What Is Document Management? 9 Things You Should Know about Document Management

By Bill Cook

What is document management?

We need to know basic things about what document management entails, before trying to learn the secrets of document management.

DMS or Document Management System is normally either a set of computer system or a set of computer programs, meant to store and track images and electronic documents. DMS coincides with the term Content Management System and also seems related to Digital Asset Management.

Any DMS, will have some or all of the following features:

a)Security:
What security features are built-in the program to provide coverage against loss/destruction of information or against tampering with the documents. What are the safeguards for important information stored?

b)Work flow:
If the documents during work, are required to go to more persons, what regulations have been provided?

c)Retrieval:
Mode, time and technology used for retrieval of the documents.

d)Filing:
What organization and strategy has been adopted for filing?

e)Archival:
What protection has been provided against fire, flood and other natural disasters. Will the documents be perfectly legible on archival.

f)Distribution:
The distribution of information will be meant for how many people and the cost of such distribution.

g)Retention:
What all information is possible to be retained, up to what period and the procedure for removing the information.

h)Creation:
Number of people required and the logistics support needed for such collaboration.

i)Approval/Authentication:
What will be the procedure required for obtaining mandatory government approvals and private certification etc?

Document Management System – A brief background
From the early days, documents whether hand written or typed were nicely filed and stored. The information was retrieved when required. But over a period of time, the paper used to get corrected and precious information was lost. Therefore, a need arose for electronic storage and retrieval systems.

A few vendors in the beginning of 1980, started to develop a system meant to manage paper based documents, which will have capabilities of storage, indexing, image level capture and retrieval etc. There were further developed to cover electronic documents, collaboration tools, audit capabilities and security features. The expertise of a few companies in this field are given below:

a) Net Document:
This has a special feature of web-centric S-a-a-S (Software as a Service), which has all types email, document and records management service. It also includes extranet service: clients and other persons can easily share these documents. The documents are securely protected in super-specialty data centres and make sure that they offer a built-in business continuity.

b) HP document and content management solutions:
This organization offers hardware and software, document scanning systems, routing and process software, servers, storage printing and also data output devices. Broadly speaking, it provides everything required for managing, capturing and running any business.

c) Ademero Document Management Software:
Its unique feature of Content Centre business concept, makes document capturing, retrieving and management very easy. This browser based software ensures Accuracy, Speed and Faster Access for any type of business.

d) Laserfische document management:
These versatile platforms provide through the entire organization high volume, distribution, retrieval and information capture feature. Misfiling of documents in reduced and also saves on costly photocopying and paper distribution costs. This system can adapt itself to the needs of multi departments.

For more great document management resources visit http://whatisdocumentmanagement.com where you can also find document management tool and information on the document review process.