Collaborative Document Management

Posted for Ajay Y.

Unstructured content, like Documents, emails, audio, video files are integral part of today’s business. These contents are growing exponentially in every organization. The biggest challenge companies face is managing these contents to use them in an efficient way. It is nearly impossible to manage the complexity of creation, review and dissemination of contents to support business growth without a proper collaborative document management system.

 

Below are some of the factors which drives the need for deploying a CDM system in an organization.

 

-Documents scattered around different network file shares, intranets, employee’s personal hard drives?

-Cost of managing, distributing and storing papers is costing high.

-Employees are wasting time every day looking for business documents but unable to find it and hence recreating the documents over and over?

-Are you sure that employees are making informed business decision working from the latest version of a document?

-Unable to manage projects effectively and within time while trying to coordinate people from multiple geographic locations.

-There are no mechanism in place to store, secure, track, review, approve and publish documents.

-To capturing and share organizational knowledge and best practices to unlock the value of content to maximize business performance.

-Are you worried about increased regulatory pressure and compliance mandate to manage your business documents.

-Are you worried about how you would discover and produce key documents and emails to defend your organization in the case of a lawsuit or government investigation?

 

What other challenges which are not covered above drives the need for a collaborative document management system?

How would you prioritize the need for collaborative document management system in an organization?

Comments

[Gilbert Vega]

I think it would be helpful for the CDM to allow for uploading and downloading of content from any network. Due to the increase of employees working from home and various other non-office locations, it is important for job relevant information to be accessible to anyone from anywhere. Not only this, but security features would be helpful in a CDM. Different users should be allowed different privileges (i.e. all access on files that are directly relevant to their work, but restricted or denied access to those files that are not critical to their objectives). Finally, it is important for a CDM to have backup capabilities to assure that all the work that is saved is secure and can be accessed via a backup drive/location in case of an emergency.

[Mustapha Oluwa]

I would agree with Gilbert on security issue and users’ privileges but I will not agree 100% with uploading and downloading the document from anywhere. The reason I will disagree with him is because sometimes when access are given to people to work from remote area, there might be a breach to security due to carelessness or unfaithfulness of employees.

[Yonel Larose]

At my job we are using a product from Humingbird (DM). It is a document management. You can see the different versions of that file, who created, the last time it was edited/open. It has locking features and different rights based on what the original file creator did. It has feature where you cannot directly deleted the files if you are a regular user (only sent it in a queue for deletion then someone with admin rights can later on clear everything in that queue. It does allow users to load files, create folders. You can search documents by their assign document number or the name of that document or any word that could be part of the document. It has great security features.

[Naraphong Apirutvarakul]

I think shared document is not only used for enterprise. Many website provide this service for individual to share and edit their documents. Also some websites provide this CRM service for an enterprise, but do you trust them enough to keep your sensitive data in someone's sever.

[MIodrag Zagorov]

There are various versions f CDM of available but the main point that I believe to be relevant in this case is how inefficiently locating and editing of files can lead multiple efforts work being duplicated if not upside-down already. This CDM software I have a personal view because at my work we shared drives which equate to files that I need available at all times. If someone is editing it and not documenting progress of changes they have made it might lead to counter productivity as the article mentions.

Furthermore, I strongly disagree with this comment

I would agree with Gilbert on security issue and users’ privileges but I will not agree 100% with uploading and downloading the document from anywhere. The reason I will disagree with him is because sometimes when access are given to people to work from remote area, there might be a breach to security due to carelessness or unfaithfulness of employees.

Hopefully the information security at your work is up to date... why should the business' employees suffer ff they have the option to work remotely via CDM type of work with files. Why am I allowed to work from home occasionally and work while on vacation because the Company, directors and managers have know my reputation and I have had a thorough background check, heck even check my face book and other networking sites.

Growing in a networked society and will lead to more products mentioned of CDM, but the Admin's will have set access and logical standards to make things efficient and safe.

[Kate H]

Hi Ajay,

Have you ever checked out Microsoft Office Live Workspace? It offers users the ability to create, save, access, and share documents and files online for free - with 5 GB of storage. There is even a plug-in for MS Office that lets you save your files to your online Workspace directly from whichever Office program you are using.

Cheers,
Kate
MSFT Office Live Outreach
http://workspace.officelive.com

[Charles]

Mustafa's comment is dead on regarding the security concern about remote access - that is a huge security issue. So many issues regarding document sharing and document loss are about process and not technology. If employees are not rigorous about being organized, there is only so much technology can do.

