subject: To Control or Not to Control.... Is There A Question? [print this page] To Control or Not to Control...To Control or Not to Control.... Is There A Question?
I have often spoken about the need to have an efficient document management system in place for any business. I can't stress it enough really. If you think a document management system is similar to file storage, read on, if you think that your filing system has worked for you, even though you have lost one or two proposals and felt awkward at meetings because you're information wasn't correctly updated or just lost, boy do I have news for you.
Firstly, what is file storage exactly? Simply put, you upload documents online and it is kept there for you to send employees to the link and download said document... There is only one or two flaws with that idea.
Problem One:
How safe is your documents online, and how can you be sure that only your employees are downloading them? How much assurance do you have that the file is still going to be there when you're server bites the dust and you need to get your documents back into your office? Not very much I would say right? Because many online file storage facilities only allow you to keep your documents online for a certain period of time, and only have the one server to work off of so your space and time is limited.
Problem Two:
Do you really trust them implicitly? Do you know who has downloaded that document from the serve and who is working on it at the time you checked on it?
You can keep all this up to date using a bank of filing cabinets yes, and your documents need never leave the office. They never seem to stay where they have to, do they? Someone, somewhere right now is taking a document home to work on it, and the amount of people that know that document has been checked out is minimal.
You sigh, and ask what you need to do about that? You could place a small security team around the filing cabinets, you could create logs where people have to sign to get a document out, but how is that going to help you streamline your business when everyone needs to check that log every five minutes of the day?
You look to an online solution. A solution other than file storage, I may add, and here's why.
A Cloud Based Solution?
Cloud Based Document management systems allow you to work online with documents and makes sure you know exactly who is working on a document. Which let's you know who the last person was to work on that document. Want to hear more?
These document management systems also allow you to control a lot more than just the document. If, for instance, you are looking at company policies and procedures, and this needs to be either updated or there are actions needed to be taken care of within the document, you can assign these actions to an employee, and they are then left with two choices, either complete the action and close it off, or reschedule the action, giving a reason why. This allows you to stay on top of the situation and the person in charge of these actions. Because of the action tracking allowed in these systems, your employees will be notifed internally and with companion emails that you have set tasks for them. So it gives you the functionality of not having to leave your office or PC to asign work to employees.
Most of these systems come with complete packages that you can integrate into a powerful business management system, where you would have documents in the system, linked to newly created documents in a content management system, which can then in turn be linked to actions and controls, which you would then link to a corporate dashboard. it sounds a bit more complicated than it is so, lets look at an example. If you want to create a plant dossier, you would upload all documents related to equipment owned by your organisation. These documents you then link to a cms (content management system), which is then, in turn, linked to your dashboard. You can then link actions to both documents which would then all be linked onto the dashboard.
The result is an all encompassing report on your dashboard which, when you click on it, shows you everything regarding that page, from the documents linked to it, to any actions that are needed to be done on or with the documents.
What is a Cloud Based Document Management System, and is it safe?:
Safe as houses, I would normally say, but I think I'll go with safer than houses. Why? Simply because these systems keep copies of your documents on not just the one server. This means that, if your server takes a dive, a laptop is either stolen or reduced to a burning pile of ashes, or the document simply goes A.W.O.L, you have backups ready and waiting for you. That way you never lose anything, and your organisation doesn't grind to a painful halt because you need to rebuild your system.
These systems also need little or no I.T staff or third party I.T solution providers, which means you save money to spend on other things your organisation needs.
So, when you think about a system, make sure it's the right one for you. Make sure it allows you to do everything mentioned here and more before deciding. Research, and loads of it. read through case studies and any other information you can find on a site.
An informed decision has always been the best decision.
