ConnectGH DMS User Guide

1. Welcome to ConnectGH DMS

ConnectGH DMS is your organisation's secure home for documents. You can store, find, edit, share, sign and approve documents in one place, from any computer or phone, and every action is recorded.

This guide shows you how to do everyday tasks, step by step. Part A is for everyone. Part B, from Section 13, is for administrators.

Note You only see the menus and buttons your role allows. If something in this guide is missing for you, your administrator may not have given you that permission, or your organisation may not use that module.

1.1 What you need

• A modern web browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari), or the ConnectGH DMS desktop app for Windows, macOS or Linux, from Download desktop app in your account menu
• Your username or work email, and your password
• An authenticator app on your phone (such as Microsoft Authenticator or Google Authenticator), if your organisation uses two-step sign-in

2. Signing In and Your Account

2.1 Your first sign-in

1. Open the invitation email from ConnectGH DMS and click the link.
2. Choose your password. Your organisation may require a minimum length, a mix of capital and small letters, a number and a symbol, and a password that has not appeared in a known data breach.
3. Sign in with your Username or email and your new password.
4. If your organisation requires two-step sign-in, you are walked through setting it up before you can go further (see 2.3).

2.2 Signing in

1. Go to your organisation's ConnectGH DMS address.
2. Enter your Username or email and password, and press Sign in.
3. If your organisation uses single sign-on, press Sign in with SSO instead and enter your Work email. You are sent to your company's sign-in page.
4. If asked, enter the 6-digit code from your authenticator app. Each code works once: if it says the code was used, wait for the next one. After single sign-on you're only asked when your company requires two-step sign-in and its sign-in page didn't already check a second factor.

Note For your security, you are signed out after a period without mouse or keyboard use. Just sign in again; your documents are safe. Presenting counts as activity. Your organisation may also set the hours you can sign in (see 2.6).

2.3 Two-step sign-in

1. Open your account menu (your name, top right) and choose Two-Factor Authentication.
2. Scan the QR code with your authenticator app and enter the code it shows.
3. Save your backup codes somewhere safe. Each one lets you in once if you lose your phone. Regenerate backup codes gives you a fresh set.
4. Under Trusted devices, you can Revoke any computer you no longer use.

2.4 Forgotten password

Ask your administrator to send you a password reset link. Administrators can reset their own password with Forgot password? on the sign-in page.

2.5 Changing your password and going on leave

• Change Password in your account menu changes your password and signs you out on your other devices.
• Out of office in your account menu sets the dates you are Away from and Back on, and Who stands in for you. Workflow tasks that arrive while you are away go to that colleague.

2.6 Sign-in hours

Your organisation may set the hours you can use ConnectGH DMS, for example Monday to Friday, 07:30 to 18:00.

• Outside your hours, the sign-in page tells you your hours and when you can sign in again.
• Fifteen minutes before your hours end, and again at five minutes, a reminder shows how long is left. Save what you are working on.
• At the end you are signed out. Documents open in the editor are saved for you.
• Need longer, for example at month-end? Ask your administrator for extra time. It ends by itself.

3. Finding Your Way Around

3.1 Your dashboard

Your Dashboard greets you with what is waiting for you, a search box, and quick buttons such as Upload, Documents and Shared with me. Below are cards for your documents, items shared with you, storage, and, if your organisation uses branches, each branch's activity.

If you handle forms, Waiting for you shows how many new form submissions nobody has picked up yet. Press it to open the list of submissions without leaving the dashboard (see 8.4).

3.2 The menu

Press the menu button (three lines, top left) to open the sidebar. It lists Dashboard, All Documents, Favorites, Tasks, Shared with you, Messaging, App Center and the modules your organisation uses, followed by your folders and tags.

3.3 App Center

App Center shows every extra module your organisation uses, such as E-Signature, Workflows, Forms, Email, Messaging and the AI Assistant. Click a tile to open it, or filter by Documents, Communication, Automation, AI and more.

3.4 Notifications

A message appears in the corner when someone shares a document with you, mentions you, or asks you to sign or approve something. Click it to go straight there.

If ConnectGH DMS is open in a tab you're not looking at, new notifications and reminders appear as soon as you come back to it. The chat chime still sounds while you're in another tab.

4. Working with Documents

4.1 Browsing documents

Open All Documents in the sidebar. Folders are shown first, then documents. Use the buttons at the top to create a New folder, a + New document (blank or from a template, see 4.11), or Upload files, and choose how the list looks: List, Details, Grid or Small.

