Guide · updated 2026-10-28T00:00:00.000Z
How to Assemble an HR Case File
This page is general information, not legal, financial, or professional advice. Rules and requirements differ by organisation and change over time. Check the instructions you were given, or ask a qualified adviser, before you rely on it.
An HR case file is a small set of sensitive PDFs: the complaint, the investigation plan, the statements, the notes of meetings, and the outcome letter. People handling it need to cite a page without circulating five attachments. They also need the file not to sit on a consumer PDF website. InHousePDF’s HR template uses the sections complaint, investigation, statements, and outcome. Use those names or replace them with the labels your policy uses. This page does not tell you how to run the case. It tells you how to bind the PDFs you have already decided to include.
Keep the set narrow
Include documents the decision maker is expected to read. Do not add an entire mailbox because it was easy to export. Save emails and chat logs to PDF on your device if they belong in the file. Photographs of paper notes should be saved as PDF before you add them. Assign each file to a section. If a statement refers to an exhibit, put the exhibit immediately after that statement so the contents page reads in the same order as the argument.
A cover page can name the case by your internal reference, not by a headline. “Prepared for” can be the panel or the manager. The date should be the date of the pack, so a later reader knows which version they have. Continuous numbers with a prefix such as HR- make citations stable. If your policy says the outcome letter is unnumbered, leave numbering on and accept that the letter still receives a label, or build the letter as a separate one-page PDF you attach outside the numbered pack. The tool will number the pages you include. It will not apply a legal exception you did not configure.
Confidentiality is mostly about copies
The risky copy is the one you did not mean to make. Adding files here does not send them. The proof line after a download should say that no network request was made during assembly. Do not paste the pack into a personal drive to “keep a backup” if the case is supposed to live in the HR system. Download it, check the contents links, and file it in the system your policy names.
Bookmarks help a panel move from the complaint to the outcome during a meeting. Divider pages make the same breaks visible when someone prints. The CSV is useful for the case log. It contains the file names you added, because those names are the index. It does not contain page text. Do not put a person’s medical detail in a file name if the CSV will be stored beside the PDF.
What this is not
This is not employment advice and not a template investigation. A later review may need a different set of papers. That is a different instruction from a different team. If you need advice on what you must share, ask a qualified person. Use the tool only to assemble the PDFs you are already entitled to hold.
Check the file before you send it
Download the pack and open it on the same device. Read the cover, the contents page, and the first page of each section. Confirm the stamped numbers match the contents. Open the CSV beside it if a colleague needs the index in a spreadsheet. Only then send the pack by the route your process already uses: the company portal, the client’s secure room, or the email address in the instructions. Sending it there is a choice. Assembling it did not require a copy on someone else’s server.
If the proof panel lists a network request while the pack is built, stop and treat that as a fault. The expected count is zero. You can also switch the network off after the page has loaded and run the same steps. The worker does not need a connection to stamp numbers or write bookmarks.
InHousePDF is not a professional adviser and is not affiliated with a regulator or a professional body. The same buttons can prepare documents for a review, an audit, a submission, or a handover. The product does not decide which papers a process requires. You still follow the instructions you were given.