Compound documents are used for grouping documents that are somehow related. A typical example is a group of documents that belongs to the same case, such as an insurance claim or a loan application. Insurance cases, for example, might contain claims forms, estimates and receipts, invoices, and different kinds of certificates. The documents all enter the system together and are then grouped into compound documents by case.
It is possible to create validation rules between documents in the compound, when documents are grouped into compounds. Using rules you can cross-check data between documents as well as check that specific information is found on all documents within the compound, ensuring that the documents belong together.
It is also possible to use a rule to automatically copy a value from one document to all other documents within the same compound document. This can be useful if you have a value, such as a claim number or customer number, that is only available on one of the documents in the compound, but which must be available on all documents in the target system.
See the compound document section of Examples of validation rules for some examples of the types of rules mentioned above.
Finally, all documents that are part of the same compound document are output together.
Setting up a compound document specification
Opening a compound document specification