4.2 Uploading documents

1. Open the folder you want, then press Upload (or press Upload at the top of any page).
2. Click the upload area, or drag files or whole folders onto it. Each file can be up to 2 GB.
3. Optionally add Tags (comma-separated) and a Description. They apply to every file in this upload. Smart capture (AI) can suggest them for you.
4. Check the folder under Uploading into, or press Choose a folder to change it.
5. Press Save document.

Every file is checked for viruses, and scanned papers and PDFs are read automatically, so you can later search for the words inside them.

To scan paper straight into a folder from a scanning PC, see 4.12.

4.3 The document menu

Right-click any document, or press its … button, to open the document menu. You see only the actions you are allowed to use.

PowerPoint and PDF files also show Present (see Section 9).

Preview opens large, nearly the full width and height of your screen, and a PDF's pages fill that width. A long PDF shows its first page while the rest is still arriving, and later pages load as you scroll to them, so it opens quickly even on a slow connection. A Word, Excel or PowerPoint file's preview takes a few seconds the first time and opens faster after that.

4.4 The document page

Click a document's name to open its page. The buttons at the top let you Open, Preview, Download and Share it, and the … button holds more actions. The tabs below hold everything about it.

4.5 Editing in the browser

1. Choose Open on a Word, Excel or PowerPoint document. It opens in a full editor in your browser.
2. Make your changes. They save automatically.
3. Press Back when you are done. Your changes are kept as a new version; there is no need to download and upload again.

The editors have more than 50 font families, including Montserrat, Lato, Poppins, Open Sans, Playfair Display and Merriweather. Documents written in Microsoft Office keep their layout: Carlito and Caladea stand in for Calibri and Cambria letter for letter.

4.6 Uploading a new version

1. On the document's Files tab, under New version, press Choose file and pick the updated file.
2. Optionally type What changed?.
3. Press Upload. The previous version is kept.

4.7 Check out and check in

1. Choose Check out from the document menu before a long piece of work. Others can still view the document, but cannot change it.
2. When you are done, choose Check in… and upload your new version.
3. End check-out releases the lock without a new version.

4.8 Folders, tags and favorites

• Folders are listed in the sidebar and on All Documents. You see only the folders you are allowed to.
• Tags are listed under Tags in the sidebar, in a tree. Opening a tag shows its documents and those of every tag under it.
• Choose Add to favorites to find a document fast on Favorites.

4.9 Downloading several documents

Tick the documents you need and choose Download as zip, or download a whole folder as a zip file.

4.10 Deleting and restoring

Delete moves a document to the Recycle bin. Ask your administrator if you need it back. Documents on legal hold cannot be deleted.

4.11 New documents and templates

1. In All Documents, open the folder you want, press + New and choose Word Document, Excel Spreadsheet or PowerPoint Presentation. The template gallery opens. (Text File still just asks for a name.)
2. Use the Word, Excel and PowerPoint tabs at the top to switch between kinds of document.
3. Under Templates for, pick who the templates are for: General business, Schools & universities, Hospitals & clinics, Government & public sector or Churches & NGOs, or All sectors. The gallery remembers your choice.
4. Pick a category on the left, or type in Search (it looks through every sector). Blank is always first, then your organisation's own templates, then the built-in ones.
5. Click a template to see it larger on the right. Its name is filled in as the Title; change it if you like.
6. Press Create. The document is made in the folder you are in and opens in the editor.

Your organisation's name, today's date and your name are filled in for you wherever the template has a place for them.

Note Tax rates, PAYE bands and public holidays in the templates are examples. Check them against the current Ghana Revenue Authority rates before relying on them. The agreements and NDA are starting points; have a lawyer review them.

4.12 Scanning paper documents

If your organisation has a scanning PC with the ConnectGH Scanner Bridge, you can scan paper straight into a folder without saving files first. Scans are filed as you, just like your own uploads.

