information which relates to the testing phase from your system before going live with it.

NOTE: If you do not remove the cause of the unwanted document version, it is likely to be re-authored when the item is next triggered to be assessed.

How to avoid unwanted document versions:

Documents are automatically authored based on a few conditions, including versioning properties, which can be set individually for each document type.

Unwanted document versions usually relate to versioning properties behaving in an unexpected way. You can see the versioning properties in ‘View a Document Type’.

Review the supply conditions and versioning properties for your document to determine what triggered the unwanted version, so you can make a change to avoid this circumstance.

Please contact us if you would like a copy of our training presentation ‘Guide to the Document Version Process’ which gives in depth information about this area.