Controlled technical documentation in SharePoint.

A reference architecture drawn as three panels in a row on a near black background with a faint grid. The panel on the left, labelled as the custom layer and titled Guided Search, lists dependent metadata filters, free-text search, and sortable, filterable results. A solid arrow labelled READS runs from it to the middle panel, which is drawn taller than the other two and outlined in bright green. The middle panel is labelled source of truth and titled Native document library, and it lists structured metadata, calculated document numbers, version history and check-out rules, and native permissions and views. A second arrow, dashed rather than solid and labelled FALLBACK, runs from the middle panel to the panel on the right, which is labelled native fallback and titled Direct library access. That panel says documents remain available, standard SharePoint navigation still works, and nothing depends on custom storage. A horizontal rule crosses the lower part of the picture, and beneath it three tags name the roles Viewer, Document Controller and Site Owner, under a line saying that roles are enforced by the platform. A closing sentence says that both access paths, the guided search and the native library, obey the same permissions. The picture makes one point: the custom layer improves retrieval, and the native library keeps ownership of the documents.

The diagram shows a controlled document workflow as five numbered steps laid out in a row that reads from left to right on a near black background. Step one, upload: a document controller uploads a file to the native library. Step two, classify: the required classification values are added to the file. Step three, number: those values generate the document identifier. This third step is drawn with a brighter panel and a green border, because it is the point where the identifier is created. Step four, check in: after check-in the completed file enters the normal user path. Step five, retrieve: a person finds the file with guided search, or through the native library as a fallback. Green arrows join each step to the next one in order, and each step carries a small green tag naming what it produces. Below the row of steps sits a separate wide panel outlined in warm gold, labelled guardrail, which states that incomplete metadata keeps a document outside the normal viewer workflow. A dotted vertical line drops from the classification step down to that guardrail panel, because classification is where the metadata is entered.