When you're building your Data Room, you won't always have every document ready to upload right away, or some files might not be applicable at all. Placeholders let you maintain a clean, complete structure while clearly communicating to users what's missing, pending, or not applicable. A placeholder is not a file, it acts as a short textual reference.
How to use placeholders
- A placeholder can indicate that a question from the questionnaire is not applicable, available or that it is being processed.
- A placeholder can indicate that the information can be found in another folder (then a file does not need to be uploaded twice).
- When a document is deleted after the Data Room has been opened a placeholder can be used to maintain the indexation, the deleted document is replaced by a placeholder.
- If a document is going to be uploaded later and you want to prevent changes in the index, a placeholder can be used until then.
- A placeholder is part of the closing archive on USB. However if a description is added to a placeholder to provide more information, this is not added to the USB.
How to insert placeholders
1. Navigate to the Documents section of your Data Room.
2. Select the folder (or subfolder) where you want to insert the placeholder.
3. Look for the + in the toolbar and click Add placeholder.
4. Give your placeholder a name or write down a note (Yes/No/Not Applicable/N/A).
5. If you would like to share the placeholder right away, select the 'Publish' option. This makes it visible to the users already invited to the Data Room (sell side and buy side).
6. If you would like to keep the placeholder hidden until a later moment, select the 'Keep hidden' option. Later on, set the permissions for the sell side and buy side and publish the documents.
Please note: If you have selected steps 5 and 6, this means the users can see the folders after setting the desired permissions.
7. Click Add to finalize the action. (Users are notified when a new placeholder is created).
Example:
The list is not available yet? Create a placeholder to inform users in the Data Room about this. Remove the placeholder when it is available.