Uploading Documents

Uploading in BookYourPTO has three distinct intents, and choosing the right one matters because they behave differently. The upload page has a mode switch at the top:

Mode 1 — Store ("Upload to folder")

Use Store when you just need to file a document — a passport scan, a signed PDF you received elsewhere, a tax form. It goes straight into a folder. No signature is requested.

Accepted files

Fields

Expiry reminders

If you set an expiry date on a stored document (passport, visa, certificate), BookYourPTO sends reminders at 60, 30, 7, and 0 days before it expires. The reminders go to the document owner (always) plus a role-based audience (admins / execs / HR). This is separate from signing-deadline reminders covered in E-signatures.

Mode 2 — Sign ("Send for signature")

Use Sign when a document needs one or more people to sign it. This launches the recipient + field-placement flow described in detail under E-signatures.

Whose document it is

Every recipient signs the document and finds it in their own documents, but it is filed under one of them: that person owns it, and it belongs on their profile. With more than one recipient, the page asks Whose document is this and offers the recipients you have added. A salary letter signed by a manager and then the employee is the employee's, so choose the employee — it is filed under them whatever order the signatures are collected in.

The person you choose must be one of the recipients. With a single recipient the question does not appear, because the document is plainly theirs. Adding a second recipient asks it, and the document cannot be sent until it is answered.

A document's owner is set when it is sent. Documents sent before this question existed were filed under whoever was added first, and keep that owner.

Accepted files

Mode 3 — Review document

Use Review document for a signed review form, a development plan, or a letter that belongs to a performance review. It is the signature flow plus one extra fact: which review the document belongs to. Afterwards it opens from that person's Performance tab instead of having to be found in the documents list.

The mode pill appears only when a review cycle is currently running. With none, the flow would dead-end on its own first question, so it is not offered — see Performance.

It asks four things, in this order:

1. Review cycle — which review the document belongs to. Only running cycles are offered; a draft, or one whose window has closed, is not.
2. The document — PDF, same limits as Send for signature.
3. Recipients — everyone who needs to sign, added exactly as in Send for signature.
4. Who is being reviewed — which of those recipients the review is about.

The due date is worked out for whoever is being reviewed, from that cycle's schedule — the same date their Performance tab shows. If the cycle does not cover that person, the page says so rather than going blank.

Every review the person is scheduled for counts, not only ones already recorded. A cycle's dates are derived, so an active cycle covering somebody is a real review even with nothing stored against it yet; the record is created as the document is sent.

Who the document belongs to

A review form is routinely countersigned by the department head first and the employee second. Whose review it is and who signs in what order are separate questions:

• The employee being reviewed owns the document. It appears on their profile and their Performance tab whatever order the signatures were collected in.
• The signing order is set the same way as on any other document — all at once, or one after another.

The person being reviewed must also be one of the recipients. Ticking I also need to sign this document adds you to the recipients, so you can also be the subject where that is allowed.

Sending a review document follows the same permission rule as the rest of performance: an executive may do it for anyone including themselves, an administrator for anyone except themselves, and a department head for their own department. Who may reach the mode at all is the same as who may send any document — see Roles & permissions below.

Previewing a document

Word documents are rendered in your browser — the file is not sent to a conversion service.

The older .doc format predates the current one and no browser can render it. Downloading it works normally, and re-saving it as .docx from Word makes it previewable.

Deactivated employees

A deactivated employee has no account to sign with, so a signature request to them could never be completed or declined — it would sit in their Action Required for ever. They are therefore not offered as recipients in Send for signature or Review document, and the request is refused if one is sent anyway.

Filing still works. Putting a leaver's final paperwork into their folder asks nothing of them, so they remain available in Upload to folder, and their existing documents stay where they are. Opening such a person from the by-employee view shows them with a Deactivated label.

The same rule applies to Bulk Send: a spreadsheet row naming a deactivated employee is reported as a failed row rather than creating a request nobody can action.

Not the only way to send

Add a document always uploads a fresh file. When the document already exists as a reusable template, use one of these instead — both are linked from the header of the upload page:

Plan document limits

Documents count against your plan's allowance. The counting rule is what trips people up:

• A single upload counts as 1 (the file) + 1 per recipient (each signer assignment).
• A bulk send counts 2 × recipients.

Security at upload

• Magic-byte sniffing inspects the actual bytes of the file, so a .exe renamed to .pdf (a spoofed type) is rejected even though the extension looks valid.
• Once stored, the file is encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM) and a SHA-256 checksum is recorded — see Overview.

Roles & permissions

Troubleshooting