When a file is uploaded from the file system into ProjectWise, it becomes a document. Documents contain metadata about the file in the form of general properties (such as document description, associated application, document status, document creation date (the date the file was first imported into ProjectWise)), and custom environment attributes. The files themselves are stored on a file server, whereas document metadata is stored in the ProjectWise database.

You can also create something called a placeholder document, which is simply a container of metadata, that has no file attached. Placeholder documents can be used to represent files you are planning to import into ProjectWise, or hard copy documents or drawings that maybe just exist in a file cabinet somewhere.

You can create documents by dragging files from Windows Explorer into ProjectWise Explorer, or by using the various Document > New commands in ProjectWise Explorer. You can also create your documents with or without the assistance the Advanced Document Creation Wizard, which walks you through the process of creating one or more documents. You can set this as your default method for creating documents, or you can decide on a case-by-case basis which method you want to use.

When you create documents using Document > New, and before you attach a file, the default name given to the file is " docX ", where X is a self-incrementing number. When you create multiple documents, the first document name will be given the lowest number available and the remaining document names will each increment by 1 (for example, doc00006, doc00007, and so on). So if a folder already contains a document named doc00001, the next document you create in that folder will be named doc00002. If you attach a file to the document, the default document name is automatically replaced by the name of the file.