What is the Document Control Life Cycle?

A company handles its documents during their lifespans with document control. It signifies that it is a dependable, consistent, and
orderly method of arranging documents, data, and information. As a result, you will have a set of protocols for document control as
well as a person or people who will be in charge of it. Whether or not you use an electronic system for operations like numbering,
versioning, and archiving will determine the specifics of these activities.
The Six Phases Of Document Life Cycle

The life cycle of a document or the data that is processed for action is divided into six phases. There are document items and
corresponding document statuses in each phase that are defined differently throughout the document lifecycle. They depend on the
document workflow for each document, the type of document being processed, and the company's document task requirements.
Additionally, each processing step introduces specific needs for data management, as well as the underlying rights and role
management. As a result, the following steps are part of the digital document lifecycle:

1. Creation 4. Usage
2. Review 5. Archival
3. Approval and Document Sharing 6. Disposal
1. Creation:

The lifecycle's initial stage is document generation. There are numerous ways and sources from which documents might be produced
or generated. The document is produced or delivered to the business (by mail, fax, scan, or by e-mail). It can either be generated
automatically from many sources and data or manually created by a user on paper, a monitor, or a mobile device. This is made
feasible by continually improved software for electronic document and data management, automated text recognition, and data
capturing. Depending on the type of document, extra programmes like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or Excel may be required when
creating a document on a PC. The document can then be prepared for further processing and kept in a central location.
2. Review:
While there may be multiple users working together in the second phase, the first step frequently just involves one user. It is now
necessary to make the information included in the paper accessible to others, as well as to organise, disseminate, record, and
meaningfully index data. A Proper review of the document will ensure that multiple individuals, possibly from various departments, can
make modifications to the document concurrently or sequentially. The collaborative process is made secure and transparent in this
step thanks to the use of revision security, versioning, synchronisation, and change management/release.
3. Approval and Document Sharing:
The sharing, collaboration, and of documents by an individual or a group of users accessing real-time and non-real-time methods
need proper approval before they are done.
Through the system, documents can be shared for straightforward collaboration using expiring links or for more complicated methods
like collaboration tools, or document annotation technology.

These documents may be shared with internal stakeholders (within the company) or external stakeholders (such as subcontractors,
clients, etc. You might have come across certain documents that need to be reviewed by your supervisor or someone with more
expertise in the field. As a result, many companies now include an approvals process before making the documents available to
further stakeholders in the document lifecycle

4. Usage:

The access and usage of a document and its contents are determined in the fourth phase. Read-write and release rights can be
stored, access can be specified as permanent or temporary, and content can be easily or repeatedly accessed. During this stage, the
document may also change. A document gets degraded to phase three when it is updated again, and the fourth phase is only initiated
with the final version, according to the document lifecycle's architecture. This guarantees that all modifications are accurately recorded
and saved in a way that can be traced (change, change time, processor). This stage of the document lifecycle for paper-based
documents is particularly challenging since it makes traceability and unambiguity more challenging. It is not always obvious which
version is the most recent or the one that has been made public, whether all editors have finished, or whether all comments are final.
Digital systems help the business and guard against manipulation and later alterations, particularly in the case of legal papers.

5. Archival:

When all parties involved in the processing have finished their tasks and the document has been distributed appropriately, its
usefulness in the present reduces. As a result, the document lifecycle's processing phase of a document frequently ends with easy or
audit-proof long-term archiving. By doing this, you can be sure that the document will be preserved by the rules that apply to its type of
document and that it won't be altered again. Paperbound archives safeguard against further document modification, but they are
challenging to search for certain files and to destroy or renew them on time. The difficulty of maintaining an overview increases.
6. Disposal :

Formally documented deletion is frequently paired with audit-compliant storage. Delays, however, can happen at this stage,
particularly in businesses that work with paper-based archives. Even though they may have already been discarded or lost,
documents are nonetheless kept even though they may still be required. Therefore, the legally compliant destruction or deletion of the
document during the final stage of the document lifecycle determines when a document is no longer useful to the company. This
responsibility is automatically taken on by digital archives, which also permanently erase the document and all associated data. Even
if today's digital data repositories seem to go on forever, Big Data and unique marketing profiles generate enormous volumes of data
that need to be managed and maintained.