What is a
Document Management System?

There are roughly five different types of Document Management Systems. These are categorized as:

1. Content Management. This type of solution is typically referred to as a web content management system, designed to help users create, edit, publish, modify and lifecycle manage content on an external website or intranet.

2. Records Management and Storage Systems. A Records Management System (RMS) is a solution providing for the lifecycle management of an organization’s records. The solution includes functions supporting the control and efficient creation, governance, and destruction of records. Highly regulated businesses, like healthcare, typically use RMS systems.

3. Workflow Management Systems. These systems support automated rule-based document management processes. Rules are set up for different document types assigning specific tasks to users in the workflow process. A system like this could, for example, be used in order to get sales order approvals from executives in a sales process.

4. Document Imaging Systems. In its simplest form, a Document Imaging System scans paper-based documents to images. However, with an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) functionality scanned texts are digitally converted to searchable content. This is very useful for organizations still managing various processes using pen and paper.

5. Enterprise Content Management. ECM systems take content management a step further as they incorporate the functionalities of other types of document management systems, such as support for workflow, processes, business rules and lifecycle management. They combine the capture, archiving, management, networking, and search of documents and organizations can use them to efficiently manage any kind of document or multimedia content with a workflow-centric approach. An ECM system typically includes processes controlling the creation, approval, and distribution of content as well as secure storage for all managed items, digital or analog.

Depending on the nature of your business, a Document Management System (DMS) that captures, stores, structures, and retrieves both digital and paper documents offers multiple benefits to your organization. The top five are:

1. Boosted findability and retrieval. One of the key advantages of a DMS is the ability to find content and files fast and easily by searching for a single word or phrase. By digitizing paper-based documents, thus making their content electronically searchable, the improvement in productivity is tremendous. Also, if the DMS is accessible through the cloud, users can search for and retrieve documents from anywhere, anytime.

2. Enhanced security and compliance. A DMS can help you increase the level of security and regulatory compliance. The system provides control over sensitive information and access to documents can be restricted at folder or document level for individuals, groups, or user roles. It also leaves an audit trail for each document enabling you to track every action, such as viewing and editing, and by whom. A DMS can also help an organization efficiently comply with standards, laws, and regulations.

3. Better collaboration. The ability to quickly create, store, find, access, and share documents in a centralized location simplifies collaboration. Especially for teams that are spread out across different locations and time zones. With a DMS teams can collaborate in a safe and efficient way.

4. One single version of the truth. If the DMS is accessible to everyone in the organization, this will create “one single version of the truth”, which will reinforce the information’s reliability and trustworthiness. Consequently strengthening decision-making processes. Also, unnecessary misinterpretations, fake news, and bad decisions based on inaccurate information will be prevented. And when everyone gets access to the same information simultaneously, organizational cohesion will strengthen.

5. Increased productivity. Gathering all documents in one place makes it easier for the employees to access and find anything they need to execute their work tasks and efficiently collaborate on projects. With a powerful search engine critical information and documents can be quickly located and retrieved, saving the employees lots of time. Faster document retrieval can also boost work flexibility, employee engagement, and customer satisfaction.

A Document Management Workflow is the process of creating, storing, routing and sharing, approving, deleting, editing, managing, and categorizing documents in the organization. The process provides guidelines on how to perform various tasks during the document life cycle.

The workflow includes tasks such as:

• Creation. How a document is created in the specified workflow.
• Retrieval. How to find and access documents and what to do if a document is deleted by mistake. Are the access rights restricted for some types of documents? For whom and to what degree?
• Editing. How are the documents edited? Does the Document Management System provide version control and can selected revisions be undone? How to roll back to an earlier version?
• Requests and approvals. Does a new document need approval by someone else than the creator? Which actions are involved in the approval process?
• Deletion. How are duplicates and other redundant files identified and removed?
• Update. How do you keep the documents updated and relevant? A modern Document Management System allows you to set audit reminders for the owners of the documents.
• Tracking and reporting. To ensure that all the processes involved in the document life cycle are working properly the workflow can be monitored using various tracking functions.
• Sharing. How are the documents distributed and shared in a secure way and without risking that duplicates being spread in the organization?

When choosing a Document Management System look for these key features:

• Multi-source document input. For efficient and user-friendly document processes it’s good to have various ways of bringing documents into the platform. Besides allowing for a smooth, consistent, and uniform creation of new documents via templates, the platform should support the import of documents via for instance email, scanner and OCR, apps, and bulk uploads.
  
  
• Permissioned, mobile and cloud access. It’s absolutely essential that the platform allows you to restrict access to certain documents or folders and that this can be done based on role, group, department, or a specified user. Having the documents accessible via the Cloud and mobile devices boosts your organization’s flexibility, productivity, and collaboration.
  
