Docfile is the online tool for the administration of your doctorate in the following Faculties:

• Faculty of Human Sciences
• Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
• Faculty of Medicine
• Faculty of Law
• Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences

Doctoral candidates of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities must register with a.r.t.e.s. access.

Docfile was developed in close cooperation with the faculties in order to administrate your doctorate digitally from the application for admission as a doctoral candidate to the printing of the doctoral certificate.

The use of Docfile enables the following features for doctoral candidates (anticipated in November 2020):

• Update personal and contact data online
• Providing application forms for all matters concerning your doctorate
• Automated preparation of printable forms
• Simplified communication with the doctoral office and graduate institutions
• Automatic notifications for administrative process steps

If you have any questions regarding the use of Docfile, please contact the Main Docfile support of the AMC.

At the moment we are not available for telephone consultation.
Please contact us for support requests via e-mail.
e-mail: docfileverw.uni-koeln.de

Online consultation:
We will be happy to answer your support questions in our online consultation hour.
Please send us an e-mail to make an appointment and briefly describe your concern.
e-mail: docfileverw.uni-koeln.de

In case of technical problems please contact the Helpdesk of the Regional Computing Center (RRZK; rrzk-helpdeskuni-koeln.de, + 49 (0)221 470 89555).

For subject-specific questions, please contact the Docfile Support of your faculty.

Faculty of Human Sciences
hf-docfile@uni-koeln.de

Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
mnf-docfileuni-koeln.de

Faculty of Medicine
medfak-promotionuni-koeln.de

Faculty of Law
jura-docfileuni-koeln.de

Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences
promotionwiso.uni-koeln.de

For the registration in Docfile you can use your student UniKIM-ID. The student UniKIM-ID can be used up to one year after exmatriculation. The login data will remain valid for the duration of your doctorate.

Please use only your student UniKIM-ID for registration and not (if available) your UniKIM-ID as an employee.

If you do not have a UniKIM user account, you can also register with a new Docata user account in Docfile. You will find this option on the registration page

A registration in Docfile with the student uniKIM account is possible for up to one year after exmatriculation. Your old student uniKIM account will be reactivated.

Persons who are admitted as doctoral candidates in Docfile will continue to be registered with UniKIM after exmatriculation and can continue to use their access data.

If you have registered with your student uniKIM account (e.g. uniKIM ID: xymzb2), please use the corresponding password. If you have forgotten your uniKIM password, please contact RRZK support here

If you have registered with a Docata user account, please assign a new password here. 

If you have any questions regarding your user account or your user name, please contact the central Docfile Support. docfileverw.uni-koeln.de

The application for admission as a doctoral candidate and application to open the doctorate proceedings (available soon) takes about 45 min.

Please have all required documents ready for the application.
As a rule, these are: degree certificates, course of study/registration certificates, higher education entrance qualification, if applicable, supervision commitment or agreement and, if applicable, certification from your graduate school.

Depending on how far you have progressed with the registration, you have different possibilities to change your data.

With the status " Registered user" you can change your data by yourself at any time and, if necessary, save the changes and continue them at a later time.
Please note that with the status " Applicant" you can only change your data to a very limited extent. Please contact the doctoral office for this. You can change your contact data yourself. On the start page you will find a possibility to update them.

With the status „Admitted“ you have the possibility to update your data at any time. Once a year you will be contacted for a mandatory data update. The data update is also possible at any time. You can change your contact data yourself. On the start page you will find a possibility to update your (contact)data

Yes, registration in Docfile is also required for doctoral candidates who have already been accepted by the faculty. As part of the transition to electronic doctoral administration, all processes relevant to doctoral studies must be processed in Docfile. Please register as a doctoral candidate if you have already been accepted by the faculty. In the near future, prospective doctoral candidates will be able to apply electronically for admission as doctoral candidates in Docfile.

In Docfile there are different status information, which reflect the current processing status:

Applicant = This person has registered in Docfile and filled out and sent the digital assistant for the application "Admission as a doctoral candidate".

Admitted = This person has been admitted to the faculty as a doctoral candidate.

