The Life Cycle of a Document
When a document is first created, its master, revision, and version are all created simultaneously. The revision starts off in a working state, represented with a blue icon, to denote that the revision is being developed and has not been finalized yet. Documents are often first created to reserve a number for work understood to be captured or delivered under a document number. At this point, the document is generally created under revision A, having a revision status of Placeholder. As a file is added to the document, the same revision can be updated to the status Draft. The draft document may be issued for review. As the document is issued by Document Control, the revision is frozen so that anyone reviewing or approving the revision understands that the revision has not been altered since issuance. At this point, the state of the document is Current, and is represented with a green icon. After the document has been issued, subsequent revision of the document can be created at any time. The system does not allow for multiple working (blue) revisions of a document within the project; the revision must be issued before a subsequent revision of the document can be created. The subsequent revision then starts the cycle again as the revision evolves.
Once the subsequent revision is issued, the previously issued revision is Superseded, which is represented with a yellow icon.