Frequently asked questions¶

For: all users and prospective customers

Straight answers to the questions we hear most.

How secure are my documents?¶

Very — security is designed in, not bolted on:

Encryption everywhere. All traffic is HTTPS/TLS; documents are stored encrypted at rest on AWS S3.
Passwords we never touch. Sign-in runs on AWS Cognito — Fluvial's own servers never store or handle your password.
Hardened portal links. Recipient links use 256-bit random tokens, stored hashed, revocable; share links also expire after 30 days.
A permanent record. An append-only audit trail and immutable issued transmittals mean the record can't be quietly rewritten — by anyone.

What happens if my subscription lapses?¶

Your data is never deleted without notification. If a payment fails, the account is flagged past due while Stripe retries — nothing is restricted yet. If the subscription ultimately cancels (or you downgrade below your current project count):

every project, document, transmittal, and portal link stays accessible and downloadable;
creating new projects and new transmittals is blocked while you're over the limit;
upgrading again — or reducing your project count — unblocks creation immediately.

See Billing and subscriptions.

Is there a limit to how many documents Fluvial can store?¶

No. There is no document count or storage quota — plans are priced purely on the number of active projects. A project can hold as many documents, versions, and native files as the job needs. The full list of actual limits is short: Limits at a glance.

What if I accidentally issue the wrong file?¶

Issued transmittals are deliberately permanent — the record must stay true even when its content was wrong. The correction path:

Cut off casual access if needed. Revoke the transmittal's share links (After issue).
Issue a correcting transmittal with the right document — usually as the next revision, though Fluvial does allow the same revision to be issued more than once. Recipients get a fresh email, and the register shows the new revision as current with the old one superseded.
Withdraw the wrong version if it should never be used (Withdraw a document or version).
Tell the recipients — the access history shows whether anyone actually downloaded the wrong file, so you know who to call.

The audit trail records both the mistake and the correction — which is exactly what a defensible document control record looks like.

How does Fluvial extract document metadata?¶

When you upload a PDF, Fluvial renders the drawing's title block (or the first page of a multi-page report) and has an AI vision model read it — like a person would — returning the document number, name, and revision. Only values the model reads clearly are pre-filled; anything uncertain is left blank for you to type. Nothing is committed until you confirm it. Details: Automatic metadata extraction.

Do my recipients need a Fluvial account?¶

No. Recipients get an email with a private portal link — that link is their access. No account, no password, no software. See You've received a transmittal.

Can I change a document number after issuing?¶

Yes — a document's number and name stay editable at any time (handy for a register-wide renumbering), and edits are audit-logged. What locks at issue is the version's revision name and the content of issued transmittals.

How many users can I add?¶

As many as you like — every plan includes unlimited users. Pricing counts active projects only.

Can I raise a limit on my account?¶

Yes. Limits such as the number of recipients on a transmittal, the contacts in a contact group and your daily email allowance exist to keep Fluvial's mail landing in inboxes rather than spam folders — but they are all adjustable. Email support@efficussoftware.com with what you are trying to do; raising an allowance is routine and rarely means changing plan. The full list is in Limits at a glance.

Can I use Fluvial for documents I don't want to send anyone?¶

Yes. Upload into a draft transmittal and simply never issue it, or issue with No distribution to formalise the set without sending emails. The register tracks the documents either way.

Still stuck?¶

Troubleshooting for specific error messages.
support@efficussoftware.com for everything else.