Living Documents and Document Control

Hello all, like many, we issue an effective date and supersedes date on our controlled documents. However, I would appreciate input on how you handle that in regards to large excel spreadsheets with numerous tabs that numerous coworkers are adding info into and updating data. We refer to these as "living" documents and it is continually being updated. Must you maintain the effective and supersedes dates, or can you indicate in your Document Control program and/or register that it is a living document that doesnt require these updates? Would that be acceptable? Any thoughts appreciated!

We have templates for such documents (like a product list or pest control chemical list) maintained as forms that are part of our policies and SOPs. The templates have version/revision numbers and effective dates; however, we don't issue new version/revision numbers or effective dates when we change the data in the lists. Each list has a SOP describing how it is maintained.

Add an ADDITIONAL tab that says "revisions" and have all info on there (supersedes, current, changes, date...) So anything changed on one document tab, we add it to the "revisions" tab. that way we keep all that info up to date. works great for us

We have templates for such documents (like a product list or pest control chemical list) maintained as forms that are part of our policies and SOPs.
 

Same approach here - live documents like this are maintained as a template within the document control system. For spreadsheet-type ones (e.g. the complaints log that I have set up to automatically generate graphs, trending, analysis etc) the formulae are part of that doc controlled template, so that I know they're not being messed with and are thus still doing the intended thing.