Documents

Documents is SolaHR's file cabinet for HR paperwork: passports, residence visas, Emirates ID copies, labour cards, certificates, offer letters and company files. Each file can be linked to one employee, filed under a category and given an expiry date so you can see at a glance what is about to lapse.

Use it when you need to:

keep a copy of an employee's identity or immigration document and know when it expires,
give an employee a copy of a file they can download themselves (from the employee portal),
keep company-level files (trade licence, insurance certificate) next to your HR records.

HR staff (owners, SolaHR Administrators and HR managers) upload and manage files here. Other SolaHR users with read access can see the list but cannot open the files.

Employment contract periods and renewals are kept on the separate People → Contracts screen, not here. Company policies that employees must acknowledge are published on Policies; they are stored as documents too, so they also appear in this list.

Where to find it


Sidebar	Documents & Communication → Documents
URL	`/documents`
From an employee	The Documents shortcut on an employee's page (see Employees). It opens this screen; set the Employee filter yourself, because the list opens unfiltered.
Employees themselves	Employee portal → Documents (only files linked to them)

You see the menu item only if:

your organization's plan includes Documents, and
your role includes View warnings, documents, contracts (hr.records.view).

If the plan doesn't include it, the page shows Not included in your plan. If your role doesn't allow it, you see Access denied.

The screen

Header

Position	Element	Who sees it
Top-left	Title Documents, subtitle "Manage employee and company documents"	Everyone with access
Top-right	Categories (secondary button)	Users who can manage records
Top-right	Upload Document (primary, with +)	Users who can manage records

Summary tiles

Tile	What it counts
Total documents	Every document in the organization, including policies published from Policies.
Expiring soon (amber)	Documents whose Expiry Date falls between now and 30 days from now.
Expired (red)	Documents whose Expiry Date is already in the past.

The tiles always count the whole organization. They do not change when you search or filter.

Search and filters

Control	What it does
Search	Matches text in the document Title or Description.
Category	Shows only documents in one category. Lists active categories only.
Employee	A searchable picker ("All employees" by default) that also finds former employees.

Changing any filter takes you back to page 1.

The list

Documents are listed newest upload first, 15 per page, with a pager under the table (page numbers and "from–to of total").

Column	Meaning
File	The document Title in bold, with the original file name underneath (for example `passport-omar.pdf`).
Category	The category name, or — if none.
Employee	The linked employee, or — for a company document.
Size	File size (bytes, KB, MB or GB).
Expiry Date	The expiry date, or —. An Expired badge appears next to it once the date has passed.
Visibility	Company-wide if you ticked the company-wide box when uploading, otherwise Assigned employee.
(actions)	Download and Delete. Shown only to users who can manage records.

With nothing to show, you see No documents found.

There is no detail page, edit form, bulk selection or export on this screen.

Upload a document

Go to Documents & Communication → Documents and click Upload Document (top-right).

Fill in the Upload Document dialog:

Field	Required	Rules / defaults	Notes
Title	Yes	Up to 255 characters.	Make it searchable, for example `Passport – Omar Haddad`.
File	Yes	PDF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, DOC, DOCX, XLS or XLSX. Maximum 10 MB.	The original file name is kept and shown under the title.
Category	No	Active categories of your organization. Default — (none).	Add categories first with Categories.
Employee	No	Active employees only. Default — (company document).	Linking is what lets the employee download it from the employee portal.
Expiry Date	No	Any date.	Drives Expiring soon, Expired and the document-expiry automation.
Description	No	Free text.	Also searched by the search box.
Company-wide (tick box)	No	Unticked by default.	Sets Visibility. See What Visibility does.

Click Upload at the bottom of the dialog.

Result: you see Updated successfully, the dialog closes and the document appears at the top of the list. Total documents goes up by one, and Expiring soon or Expired too if the expiry date qualifies.

If something is wrong (no title, no file, a file type that isn't allowed, a file over 10 MB), the dialog stays open and a list of problems appears at its top. Fix them and click Upload again.

Files are stored privately. They are never served by a public link.

The dialog keeps what you typed last time, including the chosen file. When you open it again for the next document, replace every field and pick the new file before clicking Upload.

Download a document

Click Download on the row. The file downloads with its original name.

Only users who can manage records see the button and can download.
If the stored file is missing, the download is refused.

The linked employee downloads their own documents from the employee portal (see What employees see).

Delete a document

Click Delete on the row.
Confirm the dialog Delete this record? — "Delete this document and its stored file?" — by clicking Delete (or Cancel to keep it).

Result: Updated successfully. The record and the stored file are removed permanently. There is no recycle bin.

If the document is a company policy, deleting it here also removes the policy from Policies and deletes all of its employee acknowledgements. This is the only way to remove a published policy.

Manage categories

Categories group your files and power the Category filter.

Click Categories (top-right). The Document Categories dialog opens.
Type a Category name (required) and, optionally, a Code (up to 50 characters, must be unique).
Click Add. You see Updated successfully and the category joins the table below.

The table lists each category with its name, code, the number of documents in it and an Active badge. New categories are always active.

From this dialog you can only add categories. Renaming, deactivating and deleting categories are not available on this screen.

Good starting categories for a UAE business:

Category name	Code
Passport	`PASSPORT`
Residence visa	`VISA`
Emirates ID	`EID`
Labour card / work permit	`LABOUR`
Educational certificates	`CERT`
Company licences	`LICENCE`

The category Company Policies (code POLICIES) is created automatically the first time anyone opens Policies. Don't reuse that code for another category.

What Visibility does

Company-wide is a label for ordinary documents: it does not by itself show the file to every employee.

