File request: collecting documents from people outside your company

Half of every onboarding is waiting for documents from somebody who does not work for you: identification, certificates, signed forms, last year's accounts. Email handles this badly — attachments bounce on size, versions multiply, and the material ends up scattered across three inboxes. A file request is the alternative: a link that lets somebody upload to a place you control, without creating an account.

What a file request has to do

• Accept uploads without the sender creating an account, because an account requirement is where half of them stop.
• Land files in a specific destination folder, named for the matter rather than for the sender.
• Say what is wanted, in a list. "Please send your documents" produces one document and a question.
• Work on a phone, since identification and certificates are usually photographed rather than scanned.
• Show the sender what arrived, so they can tell whether they are finished.
• Expire. A collection link that still works a year later is an open door nobody is watching.

Where the risk is

Upload links are safer than they feel in one respect and riskier in another. Nobody can read what is already in the folder, which is the fear people start with. But anybody holding the link can put things into your storage — so the link should be scoped to one destination, expire with the task, and never be posted anywhere public. The second risk is the material itself: you are inviting identity documents and financial records into your systems, which brings retention obligations with it from the moment they land.

Decide the retention period before you ask for the documents, not after. Identification collected for a check you completed in March should not still be sitting in a folder in December, and a file request makes collecting easy enough that this accumulates quickly.

Chasing without being a nuisance

1. List exactly what is outstanding rather than resending the whole request.
2. Give a reason tied to their interest — what cannot proceed until it arrives — instead of a deadline with no consequence.
3. Chase twice, then pick up the phone. A third email achieves nothing a call would not.
4. Record what arrived and when, so a colleague can take over without asking again.
5. Close the request when complete, so the link stops working and the task stops appearing.

Where it fits with everything else

A file request collects; it does not check. Somebody still has to confirm the certificate is current, the identification matches the person, and the accounts are the ones asked for. Keeping the collection and the verification as separate steps — with the second recorded — is what makes the file answer a question later rather than merely contain documents.

Ettex Storage handles the collection end with a scoped destination, expiry and a log of what arrived, which is the part that otherwise lives in somebody's inbox. The verification belongs in a record alongside, with the expiry dates of anything that will need collecting again.