Engineering note
A file management system for an ISO accreditation finding
John Adrian Ticatic · Nov 2026 · 2 min read
During my workplace's ISO accreditation, one of the findings concerned how documents were stored: shared network folders. They're easy to use, but they don't offer the control an accreditation expects, such as who can open which files and a record of what changed.
As part of my role, I built a File Management System to address it.
What it does
It's a web app built with React, TypeScript, Node.js and PostgreSQL, used across the company. What each person can see depends on their department and access level.
- Department-based access: files and folders are organized by department and category, and permissions decide who can view, upload or manage them.
- Activity history: uploads, moves and changes are logged.
- Search, starred files and sharing.
- In-browser previews for PDFs and images.
- Built-in team chat using WebSockets.
A current limitation
Browsers can't display or edit Word and Excel files natively. PDFs and images open in a preview, but an Office file has to be downloaded, edited and uploaded again.
I've proposed integrating Microsoft 365 so these files can be opened and saved from the app. It hasn't been approved yet, so for now the download-and-re-upload flow stays.
Company files are confidential, so the live demo is read-only with sample files. More details are in the case study.