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Why is document version control important?

Part of: Ensuring document integrity and versioning

• Laurence Hart,
• Geoffrey Bock, Bock & Company

Published: 01 May 2025

People should no longer have to append their initials to a document's file name or use other naming conventions to track document versions and collaborate. Unfortunately, this method still happens.

While document versioning has progressed significantly over the past few decades, many organizations still lack the necessary management skills to improve this strategy. Although these changes have helped streamline work, they have allowed organizations to fall into bad version control habits. Organizations must embrace proper version control to optimize their content management system's (CMS) potential and provide authoritative document collections for training enterprise-scale large language models (LLMs).

Document version control is a planned strategy for managing file updates within a document repository. When all enterprise content management (ECM) systems ran on-premises and file storage was a cost consideration, versioning was a conscious choice. Content teams had to balance revision tracking with storage limitations, costs and business requirements, and everyone knew what versions were retained and discarded.

Keeping the last 50 copies of a document is versioning, but it is far from a version control strategy.

In the modern cloud-based ECM world, organizations worry less about storage. Versioning is automatic and often hidden from view. While most cloud content management providers offer some default degree of versioning, they may lack structure, so it's not truly version control. Keeping the last 50 copies of a document is versioning, but it is far from a version control strategy.

However, content teams should not introduce complexity. Version control works best when people know they have it and can use it without slowing down. Versioning strategies must fit seamlessly within an organization and meet regulatory and compliance requirements.

Document version control uses an OS' file management capabilities and ability to read data from and write data to a storage device. A document is stored as a file within the OS file system. It has a file name and essential attributes, such as the date and time created, size and access control privileges.

A file system supports four fundamental operations, commonly called CRUD: creating, reading, updating and deleting a file. Saving changes to a file generates a new version within the file system.

An ECM system uses CRUD operations to manage document versioning. It organizes the stored files within a content repository and provides predefined fields, including title and author, linked to the file names. The ECM system maintains a list of file versions to generate a history of successive updates. It uses this history to support versioning operations, such as restoring prior versions, tracking versions and viewing version history. The history also provides an audit trail of revisions.

Organizations need versioning to track updates to documents. And, with proper control, employees can undo common mistakes. Proper version control offers the following benefits:

• Collaborate. Proper version control strategies can track multiple people's contributions. When collaborating and editing, employees can search, find and edit something another person changed.
• Denote official and draft content. When dealing with policies and guidelines, employees can find official versions from prior years and drafts from revision processes. The latest version may not be the most recently approved, and proper version control can help employees distinguish between drafts and approved content.
• See past standards. Employees should know which document version was current when an action occurred. If an action from a year ago goes against current policy, employees can also refer to an older version to determine if it went against policy. Content teams must track and maintain approved versions for these scenarios and any associated regulatory compliance.

Despite version control's benefits, it still poses challenges for the everyday content creator. Key challenges include the following:

• Storage. Even in cloud environments, storage has limits and costs. Rules for how long employees should keep old versions can help mitigate these costs.
• Management. The more versions an organization stores, the more effort it requires to manage each document iteration. Some organizations may automate document versioning, but this is more easily achieved when version control is planned from the start. Planning sets employee expectations for document workflow and ensures compliance with an organization's content lifecycle policies.
• Complexity. Too little or too much control can create challenges. Employees need simple versioning to understand and use it well. No matter the approach, improper communication creates confusion.

To properly manage version control, content teams must fully understand the organization's needs. To determine the best version control implementation strategy, content teams should ask the following questions:

• Does the document get published as multiple versions over time or only once?
• How long should employees keep document drafts?
• How can content teams communicate how versioning helps overall productivity?
• What versions should an organization use to train its LLM for an enterprise AI initiative?

When planning to manage versions, content teams shouldn't treat all content the same and must distinguish between draft and published versions. Many individuals handle distinct sets of content daily, but every group handles different types of content. Version control strategies should take these differences into account.

Content teams should also understand their current situation. If an organization uses a cloud-based CMS, versioning is likely already happening. Typically, that means every save generates a new version. If the CMS automatically saves documents, organizations have many versions saved. Additionally, the CMS may drop some important versions because people save their changes frequently.

No organization needs 50 versions of a document -- at least not weeks after employees create them. For each type of content, content teams should examine how the organization manages documents and what steps people take to meet their versioning needs. Documenting those needs helps content teams craft effective version control strategies.

Editor's note: This article was originally written by Laurence Hart and expanded upon by Geoffrey Bock.

Laurence Hart is director of consulting services at CGI Federal and has more than 20 years of IT experience.

Geoffrey Bock is principal of Bock & Company and advises organizations on content technologies for business in the digital age.

Part of: Ensuring document integrity and versioning

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