Document Management 101
A document management system (DMS) is a computer system used to track and store
electronic documents and/or images of paper documents. Document Management is the
control of an organization's documents and their lifecycle, including how and when
documents are created, reviewed, published, utilized, retained and destroyed. Document
management is critical to any organization, whether it is used for compliance, customer
service, business continuity, or effective collaboration.
Document management system is often related to content management systems. It is
often viewed as a component of enterprise content management (ECM) systems and related
to digital asset management, document imaging, workflow systems and records management
systems.
There are several common issues that are involved in managing documents, whether
the system is an informal, ad-hoc, paper-based method for one person or if it is
a formal, structured, computer enhanced system for many people across multiple offices.
Most methods for managing documents address the following areas:
 | Location -
Where will documents be stored? Where will people need to go to access documents? Physical journeys to filing cabinets and file rooms are analogous to the onscreen navigation required to use a document management system.
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| Filing -
How will documents be filed? What methods will be used to organize or index the documents to assist in later retrieval? Document management systems will typically use a database to store metadata about documents and a File System to store the actual physical files.
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| Retrieval -
How will documents be found? Typically, retrieval encompasses both browsing through documents and searching for specific information. What kind of information about documents are indexed for rapid retrieval?
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| Security -
How will documents be kept secure? How will unauthorized personnel be prevented from reading, modifying or destroying documents?
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| Disaster recovery -
How can documents be recovered in case of destruction from fires, floods or natural disasters?
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| Retention period -
How long should documents be kept, i.e. retained? As organizations grow and regulations increase, informal guidelines for keeping various types of documents give way to more formal records management practices.
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| Archiving -
How can documents be preserved for future readability?
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| Distribution -
How can documents be available to the people that need them?
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| Workflow -
If documents need to pass from one person to another, what are the rules for how their work should flow?
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| Creation -
How are documents created? This question becomes important when multiple people need to collaborate, and the logistics of version control and authoring arise.
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| Authenticity -
Is there a way to vouch for the authenticity of a document ?
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| Traceability -
When, where and by whom are documents created, modified, published and stored?
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Document Management Software For Smaller Businesses
In the past, document management was a challenge most likely tackled by larger organizations
due to the sheer volume of documents they were required to manage. Document Management
Software was also priced to fit larger organizations budgets.
Smaller organizations and teams are however increasingly requiring better control
of their document lifecycle. Global compliance requirements, geographically dispersed
teams and a desire to more effectively manage knowledge, are all challenges faced
by large and small organizations alike.
As a result, the Document Management Software you choose to utilize needs to fit
your organization's goals, culture, technology capabilities, and budget.
Components of Document Management
Document management systems commonly provide storage, versioning, metadata, security,
as well as indexing and retrieval capabilities.
| Metadata |
Metadata is typically stored for each document. Metadata may, for example, include the date the document
was stored and the identity of the user storing it. The DMS may also extract metadata from the document
automatically or prompt the user to add metadata. Some systems also use optical character recognition on
scanned images, or perform text extraction on electronic documents. The resulting extracted text can be
used to assist users in locating documents by identifying probable keywords or providing for full text
search capability, or can be used on its own. Extracted text can also be stored as a component of metadata,
stored with the image, or separately as a source for searching document collections.
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| Integration |
Many document management systems attempt to integrate document management directly into other applications,
so that users may retrieve existing documents directly from the document management system repository, make changes,
and save the changed document back to the repository as a new version, all without leaving the application.
Such integration is commonly available for office suites and e-mail or collaboration/groupware software.
Integration often uses open standards such as ODMA, LDAP, WebDAV and SOAP to allow integration with other
software and compliance with internal controls.
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| Capture |
Images of paper documents using scanners or multifunction printers. Optical character recognition (OCR) software is often used,
whether integrated into the hardware or as stand-alone software, in order to convert digital images into machine readable text.
Optical mark recognition (OMR) software is sometimes used to extract values of check-boxes or bubbles.
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| Indexing |
Track electronic documents. Indexing may be as simple as keeping track of unique document identifiers; but often it takes a more complex form,
providing classification through the documents' metadata or even through word indexes extracted from the documents' contents.
Indexing exists mainly to support retrieval. One area of critical importance for rapid retrieval is the creation of an index topology.
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| Storage |
Store electronic documents. Storage of the documents often includes management of those same documents; where they are stored, for how long,
migration of the documents from one storage media to another (hierarchical storage management) and eventual document destruction.
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| Retrieval |
Retrieve the electronic documents from the storage. Although the notion of retrieving a particular document is simple, retrieval in the electronic
context can be quite complex and powerful. Simple retrieval of individual documents can be supported by allowing the user to specify the unique
document identifier, and having the system use the basic index (or a non-indexed query on its data store) to retrieve the document.
More flexible retrieval allows the user to specify partial search terms involving the document identifier and/or parts of the expected metadata.
This would typically return a list of documents which match the user's search terms. Some systems provide the capability to specify a
Boolean expression containing multiple keywords or example phrases expected to exist within the documents' contents.
The retrieval for this kind of query may be supported by previously-built indexes, or may perform more time-consuming searches through
the documents' contents to return a list of the potentially relevant documents. See also Document retrieval.