1. On the scanning PC, open ConnectGH Scanner: from the Start menu, the desktop shortcut, or the scanner icon by the clock. On a Mac, open http://127.0.0.1:47321 in the browser (bookmark it).
2. Sign in with your ConnectGH DMS Username or email and Password. If you use two-step sign-in, enter the code from your authenticator app (or press Use a backup code instead). Your avatar and name appear at the top.
3. Pick the scanner card, then choose How to file the pages: - Each page is its own document (the usual choice): every page is filed as a one-page PDF the moment it's scanned, while the feeder keeps going. With both sides, each side is its own document. - All pages in one PDF: the whole stack becomes one document, filed once the feeder is empty.
4. Pick the folder under Save to folder (the folders you can reach in ConnectGH DMS), the Paper (Feeder, one side, Feeder, both sides or Flatbed (glass)) and the Quality. 300 dpi greyscale suits most letters and forms; use colour for photos and stamps.
5. Type a name under Name pages (or Title for one PDF), for example "Loan applications 14 Oct", and if you like a Description. Each page is filed as "Loan applications 14 Oct - page 001", "- page 002" and so on.
6. Press Scan and upload. Or press Scan and preview to check the pages first: click each page number to see it, then Upload or Discard them all together.
7. Press Sign out when you're done. If you forget, you're signed out after a few minutes without using the page.

While it scans, a panel shows how many pages are scanned, filed in DMS, uploading and need attention, with a small tile for each page: green when it's filed, amber while it's uploading. Press Stop after this page to end early; the pages already scanned are kept and filed. You can load the next stack as soon as the feeder stops, even if pages are still uploading.

Recent scans shows each scan, with the avatar of the person who scanned it. A stack filed page by page is one row; press Show all to see each page and its document number.

Blank pages are left out, and crooked pages straightened. The scan is checked, virus-scanned and made searchable like any upload, and removed from the scanning PC once it's filed.

Note If you sign out before a waiting scan goes up, it is filed through the scanning PC's own key instead, and its description starts "Scanned by" with your name, so nothing is lost and everyone can still see who scanned it.

5. Searching

1. Type in the search box at the top (Search docs, tags, etc), on the dashboard, or on All Documents. ConnectGH DMS searches titles, tags, descriptions and the words inside documents, including scanned ones.
2. Press Enter. Results show each document's folder.
3. On All Documents, press Filters to narrow results by file type, tag, owner and date range.

6. Sharing and Working Together

6.1 Sharing a document

1. Choose Share… from the document menu, or press Share on its page.
2. Under Username to share with, type a colleague's name and pick them.
3. Under Access, choose Can view, Can edit or Can manage.
4. Press Save. They are notified.
5. To share with a whole team, choose a group under Share to a group, choose the access level and press Share to group. People who join the group later get access automatically.

Note Cannot view (block) stops a particular person from seeing the document, even if they would otherwise have access. Viewing and downloading are separate: a colleague with Can view may not be able to download a copy.

6.2 Documents shared with you

Open Shared with you in the sidebar to see everything colleagues have shared with you.

6.3 Comments and @mentions

1. Open the document's Comments tab, or choose Add comment… from the document menu.
2. Type in Add a comment…. Type @ and a colleague's name to mention them; they get a notification and an email.
3. Press Post, or Ctrl/⌘ + Enter.
4. Everyone who can view the document can read its comments. You can edit or delete your own.

6.4 Reminders and tasks

1. On a document, open the Reminders tab.
2. Under Add a reminder, type what to remind you about, choose the date and time, and press + Add. Managers can set a reminder for someone else in the For box.
3. At the time, the reminder pops up on the person's screen. They can choose Remind me later, add a note on progress, or Mark as done. It keeps popping up until it is done. Workflow tasks can pop up the same way (see 8.2).
4. Find key dates with AI reads the document and suggests reminders for the deadlines it finds.
5. Tasks in the sidebar lists reminders that are due or overdue.

6.5 Messaging

Open Messaging to chat one-to-one or in named groups. You can share files and photos, link to documents and folders, mention colleagues with @, and react to messages. If your organisation uses Zoom, you can start a meeting from the conversation.

7. Signing Documents

7.1 Signing a document

1. When someone asks you to sign, you are notified, and the document appears under Awaiting your signature in Sign Documents.
2. Open it. A banner asks you to Sign or Decline.
3. Sign by typing your name or drawing your signature. It is placed where the requester marked, with the date and time.
4. Documents you have already signed are listed under History.

7.2 Asking others to sign

1. Open the document's Signatures tab.
2. Under Request signatures, type each signer's name in Add signers, and add a Message (optional).
3. Press Place signature fields and click where each person's signature goes on the page. Then send.
4. Follow progress in the Requests list on the same tab.

Note The request is fixed to the version you sent, so later edits cannot change what people signed.

8. Workflows and Forms

8.1 Starting a workflow

1. Open Workflows.
2. Under Start a workflow (upload a document), choose the Workflow, for example "Loan application approval".
3. Press Choose file and pick the document. Optionally add a Title and a Note to first participants.
4. Press Upload & start.
5. To start a workflow on a document already in ConnectGH DMS, open it and choose Start a workflow from its page.

