Documents gives your team a searchable library of diocesan material, such as pastoral letters, policies, and directories. Once documents have finished processing, you can find them in the library and ask questions about their contents.

Open Documents from the diocese dashboard. Viewing the library and managing uploads depend on your workspace permissions.

Set up the library

If you see Set up your document library, use Set up Vulgate access to connect the organization to the document service. If setup or upload controls are unavailable, ask the workspace owner to check your access.

Upload documents

1. Open the upload dialog and choose the files you want to add. The file picker enforces the supported formats and size limits.
2. Check the sharing selection before uploading. Organization is the default scope for organizational access. Shared / Public is a separate, broader sharing choice available for diocesan uploads; use it only for material intended to be shared publicly.
3. Use the available OCR option to process the files. OCR extracts readable text from document pages.
4. Start the upload and review any errors shown beside the files.
5. Return to the library and wait for background processing to finish before relying on search or chat results.

An uploaded file may still be processing. A successful upload message does not mean that all of its text is already searchable. For the clearest results, use legible source files and descriptive document titles.

Find and use a document

Type into Search documents to narrow the library. Clear the search if you want to see the full list again. Choose Open on a document to inspect its source, or Ask about this to begin a question about it.

Try a specific question, such as “What does this policy say about preparing volunteers for parish ministry?” Include the document name or the topic you want explained. Open the source references and check that the answer uses the correct document and edition before sharing it with your team.

Keep the library current

Users with management access can use a document’s menu to edit its title or author and remove material that should no longer be in the library. Use clear dates or edition names when multiple versions are needed, so readers can tell which policy applies.

If a file fails to process, inspect its status and use the retry action offered for that file. Check that the original opens correctly and is readable. If search returns nothing, clear the search and check whether the file is still being processed before uploading another copy.

Sharing and public pages

Document sharing is separate from the parish public-page switches and from parish statistical or financial publication. Check the document’s own scope rather than assuming that another dashboard visibility setting controls it. Parish uploads use organizational scope; the diocesan Shared / Public option is not offered for parish uploads.