🔒 Final documents

Overview

A besluit that can still be edited after it is taken is a besluit nobody can prove the contents of. The Archiefwet and a vastgesteld besluit both require that what was published stays what was published, and the proof is what the archive is for.

Mark a document final and it stops changing. Filinq records who made it final, when, why, and the checksum of the file at that moment. Every write path then refuses it with a sentence that names all four, so a handler who tries to edit it learns why instead of filing a support ticket.

Correcting a final document does not edit it. It produces a new document that says which one it supersedes, and the superseded one stays readable and stays final. That is the difference between a correction and a rewrite, and it is what makes the correction explicable in 2029.

What you do

Make a document final

1. Open the document and go to the Versions tab.
2. Choose Make final and say what makes it final, such as the decision that was taken.
3. The panel at the top of the tab now names you, the moment and the reason. Restore disappears, because the endpoint behind it would refuse.

Correct a final document

1. On the Versions tab of the final document, choose Issue a correction.
2. Say what the correction changes.
3. Filinq writes the correction beside the original and links the two. Open either one and the panel points at the other.

The original file is never opened for writing, so nothing about it can be lost by correcting it.

Unfreeze, when you have to

An administrator can unfreeze a final document. It needs the docudesk-final-document-admins right and a reason, and it leaves a mark on the document that nobody can clear.

The exception exists on purpose. Without one, somebody edits the file on the filesystem and there is no record at all. With a silent one, the guarantee is worthless. So it is allowed, recorded, and visible to the next person who opens the document.

Letting the decision do the freezing

A consuming app declares which of its record-type states make a document final, and Filinq applies the declaration when the state changes. Dossiq declares, per case type, that the "besluit genomen" status makes its besluit final; the besluit then freezes because the decision was taken, not because somebody remembered to press a button.

Filinq does not define the record type vocabulary. Case types and result types belong to the consuming app, and Filinq stores only what that app declared.

POST /apps/filinq/api/document-finality-rules
{
  "declaringApp": "dossiq",
  "typeReference": "bezwaarschrift",
  "finalStates": ["besluit genomen"],
  "documentRole": "besluit"
}

POST /apps/filinq/api/document-finality-rules/apply
{
  "declaringApp": "dossiq",
  "typeReference": "bezwaarschrift",
  "state": "besluit genomen",
  "documentRole": "besluit",
  "fileIds": [4711]
}

A record type with no declaration freezes nothing.

What freezing does not do

Freezing the record does not freeze the filesystem. Somebody with shell access can still change the file, and Filinq reports that rather than preventing it: the version records the file's checksum at the moment it became final, and the Versions tab says so when the bytes no longer match. That is detection, not prevention.

Nor is it a rights management system. A frozen document is a refusal to change the record, not a way to stop somebody copying a file out of Nextcloud.

Where it sits

Behaviour	Owner
The draft to final lifecycle, its audit entry and the refusal of a way back	OpenRegister, x-openregister-lifecycle on documentVersion
The refusal on every write path	Filinq, FinalDocumentService
The version history itself	Nextcloud files_versions, read through Document Versions
Retention and destruction after freezing	OpenRegister, archival and destruction workflow
Freezing a case, a phase or a message	OpenRegister, cluster 29

Next

Read Document Versions for the version history a final document is frozen against, and Digital Signing for the signature that is a common reason a version becomes final.