Attachments provide a simple way to upload and associate related files with existing documents or object records without the overhead of Vault’s full document management capabilities.

Unlike documents in Vault, attachments don’t have a document type, fields, lifecycle, workflows, or annotations. They won’t appear in document tabs or in reports, but they can appear in searches when using Advanced Search. An attachment is much like other files in Vault without the power and complexity of a full-fledged document. You can add any type of file as an attachment, but Vault can only render certain file formats for display in the viewer.

Attachments on Documents

Vault allows attachments on documents, content placeholders, binders, and CrossLinks. When enabled, the Attachments section appears in the fields panel on the Doc Info page.

Version-Specific Attachments

Version-specific attachments build on Vault’s version-specific document relationship functionality to let you associate attachments to specific document versions. This setting can be:

  • Source version-specific: An attachment relates to a specific document version
  • Target version-specific: Documents relate to a specific version of the attachment

Version-Specific Attachments with Auto Carry Forward

Veeva Support can also configure version-specific attachment relationships to carry forward automatically. When enabled, versioning a document carries attachments forward to the new document version. Versioning an attachment assigns the new attachment version only to the current document version.

Attachment Version History

When both version-specific attachment relationship types are enabled in your Vault, you can filter in the Attachment Version History dialog to show attachment versions for the document version you’re viewing or for all versions of the attachment. To open the dialog, navigate to an attachment in the Attachments panel on the Doc Info page. Click Version History in the attachment’s Actions menu. All actions you take on attachments, including downloads, appear in the audit trail.

Note that in the Show all attachments view, you cannot delete attachments in the Attachment Version History dialog.

Attachments on Object Records

Object attachments are files connected to a specific object record. For example, you could attach a copy of a related email to a Product record. When enabled, the Attachments section appears in the object’s record detail pages.

Attachment Limits

By default, a document or object record can have up to 100 attachments.

Files that you upload as attachments cannot have filenames which exceed 218 bytes, including the file extension. Note that one (1) character does not always equal one (1) byte. For example, the character “菌” is three (3) bytes.