Some workflows start by themselves when a document is uploaded to a certain folder, given a certain tag, or submitted through a form.

8.2 Acting on a workflow task

1. Tasks waiting for you appear under Awaiting you on Workflows, and in your notifications.
2. Open the document and do your part: review and approve or reject, edit, or sign it.
3. If something needs correcting, send it back to an earlier person with a note.
4. Tasks have a due time. Overdue tasks may be escalated.
5. If the stage has pop-up reminders, a Workflow task card pops up on your screen until the task is done, also when it went to everyone in your role. It shows the document, the stage, who started it and when it's due. Press Open task to go to it, or Remind me later; a short note you add there goes to the person who started the workflow, as a comment on the document. It stops for everyone as soon as one person acts.
6. Workflows you started shows the progress of everything you have sent, under In progress, Finished and All.

8.3 Filling in a form

1. Open Intake Forms and press Fill out on the form, or open the form link you were sent.
2. Answer the questions. Long forms move step by step, with a progress bar. Fields marked * are required.
3. Submit. Your answers are saved as a PDF in the right folder, and the right people are told.

If someone can't sign, a signature question also takes a thumbprint (see 8.5).

8.4 Form submissions

If you handle forms (you have the Build forms or Handle form submissions permission), there are two places to work on submissions:

• From the dashboard: press new form submissions under Waiting for you. A window opens with every submission across all your forms, grouped by status. The cards at the top show how many there are of each status; press one to see only that status. Search by name or reference, or choose one form.
• On a form's own page: press its submissions button on Intake Forms to see everything submitted through that form. Form builders can also download them as a spreadsheet with Export CSV.

Each submission has a status. Change it from the status list on its row. To change several at once, tick them (the box at the top of a group ticks every row showing in it), choose Set status... and press Apply. Only ticked rows you can see are changed: if you search or choose a form after ticking, the rows that are now hidden are left alone.

Open shows the whole submission on its form's page, however old it is. If the form has a For official use part, fill it in there and press Save official-use details: the submission's PDF gets a new version that includes them. If a form has been deleted, its submissions stay in the list under its old name, with Form deleted in place of Open; the PDFs they were filed as stay in their folder.

If you only work in some branches, you see their submissions and those with no branch: in the window, in the dashboard count and in each form's numbers on Intake Forms.

Waiting submissions are listed oldest first, with how long each has waited, up to 500 of each status. Approved, declined and closed ones show the 50 most recently updated. When a group has more than it shows, its heading says so; every submission is on its form's own page.

8.5 Thumbprints instead of signatures

If someone can't sign, a form's signature question also takes a thumbprint. Press the signature, then choose Thumbprint.

On your own phone (a form link from the organisation):

1. Press Start. The back camera opens with an oval outline, and its light comes on.
2. Hold your thumb behind the phone, pad towards the camera, about a hand's width away, in good light. When the thumb fills the outline and the label says Sharp – hold still, the photo is taken (or press the round button).
3. Choose Right thumb or Left thumb, tick This is my own thumbprint, and I agree to what is written on this form, and press Next: confirm.
4. Your phone asks for your fingerprint (or your face or screen lock) to confirm it's you. If it can't, press Continue without this step. The PDF then says the phone reported a screen-lock check.

No camera, or a blurry picture? Press Use an inked print instead: press an inked thumb on white paper and photograph it from straight above.

At the branch, for a customer (staff, in the form in ConnectGH DMS):

1. Choose Thumbprint. If the PC has a fingerprint reader, press Use the fingerprint reader, ask the customer to place their thumb flat on the glass, and press Capture. If the quality bar is red (faint, or only part of the thumb), press Retake. Without a reader, photograph the customer's thumb or an inked print instead.
2. Choose which thumb, then under Explained in the language you read and explained the form in, and tick the declaration: "I, ..., read and explained this form to ... in ..., and they appeared to understand it before making their mark". The Illiterates' Protection Act asks for this whenever someone fills in a document for a person who can't read it.
3. Press Use this print.

The print goes on the submission's PDF where the signature would be, with which thumb, how it was taken (and who took it, or the customer's consent), and the date and time. The photo is kept encrypted with the submission; it isn't kept in a saved draft, so take it again when you come back to one.

Note A thumbprint photo is a clear mark of agreement, not a fingerprint scan that can be matched against the Ghana Card. The phone's check is the phone's own report that its owner unlocked it (by fingerprint, face or PIN); phones never share the fingerprint itself.

