Need design that allows users to pick from existing documents
A key feature of our product (which creates legal documents for companies) is our data room, which stores their corporate documents.
The data room has a large directory of pre-existing folders that can't be deleted - so when our product generates a document it goes to the right place. The user can also create their own folders and upload documents wherever they want to drop them.
Certain actions the user can take require providing documentation, which they can upload from their computer or pick from the data room.
Since we know what kind of document is needed, it could be tempting to simply let the user pick from a certain folder - (let's say they need to provide a board consent, any board consents we generate will be in Home > Corporate Governance > Board Consents>) But if the user created their own folder or uploaded a board consent into another folder, it would be a frustrating experience for them not to be able to pick that document.
On the other hand, it feels weird to make the user navigate their whole data-room file structure to find a document that we often know where it is.
I'm not sure how robust-vs-simple to make the document selection modal. I'm sure there has to be good patterns for this beyond Google Drive. Any suggestions?