Every document library has sources. They are chosen when the library is made, they can be changed afterwards, and a library can't be made without them.
Sources settle one question only: which recordings go into the library. What the finished documents look like is the library's template, and when writing happens is its writing mode. A recording that matches the sources of three libraries feeds all three, and each one writes it up in its own format.
Wherever a library is made, sources sit on a card of that name, both on the screen the library is made from and in its settings afterwards.
Queries and saved filters
There are two kinds of sources:
- A query built on the library itself
- One or more saved filters
Which kind a library uses follows from where it was made, and can't be swapped later.
A library made in the desktop app carries its own query. The query belongs to that library and nothing else reads it, so editing it changes that one library.
A library made in the dashboard uses saved filters instead. A saved filter is named and lives in the workspace, so one filter can feed several libraries and means the same set of recordings in every one of them.
Building a query
The desktop app's Sources card holds a switch and a builder. Turning on "Include all recordings" feeds in everything that computer has recorded, and greys out the builder underneath. On an existing library the same switch reads "Process all recordings".
With the switch off, only recordings matching the conditions feed the library. Conditions sit in groups: everything inside a group has to match, and a recording matching any one group is in. The fields are Status, Application, Step type, Text and Recorded, and the apps and step types offered are the ones that computer has already recorded.
Leaving the switch off without setting a condition feeds nothing in at all. That is why a library can't be made until one or the other is done.
Sources in the dashboard
The Individual plan has no dashboard, so its libraries always carry a query of their own.
A library takes one or more saved filters, picked by name, and at least one is needed before it can be made. Recordings matching any one of them feed the library, so adding a filter widens what comes in rather than narrowing it.
Saved filters are made on the Workflow map rather than on the library, and a workspace with none yet is told to save one there first. A saved filter picks devices as well as conditions, so the devices its filters name are the full reach of a library built this way.
Which recordings can match
A recording is private to the device that made it until someone shares it to the workspace. A library in the dashboard draws on shared recordings alone, so a filter can name a device and match nothing at all while that device's work stays private.
A library in the desktop app is the exception. It draws on its own computer's recordings whether they have been shared or not, and it can never reach another device's.
Setting sources takes the same permission as building the library: "Publish" on a device, and "Manage documentation" in the dashboard.
When sources are checked
Recordings are matched as they arrive, and a recording that fits goes into the library it fits. A new library also checks the recordings already in the workspace, so it doesn't start empty when the work it covers has been recorded before.
What happens to a matching recording next is the library's writing mode. Automatic writes documents from every matching recording, Review holds them for approval first and Off pauses writing. Under Review a matching recording waits to be approved or discarded, and only the approved ones are ever written up.
Matching a recording is not the same as writing it. A library that has matched more recordings than it has written keeps them as a backlog and works through them in the order they were recorded.
Changing and removing sources
Editing sources makes a library check the whole workspace again, so recordings made before the change can still feed it. Nothing already written is removed.
Deleting a saved filter takes it away from every library using it, with no warning first. A library left with no sources keeps the documents it has written, but nothing new comes in until another filter is picked.
Deleting a library takes its sources with it. The recordings are untouched either way, because sources only ever point at recordings and never hold a copy of one.