What does “living document” mean?
A “living document” is a computer file that a company constantly changes and improves. Living documents show how a business, contract, or project is going, unlike traditional papers made and signed all at once.
Here are some examples of live documents:
- Plans for businesses
- Signed contracts and deals
- Guides for policies and procedures
- Handbooks for employees
- Plan and report for projects
- Guides for selling
Documentation for technology
No matter if someone changes a living text or not, the point is that they could easily do so if they needed to. This is why we define a living document as being able to connect with and act on its own. You can start new tasks, work together in the cloud alone, and connect your papers to larger automation frameworks with document automation software.
Take PDFs as an example of a live document that doesn’t work this way. You can change things in a PDF file using Adobe or a Figma plugin, but the files’ contents don’t change. They’re just saved and can’t be changed easily, like a live, interactive document.
For example, you must make a new copy if you want to change something in a PDF contract. PDFs’ troublesome and generally lousy user experience can be avoided with a living document that lets approved users change its content as needed or according to their company’s procedures.
Like words
- Transient writing
- Always-useful document
How Business People Use Living Documents
Businesses often use living papers to keep important information up-to-date and easy to find.
For example, project plans are constantly being changed to represent the current state of the project, upcoming milestones, and new due dates. The original text is constantly updated so everyone working on the project can access the most up-to-date information. So, their expectations, project choices, and communication will all be based on the correct information.
Living documents are also used by companies in the following ways:
How to Make Sales
Sales teams use sales playbooks to help them determine how to sell a product or service. This live document explains the company’s sales methods, strategies, and objectives so that everyone on the team works together consistently and efficiently. When sales teams have a living document, they can easily change or add to playbooks as new information comes in or to fit different goods or markets.
Handbooks for employees
To stay useful, employee handbooks must be updated often, especially in industries that change quickly. Businesses don’t print or hand out static manuals again; instead, they use digital versions that subject matter experts and approved admins can change immediately. This method ensures that workers learn and do their jobs using the most up-to-date standards and methods.
What are Wikis?
Wikis are a way for everyone in a company to share their knowledge. They change over time as employees add new information, update procedures, and change rules. These are like the company’s brains, giving workers and leaders access to the most up-to-date information and methods.
Rules for the company
Policies in a business can be changed at any time. Companies change their policy documents as rules change and business plans change. This ensures that all employees follow the most recent rules and that the business follows all laws and industry standards.
Contracts and other legal papers
You might not call contracts “living” because they are legally binding and hard to change after signing. But these days, businesses use software that lets everyone work together digitally on versioning and changes, and both sides can agree to this. Since there’s no promise they won’t change, and it’s possible for them to, we call them “living.”
How to Make Living Documents Work
A document management system can make living papers work perfectly by following these steps:
- 1. Document generation: Authorized users create the document using the management system’s interface, giving it a title and adding some text.
- 2. Permissions and access control—The person who made the paper sets the permissions for others to see. They choose who can see the paper, change it, or eliminate it.
- 3. Cooperation and editing: Other users can view the document and add their information, making changes and updates in real time for as long as possible.
- Version control: The system saves a new text version every time it is changed. This lets people see how things have changed and return to older versions if needed.
- 5. Go through review and approval—updates need to be approved sometimes. When this happens, the system tells the right person to review the changes.
- Publishing and distribution: Once the changes are accepted, the document is published in the system so that the people who need to see it can get the updated version.
- 7. Archiving and retention—Over time, stakeholders store old document versions for historical purposes, but the most current version stays in use.
Updates are always made to keep the text up-to-date and valuable so the cycle continues. The main idea behind a living document is that it changes and grows as circumstances or facts change.
You can do this without document-generation tools, but it’s much more complicated. And if a problem with compliance or rules comes up, not having a live document system can make things very hard during an audit.
What Living Documents Are Like
Moving and changing
The fact that living papers change over time may be the most important thing that sets them apart. In this case, “dynamic” means that the paper can be changed over time.
On the other hand, living documents are never really “final” because they are meant to change and adapt over time based on the input and updates of authorized participants.
- Working together to edit
- Authorized users can do the following in document generation tools:
- Begin the process of making the first paper.
- erect a structure
- Add subsections and parts
- Add your thoughts
- ask for changes
directly change the text of the document
…right now.
With cloud-based teamwork, teams that are spread out can work together even when not in the same room. Not only does this give companies new ways to work with people from around the world and use a wide range of skills, but it also helps inside sales teams stay in touch with prospects and coworkers.
Change Control
One of the most challenging parts of contract versioning is figuring out which version is current and who has made changes. The system keeps track of the past of each draft with living documents, which makes it easy to see what changed and when. Version control does more than help with tracking; it also ensures everyone uses the most recent data.
Ability to access
‘Accessibility’ can mean two different things when talking about live documents:
The centralized cloud-based method lets you get to it from anywhere.
Permissions are based on rules that decide who can see, change, or delete a document.
Admins usually decide who has what rights. They monitor document access and ensure that only allowed team members are working on the draft.
Review Often
Living papers are constantly changing and growing, and regular reviews help keep that in mind. As part of the review process, the material is regularly checked to ensure it is still relevant, correct, and in line with any new laws or industry standards. Reviewing things regularly lets you add new information, change processes, and change rules.
In the system, you can set them to run regularly or when certain things happen, like when rules change or big business news happens. By giving these reviews to a specific person or group, organizations ensure their living papers provide helpful, up-to-date, and correct information.