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| Distribution |
A published document for distribution has to be in a format that can not be easily altered. As a common practice in law regulated industries,
an original master copy of the document is usually never used for distribution other than archiving. If a document is to be distributed
electronically in a regulatory environment, then the equipment tasking the job has to be quality endorsed AND validated. Similarly quality
endorsed electronic distribution carriers have to be used. This approach applies to both of the systems by which the document is to be
inter-exchanged, if the integrity of the document is highly in demand.
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| Security |
Document security is vital in many document management applications. Compliance requirements for certain documents can be quite complex
depending on the type of documents. For instance the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requirements dictate
that medical documents have certain security requirements. Some document management systems have a rights management module that allows
an administrator to give access to documents based on type to only certain people or groups of people.
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| Workflow |
Workflow is a complex problem and some document management systems have a built in workflow module. There are different types of workflow.
Usage depends on the environment the electronic document management system (EDMS) is applied to. Manual workflow requires a user to view
the document and decide who to send it to. Rules-based workflow allows an administrator to create a rule that dictates the flow of the
document through an organization: for instance, an invoice passes through an approval process and then is routed to the accounts payable
department. Dynamic rules allow for branches to be created in a workflow process. A simple example would be to enter an invoice amount
and if the amount is lower than a certain set amount, it follows different routes through the organization.
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| Collaboration |
Collaboration should be inherent in an EDMS. In its basic form, a collaborative EDMS should allow documents to be retrieved and worked on
by an authorized user. Access should be blocked to other users while work is being performed on the document. Other advanced forms of
collaboration allow multiple users to view and modify (or markup) a document at the same time in a collaboration session. The resulting
document should be viewable in its final shape, while also storing the markups done by each individual user during the collaboration session.
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| Versioning |
Versioning is a process by which documents are checked in or out of the document management system, allowing users to retrieve previous
versions and to continue work from a selected point. Versioning is useful for documents that change over time and require updating,
but it may be necessary to go back to or reference a previous copy.
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| Searching |
Finds documents and folders using template attributes or full text search. Documents can be searched using various attributes and document content
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| Publishing |
Publishing a document is sometimes tedious and involves the procedures of proofreading, peer or public reviewing, authorizing, printing
and approving etc. Those steps ensure prudence and logic thinking. Any careless handling may result in the inaccuracy of the document
and therefore mislead or upset its users and readers. In law regulated industries, some of the procedures have to be completed as evidenced
by their corresponding signatures and the date(s) on which the document was signed.
The published document should be in a format that is not easily altered without a specific knowledge or tools, and yet it is read-only or portable.
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Ensuring Fit With Your Document Management Needs
A well-designed document management system is flexible enough to support both rigid
workflows around document and other record creation, retention and destruction,
thus ensuring that you meet your legal obligations, as well as a more loosely structured
environment that may better support collaboration.
The document management system will not only store your documents but will also
importantly provide you with easy access to your documents, whether this be via
a powerful search mechanism, tagging and tag clouds, or an easy to use document
browse interface.
A modern document management software system will allow you to share documents within
your repository via email, direct web links or RSS feeds.
The software will support the easy mapping of your organization or industry's standard
document types and metadata (information about the documents) into the repository.
The system will also provide you with a powerful but easy to use mechanism to control
who accesses which documents, whether they are allowed to edit the documents and
whether the documents may be emailed out of the document repository. The system
will also provide your organization with access to your documents via familiar interfaces,
be they web-based or from within common office productivity applications.
Document Management Software Purchasing Considerations
When selecting document management software, the following may be useful to consider:
| Is the software easy to use, presenting user interface and filing concepts familiar to users? |
| Does it allow you to meet your organization's goals and fit your culture i.e. the software's workflow capabilities should have the flexibility to provide you tight control over your document lifecycle or a more loosely structured system. |
| Is the software accessible from existing tools such as Web Browsers, Office productivity applications and email applications (such as Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook), and the Windows Explorer. |
| Is the software available in a form that makes best sense to your organization: whether you need the document management software installed on your own network or would like to purchase the "Software as a Service" and leverage the vendor's infrastructure. |
| Document management is a long-term commitment: ascertain whether the software you choose to utilize will lock you in indefinitely, or whether you have access to the software's source code and the freedom to choose how you utilize the software. |
| If you intend on installing the software on your own network, it should support the technology you already utilize within your enterprise, whether this be Microsoft Windows or Linux server software, Directory Servers and storage devices. |
| The software should have lightweight, modern web and graphical user interfaces that work well over your Intranet, Virtual Private Network and even Internet, allowing your remote users efficient access to the document repository. |
| The software should allow you to secure your documents in the repository, whether this is through a fine-grained but intuitive access control system, standard's based SSL/TLS encryption of communications to the server software, or the encryption of documents within the repository itself. |
| The software should provide support for common tools used for the volume digitization of paper documents and integration with other devices that generate digital documents such as fax servers. |
| If you intend on integrating the document management system with other software within your enterprise (for example CRM and ERP software), the software should have an ecosystem of pre-built 3rd-party application connectors and strong, standards-based integration technologies and developer APIs that support further integration (such as WebDAV, SOAP Web Services, JSON, and XML interfaces). |
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