  
• Document version control and restoration. One of the great benefits of a Document Management System is that you get full control of who’s done what with a document, from its creation until it’s archived or deleted. You may also roll back to its earlier versions and undo changes being made to it. That is if the platform provides full support for versioning, editing history, and restoration.
  
  
• Advanced structuring and search. Tagging and indexing your documents makes the search for them considerably easier and faster. There are a number of indexing features. A document can, for instance, be categorized and indexed based on its author, version and revision, metadata, context, and content. If, for example, all product or service white papers are tagged “White Paper” you can quickly find all of them using phrase search. But just as important as the structuring options is the platform’s search functionality. To make good use of the indexing the platform must provide advanced search filters so that the users can combine different search categories in order to narrow down the results.
  
  
• Automatic updates and deletion. Keeping the documents up-to-date and the archives free from redundant information and duplicates saves space and ensures that decisions and actions are based on accurate information. Many platforms provide good support for update reminders and the automatic deletion of redundant and outdated files.
  
  
• Templates guidelines. This is a hygiene factor. The platform should provide tools for organizing all approved templates used for the variety of documents that your organization will create and manage through the platform. Using templates is the best way to keep your processes, brand, and communication uniform and in line with company policies. Furthermore, templates make processes and the employees’ work easier and more efficient. Omnia and similar platforms provide wizards to help users to create new documents based on templates.
  
  
• Integration capabilities: The platform should be easy to integrate with your current IT infrastructure and applications your organization already use. For instance, your intranet, CRM, communications, desktop, and collaboration applications. Check the platform’s open APIs, which allow you to connect the DMS to different applications.
  
  
• Multi-layer security. Keeping sensitive information safe is imperative. Safe login procedures, encryption, comprehensive backup plans, and role-based access are definitely things to look for. To ensure that only the right people have access to certain information access rights can be set based on a number of criteria: by user, group, or department. User restrictions can also be set by the folder or the document. Security is also about being able to track a document’s complete audit trails so that every revision can be accounted for.

Law firms handle large amounts of documents and sensitive information. This includes legal briefs, client documents, contracts, and other critical files that need to be safely stored in a systematic way for quick and easy retrieval. A Document Management System is indeed the best option for managing this information efficiently.

Although there are Document Management Systems specially designed for law firms, most modern products are just as good contenders in the search for a suitable solution. However, it’s important that the system include features that:

• Make it easy to categorize and find documents by client or case.
• Ensure that only authorized employees can access sensitive information.
• Help you meet regulatory local and international requirements and industry standards, such as GDPR.
• Enable efficient tracking of a document’s history (version control).
• Remind the documents’ owners when it’s time to revise a document or review it for some other reason.
• Automatically deletes or archives documents.

Every healthcare clinic or organization needs a proper Document Management System today. From simple forms to internal policies, regulations, and procedures, healthcare and document management go hand-in-hand. Medical document management involves sensitive personal records, strict regulations, and medical and organizational processes. Every item of information and document has to be categorized, stored securely, and often checked and approved by someone with the right authority. Keeping document processes compliant with regulatory standards is vital for both the safety of patients as well as the organization.

Most modern Document Management Systems have features like version control, making it possible to track every revision (and by whom) during a document’s lifetime, permissioned access, and revision reminders (as health and medical regulations keep changing). For healthcare organizations, these features are an absolute must. Another critical feature is the mandatory read option which gives you the ability to track who has read and signed a document. In some areas of healthcare and medicine, you have to prove that the entire organization or key personnel have read and signed certain policy documents.
As a lot of documents need to be approved by another person than the creator the platform should also provide robust workflow processes supporting the smooth routing of files across the organization.

Financial services companies, like accounting firms, handle massive amounts of documents on a daily basis. For companies like these, there is plenty to gain implementing a Document Management System. In addition to boosted findability, efficiency, productivity, control and security the accountants’ work, communication and collaboration processes, as well as the exchange of files across the organization and with clients will run much smoother. As an extra bonus, a modern Document Management System with built-in version control creates audit trails automatically.

To state the obvious, the time, space and frustration you save by digitizing your entire document management structure is enormous. It’s no longer a question of whether or not. It’s just a matter of figuring out how and on which platform. In addition to our general recommendations (see question “What to look for in a Document Management System?” above) it’s important that the platform you choose support efficient and secure workflow processes so that drafts, reports, legal documents and other files can be routed and approved, internally and externally, by clients and others.

Another feature you might want to include is a function that converts PDF documents to Excel and/or Word as accountants often need to extract and work on data from older PDF-based reports. If this functionality isn’t incorporated a third party product, like Adobe’s PDF converter, can easily be added to or integrated with practically any platform you choose.

