Publish approved documents to SharePoint

Before you start: two one-off steps

This needs two things done once, by two different people, before you can configure anything yourself:

1. 1

   The Site Book support binds your Microsoft tenant.

   Email [email protected]. We confirm the connection works before it's attached to your account — this is a sales-assisted step, not self-serve, because one Microsoft tenant can only ever be bound to one Site Book account.

2. 2

   Your IT admin grants consent and a site permission.

   We'll send your admin the exact steps: admin consent for The Site Book's app in your tenant, then a write permission on the ONE SharePoint site you want to use. No tenant-wide file access is ever requested.

Connect a SharePoint destination

1. 1

   Open Settings → Integrations → Microsoft 365.

   The Microsoft connection card confirms your Microsoft tenant is bound, with your service principal object id (your IT admin needs this if you also set up Teams notifications).

2. 2

   In the SharePoint card, enter the site URL, library and folder, then click Save destination.

   Saving checks the site, library and folder with read-only lookups (showing the exact problem if one fails — for example a missing permission) and only saves once that check passes. A successful save counts as verified, so you don't need to click Verify connection before publishing. The Verify connection and Upload test file buttons appear once a destination has been saved.

3. 3

   Optionally, click Upload test file to prove a real write works.

   This writes one small text file into the configured folder so you can see it land in SharePoint before any real document does.

4. 4

   Use Verify connection later to re-check the saved destination.

   It re-checks what's SAVED, not unsaved edits in the fields — to change the site, library or folder, edit the fields and click Save destination again. Use it after your IT admin fixes a permission or a missing folder: a successful check re-queues publications that were paused for that reason and starts publishing them straight away — unless Pause publishing (further down the same SharePoint card) is ticked, in which case they stay paused and publish automatically once you untick it.

Turn on automatic publishing

Two independent toggles, both off by default:

1. 1

   Publish automatically after approval — publishes as soon as a version is approved and issue-confirmed.

   Turning this on does NOT retroactively publish anything already approved — only approvals from that point forward. An approval that comes in while publishing is paused, while the destination is waiting to be re-verified, or while your Microsoft connection is disabled is kept as a Paused row in Delivery history and publishes automatically when that clears (untick Pause publishing, a successful Verify connection, or support re-enabling the connection). It still has to be issue-confirmed before anything is sent.

2. 2

   Publish new signed copies automatically — republishes as its own file when a document that's already published gets a new signature revision.

3. 3

   Use Pause publishing any time to stop new copies without losing your configuration.

   It's the last tick-box on the SharePoint card of Settings → Integrations → Microsoft 365, and it only holds SharePoint uploads — Teams notifications, including approval-request cards, keep sending. To stop those too, turn off Channel enabled in the Teams notifications section further down the same page. Unticking Pause publishing resumes, in the SAME action, everything that was waiting for it — including approvals and manual publishes that came in while it was paused — so you don't need to separately click Resume paused for those.

Publish one document, or a whole project

1. 1

   On a document's page, use the Publish to SharePoint button in the SharePoint panel.

   If the version isn't approved yet, the button explains why. If it hasn't been issue-confirmed, the button reads Confirm issue & publish: it asks you to tick the issue-confirmation statement, records your confirmation, then publishes. Your confirmation is recorded even when publishing can't happen right then. If publishing is paused, the destination isn't verified or your Microsoft connection is disabled, the document is held as Paused in Delivery history and goes out once when that clears; if no SharePoint destination is set up, the message says nothing was published to SharePoint.

2. 2

   On a project's Documents tab, use Publish approved documents to SharePoint to batch every eligible current version.

   The result groups documents into queued, already published and skipped (with the reason — for example still awaiting approval), and offers Download register (CSV) — one row per publication attempt (a document can appear more than once if it was retried or republished): type, version, artefact kind, approval details, SHA-256 and SharePoint link, with no worker names or emails. If publishing is paused, the destination isn't verified, or your Microsoft connection is disabled, the button tells you straight away and queues nothing, rather than listing every document as skipped.

History, retry and troubleshooting

The Delivery history table on the settings page lists every publication attempt: document, version, whether it's the approved PDF or a signed copy, status in plain language, and a link straight to the file in SharePoint. A failed or paused row gets a Retry button (account owners and admins); Resume paused retries every paused row at once after you've fixed the underlying issue (for example a permission your IT admin needs to re-grant). A Paused row's message says what it is waiting for — publishing to be resumed, a successful Verify connection, or your Microsoft connection to be re-enabled — and, if the version hasn't been confirmed for issue yet, that it needs that confirmation too before anything is sent.

If you change the SharePoint destination while a manual publish is paused, The Site Book carries the request forward only for the same approved, current document version and exact file. If a newer version or signed copy has replaced it, the old request is shown as Cancelled in Delivery history with an explanation. Review the current document, complete any required approval and issue confirmation, then click Publish to SharePoint again. A destination change never treats the old click as permission to publish a newer version.

If a publication is paused because the configured site, library or folder went missing or a permission was removed, clicking Verify connection (or saving the same destination again) after you've fixed it in SharePoint re-queues those paused rows and starts publishing them straight away — you don't need to also click Resume paused. Unless Pause publishing (on the same SharePoint card) is ticked, in which case they stay paused and publish automatically once you untick it. If the folder was deleted and recreated (even with the exact same name), Verify checks it's genuinely the SAME folder and tells you to re-save the destination rather than reporting a false "Verified".

A publication paused with a tenant mismatch (Microsoft answered for a different tenant than the one bound to your account) is deliberately NOT retried by Verify connection — The Site Book support needs to check your tenant binding first. Once they've confirmed it, use Resume paused (or publish the document again if the binding was changed).

Clicking Retry on an older row from before you changed the destination publishes the document to the CURRENT destination and marks the old row Cancelled, so it stops offering a retry that can never succeed.

If a row says it's waiting on The Site Book's Microsoft 365 set-up, that's on our side — it retries automatically and there's nothing you need to click.

File names in SharePoint

Each published file is named `<project reference> - <document type> (<short document id>) - v<version>.pdf` (signed copies add ` - signed r<revision>`). The short id keeps two documents of the same type in one project — for example two separate Toolbox Talks — from ever colliding on the same file name.

Limitations

One SharePoint site, library and folder per account for now — not per project. Each file is capped at 25 MB. Nothing already copied to SharePoint is ever recalled, renamed or overwritten by a later change. This copies files into a SharePoint library your organisation already controls — it doesn't create public or anonymous sharing links, and The Site Book never reads anything else in that library.