From d3cf85b9e970cad298691b23e4dd41cb72d742b8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: jonaswinkler Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2020 17:34:29 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] Added a section on best practices. --- docs/usage_overview.rst | 57 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 57 insertions(+) diff --git a/docs/usage_overview.rst b/docs/usage_overview.rst index db50d5706..980564cba 100644 --- a/docs/usage_overview.rst +++ b/docs/usage_overview.rst @@ -183,6 +183,63 @@ You can also submit a document using the REST API, see :ref:`api-file_uploads` f .. _basic-searching: + +Best practices +############## + +Paperless offers a couple tools that help you organize your document collection. However, +it is up to you to use them in a way that helps you organize documents and find specific +documents when you need them. This section offers a couple ideas for managing your collection. + +Document types allow you to classify documents according to what they are. You can define +types such as "Receipt", "Invoice", or "Contract". If you used to collect all your receipts +in a single binder, you can recreate that system in paperless by defining a document type, +assigning documents to that type and then filtering by that type to only see all receipts. + +Not all documents need document types. Sometimes its hard to determine what the type of a +document is or it is hard to justify creating a document type that you only need once or twice. +This is okay. As long as the types you define help you organize your collection in the way +you want, paperless is doing its job. + +Tags can be used in many different ways. Think of tags are more versatile folders or binders. +If you have a binder for documents related to university / your car or health care, you can +create these binders in paperless by creating tags and assigning them to relevant documents. +Just as with documents, you can filter the document list by tags and only see documents of +a certain topic. + +With physical documents, you'll often need to decide which folder the document belongs to. +The advantage of tags over folders and binders is that a single document can have multiple +tags. A physical document cannot magically appear in two different folders, but with tags, +this is entirely possible. + +.. hint:: + + This can be used in many different ways. One example: Imagine you're working on a particular + tasks, such as signing up for university. Usually you'll need to collect a bunch of different + documents that are already sorted into various folders. With the tag system of paperless, + you can create a new group of documents that are relevant to this task without destroying + the already existing organization. When you're done with the task, you could delete the + task again, which would be equal to sorting documents back into the folder they belong into. + Or keep the tag. + +All of the logic above applies to correspondents as well. Attach them to documents if you +feel that they help you organize your collection. + +When you've started organizing your documents, create a couple saved views for document collections +you regularly access. This is equal to having labeled physical binders on your desk, except +that these saved views are dynamic and simply update themselves as you add documents to the system. + +Here are a couple examples of tags and types that you could use in your collection. + +* An ``inbox`` tag for newly added documents that you haven't manually edited yet. +* A tag ``car`` for everything car related (repairs, registration, insurance, etc) +* A tag ``todo`` for documents that you still need to do something with, such as reply, or + perform some task online. +* A tag ``bank account x`` for all bank statement related to that account. +* A tag ``mail`` for anything that you added to paperless via its mail processing capabilities. +* A tag ``missing_metadata`` when you still need to add some metadata to a document, but can't + or don't want to do this right now. + Searching #########