Construction companies, and their project/construction managers, in particular, juggle a vast array of documents for each project. Documents such as blueprints and drawings, permits, specs, contracts, and many other documents are needed to keep a project afloat from start to finish.

Many contractors use a mix of digital documents and paper, but the trend is leaning towards full digitalization as most organizations want to reap the benefits of having it all digitized. When all documents are digitally readable and accessible everything from the creation, search and access, editing and revision, collaboration, approval, and deletion of documents will be considerably easier, faster, and more secure.

In addition to our general recommendations (see the question “What to look for in a Document Management System?” above), it’s important that the platform you choose supports mobile access on any device as you want your team to have all necessary documents readily available when they’re out on the construction sites. If, for some reason, you think it’s best to store your files on an on-premises server, mobile accessibility can be arranged via VPN connections. However, implementing a cloud-based storage and document management solution is by far the most efficient and convenient solution enabling your workforce to find, access, and collaborate on project files wherever they are.

You should also ensure that the platform provides robust workflow processes that enable smooth routing and approval of various documents with customers and employees throughout your organization.

As a consultant, you generally manage a considerable amount of documents containing sensitive information about your customers and their businesses. These documents are often shared within your team and sent back and forth to your clients. With many customers and ongoing projects, it’s important to be able to quickly find and access all types of documents and know that the information is accurate, up-to-date, secure, and properly governed. A modern Document Management System is designed to help you achieve just that. Depending on your or/and your client’s area of business, it will also help you comply with necessary industry standards and regulations.

So are any Document Management Systems specially designed for consultants? Not really, as a consultant can be anything from a management consultant, an interior designer to an accountant. However, a Document Management System is generally very flexible so you can customize it to meet your organization’s unique needs and preferences. Omnia is, for example, an intranet and document management platform that can easily be adapted for any kind of consultant business.

File management refers to software and/or manual processes used for the maintenance or management of files and folders. File management software has rather limited capabilities and is intended to efficiently manage individual or group files. The most common operations include opening, creating, moving, copying, renaming, searching for, and deleting files, as well as modifying file permissions, attributes, and properties. File management software allows the user to, among other things, browse, sort, and move files according to various criteria like date of creation, file type, date of last modification, size, etc.

Document management is about the creation and lifecycle management of documents, leveraging templates and tools to create digital or digitized physical documents, searching for content, collaborating and sharing documents anytime and anywhere, reviewing and approving documents, and more.

Good file management software and practices ensure that files are kept in an organized structure, making them easy to find and retrieve and that they are not lost or misplaced. It boosts efficiency and reduces stress and time spent searching for or recreating files not found.

Efficient and safe file management is maintained following these five simple rules:

1. Consolidate and store your files in one location with proper backup routines and a redundant structure (mirrored data storage).
   
   
2. Establish a logical file naming system using short filenames describing the content.
   
   
3. Store files in hierarchical folders and subfolders and put related documents together, regardless of format. Avoid overfilling the folders. Try categorizing and dividing the files into different subfolders instead.
   
   
4. Separate ongoing work and project files from completed ones.
   
   
5. Don’t mix executable files with data files. Use the default file locations when installing application programs.

A Document Management Protocol outlines the rules as to how documents are to be managed throughout their entire life cycle. This includes rules for how they are created, moved, stored, protected, structured, retrieved, shared, edited, archived, and deleted. The protocol should comprise virtually every document management process and interaction with the Document Management System.

Omnia is a modern and flexible Microsoft 365 and SharePoint-based intranet-in-a-box solution. It comprises leading-edge tools for communication, collaboration and governance which help companies and organizations improve internal communication, collaboration and knowledge-sharing. 

Precio Fishbone’s award-winning intranet platform Omnia delivers leading performance and an intuitive, personalized, and task-oriented user experience on all devices. Its fully featured intranet capabilities cater to both simple and complex publishing scenarios and ensure that content is constantly fresh and accurate and that users stay updated. It provides tools for targeted internal communication, streamlined collaboration, and advanced search, all of which reduce the time users spend searching for information and help them collaborate and execute their work more efficiently. The platform also includes functionality and support for Document and Quality Management Systems, coupled with a process visualization tool (Process Viewer).

Omnia’s rich social features, like its smart templates and wizards for creating communities, can support an organization in strengthening its workplace cohesion and boosting knowledge-sharing and employee engagement. Omnia’s integration capabilities also enable smooth integration with internal and external applications, providing users with a unified digital workplace experience.

With Omnia, a company or an organization can consolidate and integrate its entire information archive, documents, processes, collaborations, and tools in one place. This will make any item of information or another internal resource accessible via a single entry point and provide the organization with a “single version of the truth”. All in all, this will boost productivity, engagement, and the organization’s ability to create a better future for itself. The platform also provides unique capabilities for future adaptation and development, backed by Precio Fishbone’s support as your needs evolve.