Selection of a document management software program

Check list for the selection of a document management software program

If you are thinking of converting to a paperless environment, it is important to assess various software programs for document management and your business needs.

A few tips on what software to select for your business documents.  I would like to present to you 5 major points to keep in mind when purchasing a document software program.

First of all, access and retrieval are key components.

1. Searching  

Searching is vital and quick access and retrieval to documents for a specific purpose in every day activities is crucial to saving time, money and increasing productivity.

 Is it easy to find those important documents?  Does it have an advanced search option? Can you search by fields such as client name and/or file number, type of document, keywords, notes or description of document, title of document, format such as PDF, paper, or microfilm, by geographic location, or other fields of interest to your industry?  Are you able to search both file content or properties, or by metadata?  Find out how you can search for your business documents.

The filing system may or may not be customized. If you have a program, which offers a customized filing system, it is advisable that it can be tailored to suit your industry needs. Can you add extra codes for filing?  Which system is being used for filing? Will you be able to categorize your documents according to your day to day business activities, such as invoicing, purchasing, specific types of reports, drawings, legal documents and more? 

2. Tracking of revisions

Tracking is also important. With each document, revisions are made over time and must be tracked. You need to know which revision is the latest and which document will be the final copy. Is there a document trail of your revisions?

3. Check-in and check out

How much time does an employee spend searching for a document, which has been borrowed?  Similar to your local library, there can be a loans component for this purpose. Who has what, where the document is located at the time of borrowing, when is it due back or when was it returned.

 A software program can also remove access to other employees once a document has been checked out by an employee for purposes of editing the document.  No one will have access to the document until it is checked back in. This will ensure that not more than one person can edit a document at the same time.

4. Security

It is important to have a security level set up for access to documents.  Some documents can be viewed by all employees and other documents should not be available for viewing.  Some documents can be set up for reading only while others may be set up for editing only. In some cases, some groups of documents may only be available to the department such as HR employees.

5. Reporting

Do you have the choice to select a reporting system? Can documents be sorted by date or by type of document report? Can you generate reports from your search?

Automation:

Additional functions are available to software programs for document management.  These check points are valuable to your selection and should not to be considered as a comprehensive list.

Francine Renaud
Records Management Consultant
 http://www.timeouttoorganize.com/
Tel: 250-763-3988 Toll Free: 1-888-763-3988