The structure that can bend
Document forms are essential for making documents. They offer a standard layout that can be easily changed to fit different types of content. This makes sure that all of your company’s papers are the same. If you use a standard, plug-and-play method, you won’t have to start from scratch whenever you need to make a new SOW, sales plan, or NDA.
But customizability is more than just making changes to structure and templates. Brand-specific designs, such as company fonts, color schemes, and logos, can be added to live documents. This feature strengthens company identity and gives everyone who works with the document a consistent visual experience.
Referencing each other
Cross-referencing lets people connect different parts of a document or section to move quickly from one piece of information to the next.
An article about different marketing strategies might link to a longer article about social media marketing hidden somewhere else in the same document. Readers can quickly find the part they need by clicking the cross-reference link instead of looking through the document.
Cross-referencing between sections, papers, versions, and other materials makes things much easier to read, keeps users interested, and improves the overall navigation experience. Cross-referencing can be a quick and easy way for document creators to organize and manage large amounts of information, giving the material a more structured and unified framework.
Mechanism for Feedback
Most document management systems have a way for users to give feedback. This can be done by directly commenting, marking parts to be looked over again, or suggesting changes.
This amount of interactive feedback encourages a culture of working together, where team members can use the intelligence of everyone involved to keep making the document better. It also allows for debugging in real time and quick resolution of any problems or issues that may arise.
The feedback system encourages everyone to take responsibility for how the document changes over time and ensures it works well.
Digital File Type
The main form of living papers is digital, and they usually come with an easy-to-use, interactive builder. PDF and Word files are rigid and limited in what they can do. On the other hand, living documents have many editing tools and materials that change over time.
Users can quickly move sections around, add multimedia, and change the general layout of the paper by dragging and dropping. This makes the experience more engaging and interactive. Adding hyperlinks, movies, and other types of interactive content is also more accessible when the file is uploaded digitally.
Governance of Documents
Data governance is a live document with steps and a plan for handling essential data. Cloud-based systems allow administrators to set up security measures to keep private data safe, such as rule-based access permissions, two-factor authentication, and audit trails.
In addition, living document governance includes rules about data safety and the need to follow contracts. Security features like watermarks and encryption make it much less likely that someone will view or change the data without permission.
8 Good Things About Living Documents
1. Updates in real-time
The digital format and interactive builder of living documents make creating and changing documents easy by giving users a flexible and user-friendly platform. This makes collaboration and real-time updates possible, which helps the content continue to grow and get better.
2. Correct and Up-to-Date Information
Businesses can keep their essential papers up-to-date, correct, and valuable with the help of living documents. This trait is beneficial in the business world, where things change quickly, and new information always emerges.
Look at a company’s policy manual. It must be updated whenever your business adapts to new rules, laws, industry standards, or internal changes. If you used a paper document, you’d have to tell your workers about these changes and ensure they were all using the most up-to-date version. These issues can be fixed with live changes and contract versioning in a living document.
3. Better working together
Cross-referencing, feedback, and digital formats make working together easier in the same area.
For example, a group working together on a project proposal can add to it, comment, and cite linked works simultaneously. This ensures everyone’s ideas are included, problems are dealt with quickly,, ad the end document is complete and makes sense.
The feedback system ensures both parties can send comments, ideas, and approval notices in real-time during contract redlining after the proposal is accepted. This speeds up negotiating contracts and gives everyone involved a single place to talk to each other.
4. clear Documentation
Living documents encourage openness within a company because many people can see them. Everyone can see how the document has changed and who made what changes. This ensures that everyone is responsible and records how the document has changed over time.
5. Control of versions and an audit trail
Version control is an integral part of living texts. It lets users go back to earlier versions, see what changes were made by different people, and see a history of all the changes. This helps maintain the document’s integrity and meets regulatory standards.
This is very important when changing a deal under ASC 606. Audit trails, version control, and keeping track of changes to contracts make proper income recognition possible.
6. Savings on costs
Living documents save you a lot of money compared to old ways of managing documents requiring you to print, distribute, and keep hard copies. The digital version eliminates the cost of printing, and cloud-based storage cuts down on the costs of managing documents.
7. Dealing with Risk
Because living papers are constantly changing, there is less chance of using old or wrong information. Extra layers of security, like data encryption, 2FA/MFA, and rules-based access, keep private data safe.
8. Alignment of Strategies
Your deal desk, contract administration, sales, and legal teams can use living papers to ensure their work aligns with the company’s long-term goals. Living documents help your company’s general success and departmental alignment by reducing confusion and making the sales, contracting, and legal processes more efficient.
Software for living documents
As the story says, companies today must use software to make and keep track of living documents. Still, not every piece of software is the same.
Some standard living text tools are:
CLM stands for “contract lifecycle management.” It is a platform that helps businesses automate their contract management tasks, store papers, and handle contract renewals.
Configure, price, quote (CPQ) is software that makes the whole sales process more manageable by letting you quote and make proposals. Advanced CPQ tools, like DealHub, let you create documents on the fly and keep track of different versions.
Document automation software lets you quickly make quotes, proposals, NDAs, RFPs, SOWs, BOMs, and other types of papers by getting information from CRM, CPQ, and ERP.
“Collaboration tools” are apps like Slack and Microsoft Teams that let people work together on business documents and share them. They work with your living document tools to make working together as a team even better.
