bench get-app https://github.com/ernestoruiz89/Frappe-Document-Management

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Document Management

Document Management is a standalone app for the Frappe Framework, designed to archive, index, and organize your digital documents.

Inspiration: This project is heavily inspired by Paperless-ngx, bringing robust document organization, optical character recognition (OCR), and full-text/semantic search directly into the Frappe ecosystem.

Features

• Document Categorization: Organize documents with categories, tags, and customizable views.
• OCR Integration: Automatically extract text from scanned documents and images using OCRmyPDF.
• Advanced Search: Full-text indexing powered by Tantivy and semantic search using local or remote embeddings.
• Document Chat: Ask questions about your documents using an integrated RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) system.

Installation

1. Prerequisites

Ensure you have a working Frappe bench (version 15+). You may also need to install system dependencies for OCR and document preview generation (like LibreOffice for converting office documents to PDF):

# Ubuntu/Debian example for OCRmyPDF and LibreOffice
sudo apt-get install ocrmypdf tesseract-ocr
sudo apt-get install -y libreoffice-core libreoffice-writer libreoffice-calc libreoffice-impress default-jre

LibreOffice Writer, Calc, and Impress provide the filters used to convert Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files to PDF.

2. Get the App

Download the app into your bench directory:

cd /path/to/your/frappe-bench
bench get-app https://github.com/ernestoruiz89/Frappe-Document-Management.git

3. Install on a Site

Install the app onto your Frappe site:

bench --site [your-site-name] install-app document_management

4. Install Python Dependencies

This app may require additional Python libraries for semantic search and AI integrations (like sentence-transformers, antivy, openai, etc.). Ensure they are installed in your bench's virtual environment:

./env/bin/pip install -e apps/document_management

(Note: Define your dependencies in pyproject.toml before running this).

Configuration

After installation, go to the Document Management Console in your Frappe interface to get started. You can configure AI providers, OCR settings, and search indices via the Document Management Settings page.

Physical document storage

By default, files keep Frappe's standard /private/files storage layout. To organize document files into metadata-based folders, set File Storage Path Template in Document Management Settings. The path is always relative to /private/files and supports these tokens:

documents/{category}/{year}/{month}
documents/{department}/{status}
documents/{document_code}

Supported tokens are {category}, {department}, {document}, {document_code}, {status}, {year}, and {month}. Existing files are moved when a document is saved and new uploads are placed in the configured path.

Enable Encrypt Document Files at Rest to encrypt private document originals and generated previews on disk using the site's encryption_key from site_config.json, the same key family Frappe uses for encrypted passwords. Back up site_config.json; encrypted files cannot be recovered without that key.

Folder ingestion

Enable Folder Ingestion in Document Management Settings to import files from a server-side folder on the hourly scheduler. The scanner is non-recursive: each supported file in Ingestion Folder Path is uploaded as a new Document using the filename stem as the title. Successfully imported files are moved to Done Folder Path; failed files are moved to Error Folder Path with a .error.txt note. If done/error paths are blank, done and error folders are created inside the ingestion folder.

Advanced document search syntax

The Document Management Console search box accepts normal text and optional field filters:

contract status:Published category:Legal
title:"loan agreement" code:LN-2026
tag:Urgent -tag:Archived
department:Finance owner:admin@example.com
created:2026-01-01..2026-01-31 modified:>=2026-06-01
description:"retention notes" ocr:"signed by"

Supported fields are title, name, code/document_code, description, content/ocr, category, status, department, owner, tag, created, and modified. Prefix a filter with - to exclude matches.

Optional ERPNext integration

Department-based document access requires ERPNext/HRMS DocTypes such as Department and Employee. If they are not installed, Document Management keeps working as a standalone Frappe app: department fields are hidden in the UI and department access rules are ignored. Role, owner, category, share, and standard document permissions continue to apply.

Archive integrity check

Run a read-only audit of document originals, generated previews, checksums, OCR state, duplicate version numbers, and orphaned file references:

bench --site [your-site-name] execute \
  document_management.frappe_document_management.utils.archive_sanity.check_document_archive

The same audit runs weekly and logs a Frappe error entry only when issues are detected.