Key concepts
The vocabulary Dossia uses, and the two rules worth memorizing.
A short glossary of the terms you'll see everywhere in Dossia, followed by the two rules that explain most of the product's behavior.
Glossary
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Client | A person you collect documents from. First name and a unique email are required; you can also record their preferred language (EN/FR/PT), source, loan amount, and status. |
| Document registry | Your team's shared catalog of document types. Each entry has a key, a label and description in English, French, and Portuguese, an optional helper video URL, and a required-by-default flag. |
| Block | A reusable checklist template built from registry documents. Blocks come in four kinds: Core (always-on, included in every case), Profile (exactly one per case, matching the client's situation, e.g. "Salaried employee"), Add-ons (as many as needed), and Custom. |
| Case (request list) | One collection request: a client, the selected blocks, any custom items, the client's language, and an internal label. A case has a status that moves from draft to completed. |
| Custom item | A free-form document row added during compose (e.g. "Latest bank statement"). Custom items are always required. |
| Client portal | The private, tokenized link your client uses to upload documents. No account, app, or password needed. |
| Internal label | The name you give a case for your own reference (e.g. "Mortgage application — June"). Never shown to the client. |
The two big rules
1. Labels are frozen at compose time
When you create a case, the document labels and descriptions in the client's language are copied into the case as-is. If you later edit a block or a registry entry, already-composed cases never change — your client keeps seeing exactly what you sent. Edits only affect cases you compose afterwards.
2. Progress counts validated items only
A case's progress percentage counts validated documents — not uploaded ones. An upload only moves the needle once you've reviewed and validated it. Likewise, a case becomes Collection completed automatically when all required items are validated; optional items never block completion.
Note: Keep these two rules in mind and the rest of Dossia behaves predictably: what the client sees is a snapshot, and what counts as done is what you've signed off on.
For the full set of case and per-document statuses, see collecting documents.