I think technology can be most successful in facilitating access among disorganized people and preventing document loss when providing network storage space for users, in whatever form. Then, policy and top management need to formalize and champion constant saving and archiving to network drives, over local file-saving. The cherry on top would be mapping a My Documents shortcut on desktops that is actually an alias to a network drive, and restricting user saving privileges to that folder. In that way, networked storage, access and archive are automated and centralized for non-savvy users. Savvy users can use whatever program is useful for document sharing, and for that just refer to all our pbwiki pages for ideas - whether content management, task management, wiki - whatever.

[Charles]

Mustafa's comment is dead on regarding the security concern about remote access - that is a huge security issue. So many issues regarding document sharing and document loss are about process and not technology. If employees are not rigorous about being organized, there is only so much technology can do.

I think technology can be most successful in facilitating access among disorganized people and preventing document loss when providing network storage space for users, in whatever form. Then, policy and top management need to formalize and champion constant saving and archiving to network drives, over local file-saving. The cherry on top would be mapping a My Documents shortcut on desktops that is actually an alias to a network drive, and restricting user saving privileges to that folder. In that way, networked storage, access and archive are automated and centralized for non-savvy users. Savvy users can use whatever program is useful for document sharing, and for that just refer to all our pbwiki pages for ideas - whether content management, task management, wiki - whatever.

[Andrew P. Stigall]

I want to touch on the privileges aspect that Gilbert wrote about earlier because I feel this is an important issue that not many others have discussed.

Privilege settings are a big security risk. Users are usually given uniform privileges because it helps mitigate risks on a universal basis. Changing privilege settings on a case by case basis would cause a lot more work for the security admin and the mitigation controls.

I think that from a remote standpoint trying to control the documents and set the privileges is a big risk and task. In this situation you can't control what is on the remote pc and you can't really control the privileges without taking risks that can effect the entire system.

All together I feel that allowing privileges and document uploads from remote access can severely undermine the security team and cause major harm to the system.

[Mohammad Bin Hussien]

I think the larger an enterprise is the more critical and important a CDM becomes in handling the countless shared documents.

The factors you have listed are really important and right to the point. It’s really essential to know the needs of the company before deciding which CDM to use. The number of employees and the expected growth of the company are also an important factor.
As I was collaborating with my team members to finish our project, we had a lot of files to access, share and update. The tool we used did a good job in handling the different files we uploaded and used.

However, I think there can be improvements to make the process run smoother. For example, when updating a file, the software should rename the updated file to include the date and the name of the person who modified it. Little improvements like this can expedite the process and cut the time wasted.

In my opinion, CDM is really important to organize and make collaboration on an enterprise level more efficient and productive.

[Georgina Brandon]

I know for two years I was working in IT support and we always push the software over the network at night I also think by pushing the software from the network it is more secure by doing it that way. I also think the employs that are working remote there will always be a security issues and carelessness of employees.

[Peter Zucker]

I think there are already many collaborative document management systems available. These tools don’t limit the user to document management only but include also features such as virtual meeting, calendar, user access levels, and others. One example of such a tool is OfficeZilla (http://officezilla.com/), and it is even free with unlimited number of users and unlimited disk space. An example of a priced software is Microsoft SharePoint Server (http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/Pages/Default.aspx). As highlighted on the Sharepoint website: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is an integrated suite of server capabilities that can help improve organizational effectiveness by providing comprehensive content management and enterprise search, accelerating shared business processes, and facilitating information-sharing across boundaries for better business insight. Additionally, this collaboration and content management server provides IT professionals and developers with the platform and tools they need for server administration, application extensibility, and interoperability.
After having two of many applications introduced, I want to focus on other challenges which are not covered in your post. I think the most important issue is security because what does it help to have nice tools in place when they are not secure from malicious attacks. One solution would be to have sufficient safety measures in place such as firewalls and restricted user access. Other important topics are storage capacity and disaster recovery. Since storage can be expensive, some companies already decided to us the cloud as an alternative way of expanding its storage capacities in a fast and less expensive way. However, this approach has security concerns attached to it. Decision makers have to ask themselves what kind of information to put on the cloud, how secure is the cloud computing provider, and what to do in case of a disaster? It is important to make sure that business continuity and fast disaster recovery is not a problem.
Overall, there are many solutions for collaborative document management available, but the question of which one to choose has to be answered by the business managers and decision makers.

