Release documents
Every order and party record in APEX carries a document trail — release certificates, trace paper, packing slips, photos. This page maps the taxonomy, where you upload, what the review states mean, and how the signed paperwork reaches your customer.
APEX stores and tracks release certificates — it does not fill them out. Your authorized inspector issues the 8130-3 or EASA Form 1 exactly as today; APEX keeps the signed document with the job and serves it to the customer.
The document taxonomy
When you upload a file, you classify it with one of these types (APEX suggests one from the file name — “8130” in the name preselects 8130-3, “packing” preselects Packing Slip, and so on):
| Type label | What it is |
|---|---|
| 8130-3 | FAA authorized release certificate. |
| EASA Form 1 | The EASA release certificate. |
| C of C | Certificate of conformity. |
| ATA 106 | ATA Spec 106 part/material certification form. |
| Material Cert | Material / mill certification. |
| Trace | Trace and back-to-birth paperwork. |
| Test Report | Functional or acceptance test report. |
| Inspection | Inspection report. |
| Teardown | Teardown report. |
| Workscope | The agreed scope of work. |
| AD / SB | Airworthiness Directive or Service Bulletin paperwork — see AD & SB tracking. |
| Datasheet | Component data sheet. |
| Capability | Capability listing / documentation. |
| Contract | Contract or agreement. |
| Packing Slip | Delivery packing slip. |
| Invoice | An invoice PDF. |
| PO | A purchase order PDF — also written automatically when you email a PO to a vendor. |
| Photo | Photos, including mobile receiving-inspection captures. |
| Document | Anything else. |
Release certificates show a green badge, supporting trace paper (Trace, ATA 106, Material Cert, reports) a cyan one, and AD / SB documents an amber one — color signals the document’s role at a glance.
Where you upload
The Documents panel appears on the detail page of purchase orders, sales orders, repair orders, customers, and vendors. To add a file:
- Open the record and scroll to Documents.
- Click + Add document.
- Drag the file into the drop zone, or click Browse… — files up to 100 MB.
- Check the Document type APEX suggested; correct it if needed.
- Click Upload. The toast confirms “Document uploaded.”
Screen: The Documents panel on a purchase order detail — a header row with “Documents · 4” and the + Add document button, then a grid of tiles: image thumbnails for photos, PDF glyphs for certs, each with a colored type badge, the file name, size, and date. Clicking a tile opens a right-side drawer with an inline preview and a Download button.
Clicking any document opens the viewer drawer: an inline preview for images and PDFs, plus the type, size, upload date, and review status. Download always fetches a fresh copy.
The work order’s table is read-only
The work order detail shows a Certs & documents table (type, file, doc #, status,
uploaded), but it has no upload button — there is currently no console action to attach a
file directly to a work order. Documents appear there when they arrive with imported data or
through system automation, and the table shows the raw type and status codes (for example
CERT_8130_3, DRAFT). Attach delivery paperwork to the purchase, repair, or sales
order it belongs to. See Documents & shipping.
Review states
Every document carries a review state — shown in the document viewer drawer, and as a pill on the work order’s Certs & documents table:
| Status | Meaning | How it gets set today |
|---|---|---|
DRAFT | Just added; not yet reviewed. | Every upload and every import starts here. |
PENDING_REVIEW | Waiting on QA. | Nothing sets it in the product today — part of the planned review queue. |
APPROVED | Reviewed and accepted. | System-registered documents (e.g. the PO PDF recorded when you email a PO to a vendor). |
REJECTED | Reviewed and refused. | Nothing sets it in the product today — part of the planned review queue. |
SUPERSEDED | Replaced by a newer version. | Nothing sets it in the product today — part of the planned review queue. |
There is no console button to move a document between review states yet — a document you upload stays Draft. Treat the pills as read-only signals for now, and run your QA document check as a procedure: certificates present, correct, and legible before release. The review queue is part of the planned Compliance module.
Review status also never blocks a work order’s stage buttons — that warning, and the QA-stage routine, live in Documents & shipping.
Certificate records and trace
Beyond the files themselves, a work order carries certificate records — one per release document, with the data an auditor asks for:
- The certificate type (8130-3, EASA Form 1, …) and direction — inbound (received with the unit) or outbound (issued on release).
- The reference number of the form.
- A back-to-birth flag and the trace source — who the trace runs through.
The scanned form is filed against the certificate record, and that is what feeds the customer’s downloads. Certificate records arrive with imported history and system automation; the operator console does not yet offer a screen to create or browse them directly.
What the customer downloads
On the customer portal, the Documents area gives your customer self-service access to exactly three things:
- documents attached to their work orders,
- the certificate scans issued on those work orders — the 8130-3 tag files,
- and their invoices.
The list is filterable by document type and by work order. Nothing you attach to a vendor, another customer, or an unrelated order is ever visible to them.
Roles: Any staff member can upload and view documents on the records they can see — members with customer or vendor data scopes only reach documents on their allowed records. Portal users see only their own.