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Manage Your Documents and Your Time

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PCQ Bureau
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Every organization has chunk of data that needs to be stored in a way that it is easily searchable and retrievable by its employees spread across geographies. This brings in a need to manage documents effectively with the right software which is critical for an organization's ability to remain competitive and provide superior service to their clients. A Document Management Solution (DMS) is an answer to effectively manage an enterprise's information and also cut down costs and improve enterprise productivity in the long run.

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Solutions for managing your documents

Document management as a solution is a very broad area and it refers to storage and workflow of 'traditional' documents which includes paper/hardcopy and electronic data such as Microsoft Word files and other common business document formats. Some of the most basic benefits that a document management solution provides include effective use of information by improving knowledge management and accessibility of information, reducing staff numbers for managing corporate records, faster retrieval of information, reduction in the number of document versions, archiving non-'live' documents, etc.

Moving to types of DMS solutions, there are ones that range from software solutions that provide management of files in electronic formats, to some that include an imaging system that converts paper documents into electronic format. John Brand, Vice President, Springboard Research throws light on the general types of implementations that are seen starting with the more basic of document management projects, up to very complex ones.

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- Simple/basic DRMS (document, records management): This includes storage and management of documents and records, both paper and electronic in format. This is typically built around the need for secure access to information and to ensure its integrity.

- Advanced DRMS (commonly known as “ECM” or enterprise content management): This is an extension of the simple implementation that can include a much wider range of information formats — ­typically imaging, diagrams/plans, audio/video and web content management.

- EC3M (enterprise content, collaboration and communications management): This is an approach that takes any information — regardless of format, structure or location, and applies common processes to it. Few organizations have the maturity or the infrastructure to take full advantage of this approach yet. But we're seeing more and more movement towards a more holistic and unified approach to managing information.

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Features, benefits of DMS

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Major benefit that a DMS provides, is a central repository of enterprises documents which is provided with restricted access so as to ensure and maintain document security. Indexing of the stored documents can be done by creating index fields for documents to enable quicker retrieval. Document attributes like name, type, date of modification, index fields, etc can be used to search documents. Integration of third-party tools and software can also be done with the basic document management solution to provide enhanced functionalities. For example, an e-mail module like Outlook Express can be integrated with the solution and users can import their current email accounts and address books into the DMS. Additionally, a scan module can be developed which will enable users to scan important paper documents, convert them into electronic format and store them.

Delivery models

Let's look at the various delivery models of document management solution that are available in the market and the solutions best suited for mid-sized businesses.

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On-premise model: Traditionally, if a company wanted to implement a DMS, it would buy software under a license agreement from a vendor along with what the enterprise needs to pay for annual maintenance. Also an implementation partner would have to be engaged for deploying the software. So in effect, you are investing in software, hardware, maintenance and implementation partner. Due to the heavy investment and the scale of implementation, small and mid-sized enterprises did not opt for a DMS on-premise model.

SaaS-based model: In the recent past, software providers started hosting DMS at discrete data centers that were either owned or leased by the vendors and started delivering these via Internet using a common web-browser. The USP of SaaS based model that makes it highly feasible for the small and mid size businesses is the subscription pricing that has to be paid annually, quarterly or monthly. The customer does not have to pay huge license fees, and go through the complexities of deploying a DMS, or worry about upgrades or maintenance.

The added benefit here is that, it gives the freedom to deploy only the features that are needed the most, and enables organizations to avail more features as and when needed and only pay for what is being used. With quite a few SaaS DMS offerings available in the market, mid-sized businesses have atleast started evaluating the available SaaS-based solutions.

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Also as such, a DMS can be accessed from anywhere with Internet connection and this becomes quite beneficial for remote and mobile workers. Yes, there are a few areas of concern, that include issues of connectivity, bandwidth availability and utilization, complications arising from dealing with such large data volumes and challenges with user adoption, training and support. But the benefits for a enterprise in the long run are quite a lot and makes it worth to give SaaS DMS a try.

Saas-based DMS

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Here we discuss about some of the SaaS-based DMS available in the market and the features that they have.

LuitDox SaaS: Among the major features include, complete role-based user management; integrated workflow management that facilitates submission, review and document approvals; complete document audit trail, that displays who viewed, modified, etc a document and also ­document metadata management that ensures that every document has its associated metadata which can be used to give documents and folders business sense. Also it comes with the advanced search functionality that helps a user to search, based on various parameters. It is priced at US $20 per user per month (minimum of 2 users and 500 MB web space per account).

M-Files Cloud Vault: This is a service based on M-files which is a management solution that enables businesses to easily organize, manage and track their important documents in the cloud.

You can install M-files software or connect via browser without installing any software and start saving and organizing business documents. Files can include documents from Office applications like Word or Excel, searchable PDF files from scanners, emails with or without attachments, and any other file from any Windows application. It has feature of automatically maintaining version history every time documents are created or changed. Also the solution makes available the documents in the offline mode with their Virtual Local Drive technology. So even if the consumer doesn't have access to Internet like while travelling or while the office network goes down, documents required, can be retrieved. Only thing that needs to be done is to set the documents for offline availability.

Pricing model is monthly $19.95 per user, and $199.95 per user annually. Cloud Vault purchase includes 2 Gigabytes of storage per user unless you purchase additional storage. Additional storage costs is $1 / GB / month.

Linear Cube's SaaS DMS: The solution is based on open source DMS, Alfresco. Major features include storage and retrieval of documents with ease; allowing users to search an entire database by keyword, replacing the need to know an exact file name; enabling users to view the entire lifecycle of a document in one central location. The solution can be integrated with Microsoft Outlook and Office. Also, document collaboration can be managed with features like document version control, overwrite protection and locking capabilities. A trial is available for 30 days. ContentCube Shared starts at $99 and number of users and storage provided depends on the subscription level. Another option is ContentCube Dedicated, that comes at a starting price of $2000, starts at 100 users and a storage of 100 GB.

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