Document Management Software Systems
Document Management is a very broad category and it can be hard to find the perfect solution for your particular business needs. The following questions were asked by real companies when looking for a document management software solution.
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Does the software provide for a single-source solution?
Does the software provide configuration management?
What are the advantages of a web-based system?
What are the disadvantages of a web-based system?
Does the software make the checking in and checking out of documents easy?
How does the software handle a new document introduced into the system for the first time?
What kind of directory structure do I need?
How do I browse the directory structure?
What if I need to restrict access to certain files?
Does the Document Management software provide search capabilities?
What document formats should the software support?
How does a User prevent others from working on a document?
How should document versions be managed?
How are document revisions managed?
Can FileHold be installed and configured by my companies IT personnel with a minimum of difficulty?
Does FileHold have at least three levels of security?
Does FileHold use Single Sign On (SSO) technology?
Does FileHold operate in a .NET environment?
Does the FileHold client operate on a Windows operating system(s)?
Does FileHold operate on a Windows server?
Does FileHold provide search capabilities?
Does FileHold utilize SQL Server?
Are SQL Server Client Licenses required in addition to FileHold Client Licenses?
Does the document management software provide for a single-source solution?
A Document Management System should give you a general repository that is generally accessible, available on the company intranet and provide configuration management for the documents. The idea is to move away from having copies of the same document lying around in different places for different reasons.
Does the software provide configuration management?
Configuration management controls the development of documents in the workflow lifecycle to track changes to a document. It is a configurable process that takes into account incremental changes as opposed to large ones. (e.g. a small change causes Doc_1-Rev_A to become Doc_1-Rev_A1 instead of Doc_1-Rev-B)
What are the advantages of a web-based system?
Access to the software is not dependent on location. You could be in the office or traveling abroad, but as long as you have access to a web browser you can access your information. You can set up client accounts allowing customers access to the files you want them to see.
What are the disadvantages of a web-based system?
The main disadvantage is regarding security - anyone can try to access your important information. However, most Document Management systems have a great emphasis on security and encryption to ensure against data loss.
Does the software make the checking in and checking out of documents easy?
Any Document Management system should make this process very easy for the user. If it is burdensome or annoying they are less likely to use the system and a poorly designed check in / check out process will also decrease their productivity.
How does the software handle a new document being introduced into the system for the first time?
When a document is introduced for the first time, it should be tagged with some indexing parameters (e.g. title, author, date, project, type of file, document number, revision number etc.) in order to keep it organized. The term most used in the industry when referring to these parameters is 'meta data'. The files should then automatically be sorted into the repository's directory structure based on those parameters.
What kind of directory structure do I need?
The software should allow for the configuration of a standardized directory structure for each project into which documents are introduced. It can be a standardized document directory schema or a customized one, depending on your company's needs.
How do I browse the directory structure?
The software should provide a graphical means of browsing the directory structure where the various files being managed are located. Some sort of icon representation for each level of the directory structure are useful for ease of navigation.
What if I need to restrict access to certain files?
The software should be able to restrict access to certain files by certain users at the administrator's discretion. Users should be restricted in such a way that they do not even know documents exist that are above their access level and / or allow read only privileges on documents of a sensitive nature.
Does the document management software provide search capabilities?
The software should include a search engine that searches against the index tags associated with each checked-in file. A full text search against all of the documents is also useful.
What document formats should the software support?
The software should be able to manage all possible document types. Different vendors will have different degrees of integration with different document types (Microsoft Office, Corel Wordperfect, Adobe PDF's, etc.) , however proper solution will allow all document storage.
How does a User prevent others from working on a document?
The software should allow a user to check out documents in order to stop others from modifying or publishing content being worked on. If a file is checked out, the software should display who has checked it out and control who can modify it.
How should document versions be managed?
The software should manage versions of superseded files such that it makes the newest revision the most obvious and accessible.
How are document revisions managed?
The software should maintain an audit trail tracking the revisions made to any document during it's lifecycle including who has ever checked it out and all version that were ever created. These standards are compliant with the Sarbanes Oxley Act.
Can FileHold be installed and configured by my companies IT personnel with a minimum of difficulty?
Yes, we also provide free installation and configuration assistance with each sale. The product installs the web server components on IIS on Windows 2003 (and R2) and the database onto your MS SQL 2000 or 2005 database server.
Does FileHold have at least three levels of security?
Yes, we have rigorous security around the entire system using .NET 2.0's security subsystems and best practices. In practical terms, We also can secure the Cabinets, Folders, Folder Groups (by group / individual) as well as search is restricted to only the documents you have access to.
Does FileHold use Single Sign On (SSO) technology?
Yes, technically speaking we utilize Microsoft's components ADAM and AzMan, these subsystems provide for SSO as well as FileHold specific authentication. The system can synch with Active Directory, LDAP etc so that users can use Network User names and passwords while IT staff can manage the FileHold authorization system using familiar Microsoft tools embedded within FileHold 06.
Does FileHold store documents in their native formats, i.e., Word documents, Excel Spreadsheets, etc?
Yes FileHold stores the documents in their native formats. All documents can be stored in a directory structure (secured) that can be located on the web server, DB server or a SAN or file storage system. Small companies / deployments may have all 3 tiers (Web, SQL and File Storage) all on one server.
Does FileHold operate in a .NET environment?
Yes, it is written entirely in .NET 2.0 using a web services oriented architecture. We work closely with Microsoft around .NET 2.0, Visual Studio 2005 Team Systems, SQL 2005, WiNFX and the Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) receiving advanced training, support and technical guidance.
Does the FileHold client operate on a Windows operating system(s)?
Yes, although FileHold 06 also supports the Mozilla Firefox browser which could be used on other operating systems. However, the vast majority of our customers are Microsoft shops.
Does FileHold operate on a Windows server?
Windows 2003 and Windows 2003 R2 Server is required as well as MS SQL 2000 and 2005 Server. We recommend MS SQL 2005 as it performs very well.
Does FileHold provide search capabilities including:
- Keyword search?
- Search titles of documents?
- Search within documents in the system?
Yes.
Yes, and folder titles as well.
Yes Full text search is provided for many document types.
Also Metadata search is provided. Administrators can define schemas for different types of documents and document types. For example an Invoice schema might provide the Customer Name, Invoice Amount, Date, Purchase Order #, Invoice # as fields within the schema. Users can then quickly categorize the documents they are managing. The search engine then provides extremely fast searches against any of these custom fields.
Is FileHold scalable?
Yes, it utilizes a web services oriented architecture allowing for a variety of advanced configurations including clustering of servers. We test and optimize for up to 20,000,000 documents, although most of our customers might manage 100,000 or so key documents within the system. More documents could be supported with the right hardware configurations and consulting expertise.
Does FileHold utilize SQL Server? If so how does it install on top of SQL server?
Yes, we require MS SQL 2000 or 2005 Server. Our installer installs the databases onto the SQL Server and our server application maintains these databases. You will want to ensure these databases are backed up, along with the File Directory system and a few other areas of the system.
Are SQL Server Client Licenses required in addition to FileHold Client Licenses?
Microsoft requires either SQL CAL licensing for each user or a per processor SQL connector license.