9. Presenting

9.1 Presenting a deck

1. From a PowerPoint or PDF document, choose Present for a quick slideshow, or Present (full) for animations and transitions.
2. Move with the arrow keys, a click or a swipe. Press T for thumbnails, B to black out the screen and F for full screen.
3. Open the presenter view to see your speaker notes, the next slide and a timer on your own screen.

9.2 Presenting live

1. In the slideshow, open Present live and invite colleagues. They follow your slides in their own browser.
2. To include people outside your organisation, create a guest link, with an optional 6-digit code, and send it to them.
3. If your organisation has broadcasting, choose Broadcast to guests to stream your slides with animations and sound. Guests can ask questions and ask to speak; you choose who has the floor.
4. Press Stop when you have finished.

10. AI Assistant and Email

10.1 AI Assistant

1. Open AI Assistant. Press New chat, or pick a suggestion such as Find a document or Deadlines.
2. Ask your question. Answer from sets which documents it searches; by default, all the documents you can see.
3. Answers show which documents they came from. Use the Search tab to find documents by meaning.
4. To draft a new document, open the Create tab: - Choose the Format (Word, PDF, Excel, PowerPoint or Text) and the Theme. Company colours, the default, uses your organisation's own colour. - If it should be based on an existing document, choose it under Based on. Describe what you need and press Create. - Check the preview, then Download, Print, or Save as new… into a folder (or Save back to original). - Word and PDF files come out as company documents: your organisation's name and a reference at the top, the document details, an executive summary, numbered sections and page numbers. Reports, policies and proposals end with a Document control box for the reviewer and approver. Excel keeps figures as real numbers you can add up; PowerPoint gets an agenda, numbered slides and a closing slide.
5. On a document's Files tab, AI summary report → Generate with AI writes a report from the document and attaches it as Word and PDF. Options sets the length (Brief, Standard or Detailed) and what to focus on. - The report opens with your organisation's name, the report reference, the document details and the figures at a glance (key points, findings, risks and actions), then the executive summary and a contents list. - Its sections are always in the same order: overview, key points, key figures, findings, risks, recommendations and conclusion. Risks run from High to Low, and actions from the highest priority, each with an owner where the document names one. - It ends with a Review and approval box. Have the reviewer and approver sign it before the report is relied on. - Preview shows the report on the page. If the document changes, press Generate with AI again for a new report.

Note Always check AI answers against the source documents before relying on them.

10.2 Email

1. Open Email and connect your mailbox (Google, Microsoft or other).
2. Read and send mail, and attach documents straight from ConnectGH DMS.
3. Save to DMS files an email as a PDF, with its attachments, in a folder.

11. Branches

If your organisation has several branches:

• You see your own branch's documents, people and activity, and anything shared with you. You start in your branch's folder.
• Branch managers also manage people and access for their branch.
• If a document was filed under the wrong branch, choose Transfer to another branch on its page.

12. Good Practice and Getting Help

12.1 Good practice

• Keep your password and authenticator codes to yourself; ConnectGH will never ask for them.
• Save documents in the right folder, with a clear title and tags, so colleagues can find them.
• Share with Can view unless the person needs to edit.
• Sign out on shared computers.

12.2 Frequently asked questions

12.3 Getting help

First contact your organisation's administrator. For problems with the system itself:

13. For Administrators: Users and Roles

Part B covers the Admin tools in the sidebar: Dashboard & Reports, Analytics, Manage users, Manage roles, Audit log, Tags, Retention Policy, Storage, User Limit, Company Colors, Security, Company Email, API Keys (with the API Access module), Shared Files, Pending Renames, User Groups and Recycle bin. You see them as an administrator, or with the matching permission.

13.1 Your team at a glance

Manage users shows how many people you have, how many seats are used, who has not signed in yet, and who has not set up two-step sign-in. Click a card to filter the list below.

13.2 Inviting a teammate

1. On Manage users, press Invite teammate. (Invite several adds a list of people at once.)
2. Enter their Work email. The Username is filled in from it; change it if you like.
3. Optionally add their Full name, Department and Job title.
4. Choose their Role. Switch on Company admin only for people who must manage everything.
5. Optionally pick groups under Add to groups.
6. Leave Email them a link to set their own password switched on, and press Send invite.

Open a person from the list to change their role, add extra permissions on top of their role, see their document access, send a password reset link, or deactivate them.

Note If you manage users but aren't a company admin, you can only change, deactivate, reset or invite people whose permissions are within yours. For an admin, or anyone with permissions you don't have, ask a company admin.

