Can I make my app recognize the type of document my users have uploaded ?

Question

This is not about using ContentType to identify the type of file (.pdf,.doc,.xls etc). This is about identifying which type of company form/document my user has uploaded. For instance, I have an app which manages our external partners. And for those partners we need such things as a govt Regulations Form or a Tax Form.

I would love to be able to identify which type of document a user has uploaded in order for the system to identify what has been obtained and what still needs to be gotten from the partner.

I was thinking that maybe creating multiple Notes & Attachment type of related lists which were specific to the type of forms (ie a Tax Form related list ; a Regulations related list) would do this since I could identify if any of those lists had anything in them. But I don't know if that's feasible.

The only other way I can think of possibly accomplishing this is to prompt the user to check a box indicating the type of document he is uploading. But that isn't really what I'm looking for.

Should I maybe be approaching this with Content instead of Attachments ?

Thank you very much for any feedback.

Answer 1

Interesting Question :
I am not sure , but can this be done ?!

Read uploaded files content's :

Let say you are aware that your Regulations Form : First Sentence = "My Regulation Form" or a Tax Form : First Sentence = "This is a Tax form for the year..."

If yes then you can read your file contents by using something like this : (It works for .txt - see if it works for all other files )

    public PageReference readContent() {
    fileContent = fileBody.toString();
     /* your business logic : like here : Compare first line with 
         - accordingly use your business logic  
   */
   }