In the context of the transition to electronic doctoral administration and the collection of data for the University Statistics Law, the status information is currently being used to organize the registration of doctoral candidates.  If you have already been admitted to the University of Cologne as a doctoral candidate, but your status is still set to "Applicant", you do not yet provide all the necessary data for the University Statistics Law. Please check this in Docfile and contact your doctoral office.

In order to verify the data for the University Statistics Law, it is necessary to provide the following information in Docfile and upload a proof as a scan in Docfile.
- University entrance qualification (e.g. Abiturzeugnis)
- Final/examination certificates (e.g. Bachelor's/Master's certificates. For international degrees, please have the entire document including the transcript of records ready).
- Certificate of progress of studies (e.g. certificate of course of study from KLIPS 2.0)

If you have provided all these details in Docfile with the corresponding proofs, your information is complete. Please check your data in Docfile and add any missing information and upload any supporting documents in the documents section.

Further information on the University Statistics Law can be found here.

Registration in Docfile includes the creation of a user account and the completion of the digital assistant for the application "Admission as a doctoral candidate" with the submission of the entries on the last slide.

You will find the digital assistant on the second tile after logging in on the start page at " Please register here".

Soon you will have the possibility to declare the discontinuation of your doctorate in Docfile via the digital assistant for data update. Until then, please continue to contact your supervisor and your doctoral office directly to declare the discontinuation of your doctorate. In order to exmatriculate as a doctoral student, it is also necessary to notify the Student Application and Registration Office of the discontinuation of your doctoral studies and to exmatriculate.

If you are thinking about discontinuing your doctorate, you can contact the Albertus Magnus Center team confidentially at any time. We will discuss the next steps with you and put you in contact with the appropriate office.

In case of problems and conflicts, you can also contact the ombudsperson of your own faculty, but also of any other faculty.

Furthermore, you can also contact the general ombudsperson for Early-career researchers at the University of Cologne.

Soon it will be possible to change your name in Docfile via the digital assistant for data update.

Until then, please continue to contact your supervisor and the relevant doctoral office directly.

In order to process your name change, it is always necessary to upload a proof in your electronic doctoral file.

While the provision of University Statistics Law-relevant data is mandatory, there are some optional data fields in Docfile. These are used for the administrative support of doctoral projects, the design of qualification measures and the quality assurance of doctorates. The University of Cologne relies on your assistance in answering optional questions in order to continuously expand and optimise the offerings for young academics. Your data will be processed anonymously for quality assurance purposes.

Administrators in the AMC can delete entered data.

Please contact us with any deletion requests docfile@verw.uni-koeln.de.

After the admission as a doctoral candidate in Docfile, you will find two tiles on the start page. One is the update of contact data and the other is the confirmation of admission.

Via the first tile you can update your contact details. If you cannot change your contact data, please contact docfile@verw.uni-koeln.de to have the data corrected by an administrator.

With the status "Registered user" you can change your information yourself at any time and, if necessary, save the editing and continue it at a later time.

Please note that with the status " Applicant" you can only change your data to a very limited extent. Please contact the doctoral office for this. You can change your contact data yourself. On the start page you will find a possibility to update them.

With the status „Admitted“ you have the possibility to update your data at any time. Once a year you will be contacted for a mandatory data update. The data update is also possible at any time. You can change your contact data yourself. On the start page you will find a possibility to update your (contact)data.

Open your postgraduate record with a click on the "D" icon next to your profile. The tab "Documents" appears on the lower left. Here you will find all your documents. To upload new ones, click on "Add document". Now you can select a document, name it and choose the document type (e.g. Supervisory Agreement). Click on "Save" to complete the upload.

To upload documents for your coordinator of the respective structured graduate institutions, please proceed as follows:

Open your graduate program membership record with a click on the "G" icon next to your profile. The tab "Documents" appears on the lower left. Here you will find all your documents. To upload new ones, click on "Add document". Now you can select a document, name it and choose the document type (e.g. Research progress report). Click on "Save" to complete the upload.

Please note that in the future you will upload relevant documents to Docfile only.

Since you will receive important information exclusively via Docfile in the future, it is necessary to keep your data up to date.

Registration in Docfile does not automatically lead to enrollment. This is only possible via the Student Application and Registration Office and must be done separately.