Compare These Top Vendors for Document Management System

What to Know Before Purchasing a Document Management System

Is your office cluttered with mountains of paper? Does it take a long time to locate a specific document when you need it? What do you do when a document has been misfiled or lost? If you have to consider these questions on a regular basis, it may be time to consider an electronic document management system for your business. The best document management system can help your office quickly and easily scan paper documents so that they can be electronically filed in one centralized location. A paperless office makes it possible to free up office space and be much more environmentally friendly. Starting an online document management system is an easy switch to make, but knowing which software is best for your office requires learning what to look for and expect.

Organize your evaluation of document management system software into four categories:

1. The core product features and functions.
2. The document workflow.
3. The document control.
4. The special features that help extend the system beyond document management.

Key Document Management System Features

Importing documents into the electronic document management system and finding them later should be easy, fast, and hassle-free. Features that help make this possible include document imaging, the ability to add existing files from an external source, full-text search function, document creation templates, multi-user access, and automatic backup and restore. Your office should have the ability to customize the configuration of the values that are used to index every document and file in a way that is consistent with your company’s method of organization. Overall, just remember this: the enterprise document management system should have a central repository and convenient scanning options.

Document Control

Knowing who has access to which documents and what they can do with them is important to consider with any web based document management system. If your office is spread throughout different floors of the same building or scattered across the nation, pay attention to document management system software that enables access from anywhere at anytime. Look for a document management system that include retention management tools that automate the purging and archiving process, along with version control functions that keep track of several versions of documents and files as they change and evolve through projects. Check-in and check-out features enhance the integrity of documents as several people throughout the same company are viewing and editing them. Multiple levels of security need to be in place to prevent the wrong eyes from getting access to sensitive documents.

Ease of Use

Inexperienced computer users should feel at ease using the document management system. The interface needs to be intuitive. Your office cannot afford to lose time and productivity learning a complicated online document management system. How simple a document management system is to use will determine how well it can be adapted or configured into your company’s existing processes. Unfortunately even the best document management system software might occasionally give you problems. Being able to seek help and support from the manufacturer provides peace of mind for your office.