A Document Holder in Cognidox can be versioned, reviewed, approved, and licensed just like any other document. Once your Document Holder contains the correct documents, you’ll want to finalize it for internal use—or publish it externally via the Extranet.
Cognidox provides tools to make this process easy, including mass approval and licensing features.
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Important notes:
- If a document is unpublished, but referenced within a published Document Holder, it will be available to Extranet customers via that Document Holder (assuming they hold any necessary licenses).
- If a document is both published in its own right and is also referenced by a published Document Holder, it will be available by both routes. This leads to the possibility of different versions of the same document being available, since you can choose which version to reference in the Document Holder. You might want this behaviour; in any case, you can control it with licensing.
What's in this article?
Approval Requirements for Document Holders
To approve a Document Holder, all contained documents must be either:
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Approved issues
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Or referenced using the APPROVED alias (meaning always link to the latest approved version)
If any referenced document is still a draft or unapproved issue, Cognidox will prevent the Document Holder from being approved.
Approving a DH and Contained Documents
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You can approve documents individually, but for efficiency:
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Go to the Document Details page of the Document Holder.
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Choose Approval → Approve all the documents contained in this DH.
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The system will show you which documents are eligible and allow you to approve them all at once.
⚠️ This requires the Approve all documents in a Document Holder permission.
Once all documents are approved, you can promote the Document Holder to an issue and submit it for final approval.
Licensing Document Holders
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You can mass-license the Document Holder and all its contained documents:
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View the Document Holder in Web View/Standard View (not Compound View).
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Click Mass License.
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Choose the license to apply.
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Select whether to add it or replace existing licenses.
This is useful when preparing a Document Holder for customer access via the Extranet.
🔐 You need the Mass licensee documents with licenses user right.
See the associated articles in this section:
Publishing to the Extranet
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Before you can publish a Document Holder externally:
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It must be an approved issue.
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It must be licensed.
(There is little point in publishing a Document Holder that does not have any associated Licenses, since it will not be visible to any Extranet users.) -
Any contained documents must also be approved, and ideally licensed.
Documents referenced with the APPROVED alias can be updated independently. When a new issue is approved, the Document Holder automatically reflects the update—no re-issue needed. This makes the Document Holder a dynamic content bundle that updates as source documents evolve.
To publish a Document Holder:
- Display the Document Holder's Details page.
- Choose Extranet > Publish this document on the Extranet from the sidebar menu.
Using the APPROVED Alias for Dynamic Updates
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When you reference documents in a DH using issue="APPROVED":
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The holder will always display the latest approved version.
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This is perfect for live content bundles like technical files or partner kits.
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It reduces rework—you don’t need to reissue the DH unless structure changes.
✉️ If you want customers to be notified when a contained document is approved, ask your Cognidox admin to enable:
“Add DH documents to the customer notification spool on APPROVED document approval.”
Auto Notifications
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By default, updating a referenced document won’t notify affected users unless you reissue the Document Holder. But Cognidox has a workflow option that changes this.
- From the sidebar menu, choose Manage Cognidox → Workflow & System Settings.
- In the Approval Options section, enable Add Document Holders to notification spool on APPROVED doc update.
When enabled, updating an APPROVED document will automatically notify affected users — even if the Document Holder itself isn’t reissued.
Recap
Here's a brief recap on what we've covered in this article:
Further information
Other articles in this series:
- Introduction to Document Holders
- Creating and structuring a Document Holder
- Populating a Document Holder
- Document Holder Advanced Features: Templates, Cloning, and Reusing Sections
- Compound Document Holders Explained
- Downloading, Reviewing, and Tracking Document Holders
Online help pages: