The Binder: your company's documents in one place

The Binder is where your company keeps the documents people need at work: policies, guides, safety plans, handbooks, contact lists and training videos. It takes the place of the binder in the site office or the van, and it knows who has read what.

The Binder is a module, on unless you switch it off under Global settings (in the account menu) › Modules › Binder. Switched off, it disappears from the office and from the phone.

What goes in it

Everything in the Binder lives in a folder. Folders can hold subfolders, up to three levels deep, so the tree stays easy to read on a phone. A folder holds three kinds of item:

• Files: PDFs, Word and Excel documents, pictures and the like, up to 100 MB each. Pictures are resized for the screen on the way in; PDFs and office documents are stored exactly as they are. You can upload videos too: see Videos in the Binder.
• Pages: text written in Maliru, such as a Who to call list. New page has the text on the left and a Preview on the right, showing it as readers will see it.
• Links: a web address. A YouTube or Vimeo link plays inside the app; any other link opens in the browser.

Every item has a title, and can have a description, an Owner (Who keeps it up to date) and a Review date. Pinned shows it at the top of the Binder. Must read asks people to confirm they have read it: see Must-read documents.

Every change to an item's content is a new version. Earlier versions are kept, and the Versions tab lists them.

Who keeps it

Owners and anyone with the Binder permission keep the Binder: they add folders and items, publish new versions, choose who sees each folder and read the reports. Office admins have the permission to start with, and you can give it to others in Users. See Access profiles and permissions.

Everyone else sees only the folders shared with them, and cannot change anything. A new folder starts Office only, so nothing shows until you share it: see Sharing Binder folders.

In the office

Choose Binder in the navigation. The first time, it offers Start with a suggested layout or Start empty. The suggested layout has folders such as Start here, Company policies, Health & safety, HR & pay and Guides & how-tos, with a pinned Who to call page. Those folders come shared with everyone, so check each one before you put anything private in it.

The page has the folder tree on the left and the chosen folder's table on the right: Name, Version, Updated, Must read (for example 18 of 22), Review due and Owner. Above the table:

• All, Must read, Due for review (a review date within the next 30 days, or past) and Archived;
• Search the Binder, which looks in titles, descriptions, pages and the text of PDFs;
• New folder, New link, New page and Upload.

Click an item to open it beside the table, with the tabs Content, Versions, Languages, Reads, Pinned to and Details. The menu beside each folder in the tree holds Share with…, Rename, New subfolder, Move…, Share outside the company and Archive.

Archiving hides a folder or an item from everyone, and nobody is asked to read it any more. Nothing is deleted, and Restore brings it back. An item nobody has opened yet, apart from whoever published it, can be deleted from its Details tab. Once somebody else has opened it, or been reminded to read it, it is the record of who read what, so it can only be archived. An item a Share Pack still carries can only be archived too.

People in the office without the Binder permission still see Binder in the navigation, with whatever is shared with them.

On the phone

Field staff open the Binder from the top of the Work tab: the Binder row, Company documents, with a badge such as 2 to confirm when something is waiting. Inside are:

• Pinned items;
• To confirm: must-read items still waiting for them, each with Read & confirm;
• Inductions, if your workspace uses them;
• Folders and Recently updated.

The search box at the top finds documents by the words in them. A file opens in the phone's viewer with Open document, a page shows in place, and a link opens with Open link. Today also shows a row such as 1 document to read and confirm.

Folder names, titles and page text are shown exactly as you wrote them and are not translated. You can add your own language versions: see Language versions of Binder documents.

Sharing outside the company

Share outside the company, on a folder's menu or at the foot of an item's Details tab, makes a draft Share Pack holding the current version, for people without an account. It needs the Manage share packs permission as well. See Sharing forms and documents outside your workspace.