13.3 Roles

1. Open Manage roles and press New role, or pick a role to change it.
2. Switch permissions on or off. They are grouped as Viewing, Creating and editing, Sharing and signing, Organising, Add-ons, Administration and Branches. Permissions marked sensitive need care.
3. Press Save changes. Compare roles shows every role side by side.

If you manage roles but aren't a company admin, you can only give a role permissions you have yourself, and only change roles that don't have more than you.

Under Add-ons, Build forms lets someone create and change forms. Handle form submissions is for the staff who deal with what comes in: they see the submissions for their branches, set each one's status and fill in the official-use parts, without building or changing forms.

13.4 User groups

User Groups lets you share with a whole team at once. Press New group, give it a Group name and add its members.

14. For Administrators: Security

Open Security. Each section has its own Save button; Sign-in hours saves as you go.

Note Before restricting sign-in to the office network, list every office's internet address. Add this address adds the one you are on now. Keep Admins can sign in from anywhere on, so you are never locked out.

14.1 Sign-in hours

Sign-in hours limit when people can use ConnectGH DMS, for example only during office hours.

1. On Security, under Sign-in hours, press New schedule and give it a Name (e.g. "Office hours").
2. Under Allowed hours, set the times for each day. + add time adds another time on the same day (up to four, e.g. 07:30–13:00 and 14:00–18:00), and × removes one; a day with no times is Closed. Copy Monday to Tuesday–Friday fills the weekdays. A time past midnight, like 22:00 to 06:00, carries on into the next morning. Times are Ghana time.
3. Under Roles that follow it, pick the roles. A role can follow one schedule. Under People who have it as their own, add anyone who needs different hours from their role; a person's own schedule comes before their role's.
4. Press Save schedule. When your schedules are ready, switch on Use sign-in hours.

Outside their hours, people cannot sign in, and the sign-in page tells them when they can. Anyone still signed in gets a reminder 15 and 5 minutes before the end and is then signed out; documents open in the editor are saved. Company administrators, API keys and people without a schedule are never limited, so you cannot lock yourself out.

Extra time: open the person on Manage users, go to Access, and under Sign-in hours press Give extra time. Choose Tonight until a time, or On a date with its times, add a reason, and press Give time. It ends by itself; End now ends it early. The same card shows which schedule they follow, and can give them a schedule of their own.

Attempts outside hours shows how many sign-ins were refused in the last 7 days; View in audit log lists them. Every change to sign-in hours is recorded in the Audit log.

15. For Administrators: Documents and Records

15.1 Tags

Open Tags. Press New tag to add one, Sub-tag to add one underneath, and Move (or drag a tag onto another) to rearrange the tree.

15.2 Retention rules

1. Open Retention Policy.
2. Enter a Rule name (for example "Financial records"), the Retention (years), and tick Auto-delete if documents should be removed when the period ends.
3. Press Add Retention Rule, then apply the rule to folders. Documents inherit their folder's rule unless they have their own.

15.3 Other records pages

15.4 Company templates

Add your organisation's own templates, such as your letterhead or standard forms, so everyone can start from them. They appear in the template gallery (see 4.11), before the built-in ones.

1. Press + New, choose Word, Excel or PowerPoint, and pick Your company on the left.
2. Press Add a company template, choose the file (.docx, .xlsx or .pptx), and give it a Name and, if you like, a Category.
3. Press Add template. A preview picture is made for the gallery.

To rename or remove one, point at it in the gallery and use the pencil or bin buttons. Documents already made from it are not affected. Company templates count towards your storage.

To have details filled in automatically, type {{COMPANY_NAME}}, {{DATE}}, {{YEAR}} or {{USER_NAME}} in your file. Type each one in a single go, without changing its formatting half way, or it won't be recognised.

16. For Administrators: Reports, Branches and Modules

16.1 Analytics and audit log

Analytics charts activity, users, documents, storage and signatures. Choose 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, 12 months or Custom, pick the whole company or one branch, and Export the report. The Audit log lists every sign-in, view, download, edit, share and change, with the person and network address.

16.2 Branches

Open Branches to see each branch's people, managers and activity. Press New branch to add one. Head-office viewers and branch managers are given their access in Manage roles (the Branches permissions).

16.3 Workflows and forms

• Workflows → Manage workflows lists your workflow templates. Press New Workflow, or Edit to change one (see 16.4).
• Intake Forms lists your forms, with Fill out, Copy public link, Edit and Deactivate. Press New Form to build one. People with Handle form submissions see each form's submissions and new count, but not the building buttons.

