Dossier support and user guide

Updated August 26, 2026

This page covers Dossier, the app that turns the work tracked in your Jira into a controlled document. It is both the support channel and the manual.

Getting help

Write to info@vortexlabsia.com with Dossier in the subject.

We answer within one business day. If your report includes the three things below, most answers arrive with a fix or a workaround already in them:

  • The Jira site you are on (the yourcompany.atlassian.net part).
  • What you clicked and what happened, in your own words.
  • If a document came out wrong, the document itself, or the issue key Dossier created.

Never send us passwords or API tokens. We never ask for them, and we cannot use them: the app has no server of ours to connect to.

What Dossier does

You pick which Jira issues the document covers. Dossier builds a document with a cover page, a version number, the issue date, who issued it, a content fingerprint and a signature line, and attaches it to a new Jira issue. Every page carries the document name, its version and Page X of Y.

It runs entirely inside Atlassian. Nothing you put into it reaches us or anyone else.

Setting it up, once

Open Apps → Dossier in Jira, then the Document setup tab. This is where the document gets its face, and it is the same for the whole Jira site, so only a Jira administrator can change it. Everyone else can read the setup and generate documents with it.

  • The title and the organisation printed on the cover.
  • The wording of every label. Document version, Issued on, Prepared by and the rest are yours to rename, in your own language. They start in English because the app is sold worldwide.
  • The columns the table carries, including your own Jira custom fields.
  • The paper size, A4 or US Letter. Word and PDF both follow it, unless you upload a template of your own, which brings its own.
  • Your logo, if you want one on the cover.

Generating a document

In the Generate tab:

  1. Pick the project. Optionally narrow it by status and by period. If you already have a saved Jira filter, pick that instead.
  2. Check the scope line under the button. It is what gets printed as the scope of the document.
  3. Choose the format: PDF and Word, or one of them.
  4. Generate document. Dossier creates a new Jira issue, attaches the files and shows you the version number, the date, who issued it and the fingerprint.
  5. Open the issue with the button and download the file. Who can open that issue is decided by your own Jira permissions, like any other issue.

Versions, history and the fingerprint

The document is defined by its scope. Emit the same scope again next month and it becomes version 2, then 3, and the document carries a revision history listing the versions it replaces, each with its date and who issued it. Change the scope and it is a different document, starting again at version 1.

The content fingerprint is a short code printed on the document. It covers what is printed: the title, the organisation, the scope and the table. It does not cover the date or the version number, on purpose, so that two emissions of the same period can be compared. If two copies show the same fingerprint, the content is the same, even after the file has been printed, scanned or photocopied.

Using your own Word template

In the Your template tab you can upload the report your clients already know. Dossier writes one row per issue inside your own table and leaves your headings, fonts, borders and page setup exactly as they are.

Two things worth knowing before you upload:

  • The rows in your table get replaced. Your template’s table should show the columns and, if you like, one example row. Dossier removes the existing rows and writes one per issue.
  • With a template in use, the output is Word only. Turning your Word file into a PDF would mean sending it to a converter outside Atlassian, and nothing you upload ever leaves your Jira. To get a PDF, open the document and use Save as PDF in Word itself, which knows your styles better than any converter we could put in here.

Limits worth knowing before you start

We would rather you read these here than find them out on the day you have to deliver:

  • Paper size is A4 or US Letter, chosen in Document setup. There is no other size, and with a template of your own the size comes from your file instead.
  • In PDF, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew and Thai come out as question marks. The PDF carries a font that covers Europe, Turkey and Russia. Word keeps all of them correctly, because it uses the fonts on the machine that opens the file. Right-to-left text is stored faithfully, and how it is laid out has not been verified.
  • Up to 4,000 issues per document. Above that, ask us: the limit is a safety margin, not a wall.
  • The table header repeating on every page in Word depends on the program that opens the file. Word with print layout shows it; some viewers ignore it. In PDF it always repeats, because there we do the pagination ourselves.

Licences and billing

Atlassian bills you and pays us. Dossier is free for Jira sites with up to 10 users, and priced per user above that. If a Jira site has no active subscription, the app still shows your setup and your history, and generating a new document is what pauses until the subscription is back.

For anything about invoices, refunds or the subscription itself, Atlassian is the one who can act on it. For anything about the app, write to us.

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