Document	Who can open the file
Linked to an employee	Users who can manage records, and that employee from the employee portal.
Not linked to anyone (company document)	Users who can manage records only.
In the Company Policies category, not linked, Company-wide ticked	Treated as a published policy: every employee sees it under Company Policies in My Portal and under Policies in the employee portal, and can acknowledge it from My Portal.
In Company Policies, not linked, Company-wide unticked	Listed on the Policies screen for HR, but hidden from employees.

To share a file with all staff, publish it from Policies (which sets everything correctly) or post an announcement.

What employees see

Employee portal → Documents lists only documents linked to that employee, with a Download link on each.
Company documents and other employees' files never appear there.
My Portal (/my-profile) has no Documents section; it has My Warnings and Company Policies.

Statuses

Documents have no workflow. Their only states come from the expiry date:

State	When	Where you see it
No expiry	Expiry Date empty	Never counted as expiring or expired.
Valid	Expiry more than 30 days away	Normal row.
Expiring soon	Expiry within the next 30 days	Counted in Expiring soon. The row itself has no badge.
Expired	Expiry date passed	Counted in Expired; row shows the Expired badge.

Permissions

Role	See the list and tiles	Upload, download, delete, add categories
Owner	Yes	Yes
SolaHR Administrator	Yes	Yes
Members on an older full HR manager role	Yes	Yes
Members on an older general/staff role (View warnings, documents, contracts only)	Yes, every document in the organization	No (no Download, Delete, Upload Document or Categories)
Scoped roles: HR Manager, Department Manager, Attendance Recorder, HR Viewer	No. These roles don't include the records permissions.	No
Employee (employee portal)	Own linked documents only	Download own documents only

The permissions are View warnings, documents, contracts (hr.records.view) and Manage warnings, documents, contracts (hr.records.manage). They also cover Warnings, Policies, Announcements and Contracts.

Worked examples

Quick: file Sara's Emirates ID

Al Noor Trading LLC has just received Sara Khan's renewed Emirates ID.

Documents & Communication → Documents → Upload Document.
Title Emirates ID – Sara Khan, File eid-sara-khan.pdf (420 KB), Category Emirates ID, Employee Sara Khan, Expiry Date 14 March 2029. Leave Company-wide unticked.
Upload → Updated successfully.

The list now starts with Emirates ID – Sara Khan · eid-sara-khan.pdf · Emirates ID · Sara Khan · 420.00 KB · 14 Mar 2029 · Assigned employee. Sara sees it under Documents in her employee portal and can download it.

Fuller: set up an expiry watch for the warehouse team

On 5 October 2026 HR at Al Noor Trading LLC wants every visa for the Dubai Main warehouse team on file, with a monthly view of what is due.

Categories → add Residence visa (VISA), Passport (PASSPORT) and Labour card (LABOUR).

Upload the documents:

Title	Employee	Category	Expiry Date
Residence visa – Omar Haddad	Omar Haddad	Residence visa	1 Nov 2026
Passport – Omar Haddad	Omar Haddad	Passport	20 Jun 2031
Residence visa – Sara Khan	Sara Khan	Residence visa	28 Sep 2026
Labour card – Sara Khan	Sara Khan	Labour card	28 Sep 2026
Trade licence 2026	—	Company licences	31 Dec 2026

The tiles now read Total documents 5, Expiring soon 1 (Omar's visa, 27 days away), Expired 2 (Sara's visa and labour card; both rows show the Expired badge).
HR filters Category = Residence visa to see the two visas side by side, then Employee = Sara Khan to check her whole file.
On Automations, HR adds an automation with trigger Document expiry daily check, action Notify document expiry and Days 30. Each run reports under Recent Runs how many documents are expired or expire within 30 days (here: 3).
When Sara's renewed visa arrives, HR uploads it with the new expiry date (28 Sep 2028) and deletes the expired copy (Delete → Delete). Expired drops to 1.

How it connects

Screen / app	Connection
Employees	The employee page has a Documents shortcut to this screen. Only active employees can be picked when uploading.
Policies	Policies are documents in the Company Policies category. They show here, count in Total documents, and can only be deleted here.
Automations	Document expiry daily check / Notify document expiry count documents that are expired or expire within the configured number of days.
Employee portal	Linked documents appear under Documents for the employee.
Audit log	Uploads, downloads and deletions are recorded as requests in the Audit Log.
People → Contracts	Contract copies uploaded on the employee record are downloaded from Contracts, not from this list.

Tips and common problems

Problem	Cause	Fix
Upload Document and Categories are missing.	Your role can view but not manage records.	Ask an owner or SolaHR Administrator.
No Download button on the rows.	Same as above. Downloads need the manage permission.	Ask HR to send you the file.
The upload is refused.	Wrong file type or file over 10 MB.	Convert to PDF/JPG/PNG/DOC(X)/XLS(X) and compress below 10 MB.
The dialog uploads the wrong file.	The dialog remembers the previous file and values.	Re-pick the file and re-type every field each time.
An employee can't find a document in their portal.	It isn't linked to them. Company-wide alone doesn't publish it.	Upload it again linked to the employee, or publish it as a policy.
Clicking Documents on an employee page shows everyone's files.	The shortcut doesn't apply the filter.	Pick the employee in the Employee filter.
"The code has already been taken" when adding a category.	Codes must be unique; `POLICIES` is used by Policies.	Choose a different code or leave it blank.
A category is wrong or no longer needed.	Categories can't be edited or deleted here.	Stop using it; contact Solavel support if it must go.
A policy disappeared from Policies.	Its document was deleted here.	Publish it again from Policies; acknowledgements must be collected again.
Status not confirmed after Upload or Delete.	The connection dropped before SolaHR answered.	Reload the list and check whether the document is there (or gone) before trying again.