I’ve been talking to my colleagues about document control, in this case wrt product specifications and why it’s important we don’t save them onto laptops in case the specs may be varied by the technical department.

I’ve been referring to this as ‘one true instance’ and they look at me as if I’ve climbed off a Martian spaceship.

What’s the correct phrase for it then? Or does each company have it’s own term?

Master Copy
Master Document
Controlled Copy

…are all terms that I’ve seen used.

We just use the term ‘version control’ rather than some management w**k speak.

Configuration control/document control/version control (or replace ‘control’ with ‘management’)

or what gonefishin said to refer to the documents themselves

terminology here is –
“Controlled document” refers to the master copy or “one true instance” you refer to
“Uncontrolled documents ” refer to either documents not part of the process or documents checked out of the store and printed or liable to unaudited editing

Good luck trying to get non-believers to understand document control! (Or why it’s the most important thing ever.)

document/version control.

Or (more for data) Single Point Of Truth:)

Or (more for data) Single Point Of Truth:)

That’s probably the area I picked ‘one true instance’ from, at a former company when we got taken over I was part of the team consolidating sales and customer data from the two companies together, and then refereeing the disputes when the sales teams disagreed with their sales numbers* because they were using non-‘one true instance’ source data.

* They didn’t give a toss about sales numbers, it was commission statements they were interested in…..

We have a Single Point of Truth Sales system at work, called Salesforce. The reality is it’s a single point of fiction as no one seems to ever update it properly.