SOLABS QM10: Document Periodic Review Cycles

This document covers how to manage Periodic Reviews for documents that may require one. Default values for Periodic Review requirements can be set for Document Types.   There are then various ways to monitor and manage those Periodic Review Cycles.

Table of Contents:

How is training handled when documents do not require any changes?

When a document is reviewed and no changes (or only minor ones) are required, it often means that the training activities associated with this document are also not required to be repeated.  If the Training Activity is set for Recurrence based on Document Revision, you need to consider the impact of how to handle this.

There are some choices you can make in this situation.

You could choose to use the Modify Metadata Only option (available to SOLABS Document Administrators) to simply move the Next Review Date out for another periodic review cycle by changing the number of months.  For example, if the Periodic Review requirement was 24 months, you could change it to 48 months for that document when it identified as needing no changes.  When confirmed, this will move the Next Review date out another 2 years.   This change will bring up a Reason for Change field that will go to the Audit Trail. Things to consider with this choice:

• The Effective Date will remain the same and some auditors may look more closely at documents that seem to have been in effect for a long period of time.
• When the document is next revised, you will need to remember to change the Periodic Review Cycle back to the original value - in the above case back to 24 months from 48 months.

The other choice is to revise the document but use the Cosmetic Change option so that training is not triggered.  This informs the system that a training recurrence is not required, so it will link the new version with the current training curriculum once it is approved.  

You can choose to keep the same version or to go up to the next version when using this option.  In either case, it is best to use the Reason for Change field to indicate that the document was reviewed as required for the Periodic Review Cycle but no changes were required.

•  When a revised document is approved, the curriculum/training activities are NOT copied.
• The revised document points to the SAME training as the previous version.  This means that the training records from the previous version are still valid and that the training performed on the previous version still applies to the current revision.
• Approving the document with the Cosmetic Change option selected confirms that the trainees do not need to be retrained. The training activity(ies) remain Active and trainees who may not have completed the Training Activity will get the latest revision of the document.  It will also be possible to assigned additional users if required.   

Things to consider with this choice:

• Whether you choose to revise the document using the same version number or the next version number, the Internal Version will be incremented.  This will impact the document version displays on document Cover Sheets and Training Reports.  See the Related Article below for more detail on the related impact.
• When the document is next revised, you will need to remember to de-select the Cosmetic Change option.

Related Articles:

Use of the Cosmetic Change Option when revising documents: https://docs.solabs.com/hc/en-us/articles/360061817534-Use-of-the-Cosmetic-Change-Option-When-Revising-Documents