16.4 Building a workflow

1. In Manage workflows, press New Workflow, or Edit on an existing one.
2. Give it a Workflow name and a short description.
3. Under Stages, add each step in order. For each, choose who handles it (a person or a role), what they do (Review, Edit or Sign) and the time allowed. A stage can be shared by several people, for example "2 of 3 must approve".
4. Leave Pop-up reminders on (or switch it on) for stages people mustn't miss. Choose when it first pops up if nobody has acted (after 1 hour, 4 hours or a day) and, with a deadline, how long before it (2 hours or a day). It then pops up to 3 times a day, then on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, until someone acts.
5. Under When it ends, choose what happens If it's approved and If it's rejected: move the document, add tags, apply a retention policy, email or notify people, lock the document, or save a PDF copy as the final version.
6. Under Start automatically, optionally start it when a tag is added, a new version is uploaded, a form is submitted, or on a schedule. Pick a folder you can edit: only a company admin can set one for the whole company. A form's trigger works for anyone who can edit the folder the form files into.
7. Press Save changes.

17. For Administrators: Backups (on-premises installs)

This section is only for organisations that run ConnectGH DMS on their own server. On ConnectGH's hosted service, ConnectGH backs everything up for you and this page isn't shown.

Open Backup Schedule. Every backup is encrypted on your server, with your server's own key, before it is stored anywhere. Nobody without that key can read it, ConnectGH included.

17.1 When backups run

1. Under Frequency, choose Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Custom, then the days and the Time.
2. Press Save schedule.
3. To take a backup straight away, press Back up now.

Note Until a schedule is saved, no backups are made, and the page warns you.

17.2 Where backups go

Under Where backups go, choose one:

Keep the newest sets how many local backups are kept (14 unless you change it). Older ones are removed automatically.

Note If backups stay only on your premises, ConnectGH no longer holds a copy. If your server and your backups folder are lost together, for example in a fire, a theft or a disk failure, the documents can't be recovered. Keep the folder on a second disk or a network drive (17.3), and keep a copy of the encryption key off the server (17.5).

17.3 Choosing the local backups folder

The page shows where local backups are kept, the free space and how many are kept. It warns you when the folder is on the same disk as the documents. To use somewhere else:

1. Press Change.
2. Choose where to keep them, and fill in the details shown in the table below.
3. Leave Copy the backups already kept to the new place ticked to bring your existing backups along.
4. Press Check and use it.

The server checks that it can write to the new place before switching to it, and the page restarts briefly. When it has finished, the page shows where backups are now kept and how many were copied. If it can't connect, nothing is changed and the page tells you why, for example a wrong password.

Note Ask your IT team for an account on the network drive that can reach only the backups share. Its password is kept on your server, readable only by the server's system administrator. If the network drive is disconnected, backups are never written anywhere else on the server instead: with Both, the copy still goes to ConnectGH; with local backups only, backups are missed, and recorded in the audit log, until the drive is back.

17.4 Sending backups to ConnectGH again

You can change your mind at any time. Choose Off-site (ConnectGH) or Both.

• If off-site backups are part of your plan, the next backup goes to ConnectGH within 15 minutes, then on your schedule.
• If they aren't switched on for your server, the page asks Send backups to ConnectGH again?. Press Ask ConnectGH. ConnectGH sees your request within 15 minutes. Until they switch it on, backups keep going to your local folder, so none are missed. Cancel the request withdraws it.

17.5 Restoring and disaster recovery

• Local backups and Backups held by ConnectGH list your backups, newest first, each with Download. Downloaded backups stay encrypted.
• Disaster recovery shows whether your encryption key has been saved off the server. Verify recoverability now test-restores the newest backup without changing anything.
• Restore from a backup puts the whole system back to an earlier backup, from ConnectGH, your local folder or a file you upload. You are asked for your password, and a fresh backup is taken first.

Note Keep a copy of the backup encryption key off the server, for example in a password manager or on an encrypted USB stick. Without it, no backup can be restored, by anyone.

18. For Administrators: API keys

API keys let your other systems, such as an ERP, core banking, an HR system or a scanning station, work with ConnectGH DMS directly. This needs the API Access module; ask ConnectGH to switch it on.

Each key acts as its own integration account (for example "ERP sync (integration)"). It reaches only the folders and actions you give it, never your users, settings or backups, and everything it does is recorded in the audit log under that name. It doesn't count as a user.

