The basics: adding documents, files, and more

For most standards, you'll need to include documents as part of your documentation/evidence of compliance. File management is one of the places where KnowledgeOwl can save you a lot of time and effort.

With CAPRA accreditation, you're often referencing the same files over and over again in different standards. For these frequently-referenced files, we recommend uploading them all directly to your File Library. (You can go to the top navigation under Library > Files to do so; see Adding files and images in bulk for more information.)

Then, when you're editing an individual standard, you can use "Insert Image", "Insert Video", or "Upload File" and click the folder icon to "Add from Library". This will create a link to that existing file in the library. See Adding images and files to articles for more information.

You can always add individual PDFs, images, documents, etc., within a standard using the "Insert Image", "Insert Video", and "Upload File" links in the top bar of the editor tools, and upload a new file that way rather than going to the File Library, too.

But we strongly encourage you to train yourself and any other people working on the accreditation to use the Add from Library option first, and to only add a new file when the one you need doesn't already exist in the File Library.

Why do we recommend adding files this way, rather than uploading them fresh to each standard?

Reason #1: Easier file management

When you've used the Add from Library option, each standard that is referencing, say, your 2021 budget document is referencing the exact same budget document in the File Library.

This means that if that document changes--maybe to the 2022 budget--you can go into the File Library, update the file stored there, and every standard that referenced that budget document using the Add from Library option will automatically be updated to have that 2022 budget document, instead. (It won't update the text of the hyperlink to the file, but it will update the underlying file.) We've seen CAPRA authors keep spreadsheets or notepads with lists of which standards referenced each document, so they could remember where to update the files, and we'd like you to avoid having to do that!

See Editing and updating files for more information on how to update an existing file.

Reason #2: Fewer files

When you upload a new file from scratch, it creates that file as a new file in the File Library--even if the file identically matches something else already in the File Library.

When you Add from Library, it points the link you're adding to that existing file.

So this is one way to keep your File Library tidy, without conflicting versions of a file. It's much easier to use Add from Library, search "budget", get a search result with one budget document, and know that you're adding the right file, than it is to find 12 budget documents all named identically, added at different times.