Know what is missing before somebody asks

The question a folder cannot answer

Every organisation has folders, and none of them can say whether a file is complete. Ask the folder holding a supplier record whether the insurance certificate in it is still valid, and it has nothing to offer but a modification date.

DOK Genius answers it. A process declares the documents a case of that kind must hold. Opening a dossier turns that declaration into a real list, before anything is uploaded, each entry already knowing whether it is mandatory, how many files it takes and when it will need renewing.

What changes on the first day

• An empty case is a complete list of what is missing, not an empty folder.
• A document has a state — missing, uploaded, validated, needs correction, expired — separate from how far along the case is.
• A submission missing a mandatory document is refused where the work happens, not in a reminder email somebody has to write.
• Expiry is a property, so a certificate that lapses in March stops counting as valid in March.

And when you are ready for the assistant

Everything above is what makes an assistant worth having. A model reading a governed dossier is reading decisions a person already made: which document is current, which is approved, which is out of date. The same model reading a shared drive is guessing, confidently.

Governance first. The rest gets much easier.