18.1 Creating a key

1. Open API Keys in Admin tools, then press New key.
2. Enter a Name and, if you like, a Purpose, for example "ERP sync" and "Invoices from Sage".
3. Choose the Access: Read only (list, search and download), Upload only (add documents; it can't read what's there) or Read & write (also edit details, move and add new versions). Tick any extras: Create subfolders, Start workflows on documents or Read form submissions.
4. Press Add folder for each folder the key may reach. It reaches everything inside those folders and nothing else.
5. Under Allowed addresses, enter the connected server's IP address or range, one per line. Leave it empty only if the system's address changes.
6. Set the Rate limit (calls a minute; 120 unless you change it) and when the key Expires (90 days, 6 months or 1 year).
7. Enter Your password and press Create key.

The key is shown once, with a Copy key button, an example and the ids of its folders. Give the key to whoever sets up the connected system, through a password manager or their system's settings, with the folder ids. Never send the key by email or chat.

Note Your IT team or supplier will find the technical details in the ConnectGH DMS API Integration Guide.

18.2 Looking after keys

Each key shows when it was last used, from which address, and how many calls it made today. Admins are emailed 14 days before a key expires; rotate it, or extend it under Edit, before then. Your company can have up to 5 keys at once unless ConnectGH raises the limit; revoked and expired keys don't count.

18.3 A scanning PC

Each PC running the ConnectGH Scanner Bridge (see 4.12) needs its own key. Staff sign in on it with their own accounts; the key connects the PC, and files scans whose person has already signed out.

Whoever sets up the PC downloads the bridge from dms.connectgh.org/download/scanner-bridge (also linked from the desktop app download page: Download desktop app in your account menu). The page lists what to prepare, the package for Windows, Mac or Linux, and the install steps.

1. Create a key as in 18.1, named after the PC, for example "Scanner - Kumasi branch".
2. Choose Upload only, and add the folders that office scans into.
3. Under Allowed addresses, enter the office's internet address if it has a fixed one; otherwise leave it empty.
4. On the scanning PC, the page Connect this PC to ConnectGH DMS opens after installation. The DMS address is the one it was installed for. Paste the key under API key and press Connect. It's checked with ConnectGH DMS before it's saved, and never shown again.

Fast feeders: each page filed on its own is one call to ConnectGH DMS. Staff who are signed in upload as themselves, but scans filed through the key (after someone signs out, or with single sign-on) count against the key's Rate limit. The usual 120 calls a minute covers a 60-pages-a-minute feeder on one side; for both sides at full speed, press Edit on the key and raise it to 300. If the limit is reached, pages wait a moment and carry on; none are lost.

Changing or removing the connection: sign in on the scanning PC as an administrator and press Disconnect. Everyone there is signed out and the key is removed; connect again with the new key. Do this after you Rotate the key. Until then, staff can still sign in and scan, but scans waiting for someone who has signed out show Will retry. Revoke the key if the PC is lost or retired.

Note If your company requires single sign-on, staff can't sign in on the scanning PC with a password. Ask whoever installed it to switch its sign-in off; anyone at the PC then scans through the key, and the key's name shows in the audit log.

19. For Administrators: Company email

ConnectGH DMS sends email on your organisation's behalf: password resets, invitations, workflow tasks and reminders, form codes and receipts, documents shared for editing, comment mentions and document reminders. Open Company Email in Admin tools to choose how it goes out.

19.1 Sender name and replies

Under Sender, set the Sender name people see (your organisation's name if empty) and where Replies go to (your contact address if empty). Press Save. No password is needed.

Until you connect your own mail server, email comes from ConnectGH's address as "your organisation via ConnectGH", with replies going to you. The status card at the top shows exactly how email is sent now.

19.2 Sending from your own address

1. Under Send from your own address, choose Our own mail server.
2. Pick Your email provider (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zoho or your website hosting) to fill in the server details, and read the note under it.
3. Enter the From address, the Username and the Password or app password of the mailbox to send from.
4. Enter Your ConnectGH password and press Save and send a test email. The test goes to you.

Your own server is used only once the test email gets through. If it later fails, email is sent through ConnectGH instead so it still arrives, and the error shows on this page. Send another test checks it again; Disconnect server goes back to sending through ConnectGH.

Note Google Workspace needs an app password (with 2-step verification on), and Microsoft 365 needs SMTP AUTH turned on for the mailbox. Your IT team can set these up.

Invoices, receipts, payment reminders, plan changes and activation keys always come from ConnectGH. They go to your organisation's contact address, with every administrator copied.

For anything not covered here, contact ConnectGH support (Section 12.3).