[Sai Gupta]

Most businesses stayed away from document management tools because most of them looked difficult and expensive. This trend got broken when Share Point got launched and it really took off. It is relatively easy to use tool and the security features are also quite good. At the beginning it seems like a cheaper technology but that myth gets broken very soon. As an Enterprise system manager I was part of an implementation team and used it as a secured intranet service that apart from serving as a document manager, also served as a knowledge management tool. If you want to make a business case for a document manager, you need to focus on the knowledge management aspect of it. If the organization is supporting quite a few projects then an effective database of the best practices available regarding different business processes can become extremely helpful. Organized access to this information saves thousands of dollars for the company by helping them to make the right decision. In my own experience of implementing a system like this, increased regulatory pressure on IT projects (SOX compliance) played a big part in making the business decision in favor of the tool. More and more companies are spending money on storage space, time and labor on sorting and managing documents related to IT development work. This process also comes with considerable amount of risk of failing the audit. Having a good document manager helps you to save time and also gives a peace of mind.

[Farruq Ahmed]

This software would be nice but I think companies would be better off if they use public folder option in outlook. Every employee has to have some kind of e-mail software and usually companies have exchange in the back end and outlook as the front end client. Public folders can be used very effectively. Since it is on the exchange server security shouldn’t be any problem. You can save all kinds of files in public folders and once it is setup you can use sorting, grouping and filtering capabilities.

[Susan Nguyen]

There are thousands of document management systems and you can go to http://cmsmatrix.org to compare features between different vendors.
In my current company, we constantly rely on content management system. We currently use IBM’s FileNet and found that it is lacking some features. Although, there is security between who can view and edit documents, there is not document check in/out. In other words, two people can edit the same document at the same time. Also, there is no workflow process. Document approvals and review need to be tracked separately.
I noticed that someone recommended Microsoft Office Live Space which works well for individual users but it also had the same disadvantages as IBM’s FileNet.

[Farooq]

My point in moving up with the document management software is that these are expensive and difficult in usage. The kind of recession across the globe is going on i do not think anything with lot of transitions with more variations and difficulties should be applied.
Added to it is a security issue .

[Alla Trakhtengarts]

I think many companies struggle with the same issue of what to do with all the paper documents and how to move on to the paperless process. I worked on few projects at my job where we were trying to figure out a solution to move all of our paper based testing to a document management electronic repository. It is a long process to evaluate varies tools that would fit your requirements. My company uses Documentum to manage all the policies and documents and we use just implemented Quality Center to replace our paper based testing process.

[Michelle Trunda]

My team uses SVN and a tool called Tortoise - this really helps with version control and file sharing. While Tortoise makes the file system feel like Windows and integrates the file sharing, it still can be a bit slow and it's less than intuitive. After experimenting with some less-popular documents, it was simple to figure out, but it's still not clear what exactly it's doing. Keeps documents safe, available and accurate, whether sharing or working independently. It's great to see examples of alternatives - thanks for sharing!

[Eric Knox]

At my work we are also in the process of rolling out Microsoft SharePoint. We will be using if for document and knowledge management. As I understand it, the tool gives us the ability to set permissions and set up different types of access. We will be able to make some sections available only on the company network or via VPN, but will also be able to have a section or sections that allow us to share information with customers and other vendors. I do agree with those who have mentioned that the security implications could become quite time consuming to manage, but can't yet speak for whether this will be true in our case. For what it's worth, the folks running the project seem to think it will be pretty straightforward.

[Li Yue]

I agree with Alla Trakhtengarts. Most of the companies are troubled with so many unstructured content like Documents, emails, audio, video files everyday. They want to find a good way to deal with them efficiently.
My company has created a system ourselves. We have a Inhouse Network. We can email with each other. We can post some news and event on the board. We also can sumit some affairs there, like the Note for Leave, Application for the Grant of Leave or some other infomations. The work attendance checking system is also included. It's very convenient for us to deal with daily work in the company with this great system. So I think a proper collaborative document management system is very necessary for a company.

[Rob Jawor]

Security issues aside another concern is space that is taken up by unnecessary storage of unnecessary information. Too often, people think that that email from 10 years ago is going to be needed and relevant today. Unless directed to keep information by a government entity, most documentation can be discarded or saved to tape after 5 years. With technology changing rapidly, the presentation you made to a vendor many years ago is probably irrelevant. The question of, "Are you worried about how you would discover and produce key documents and emails to defend your organization in the case of a lawsuit or government investigation?" is the reason to keep these documents on tape but not on an expensive share drive. Reducing company space waste can give users easier access when looking for documents and save the company money in server and storage fees.

[Michael Lafferty]

this is something I've never thought of, yet it seems so obvious. I believe a CDM is imperative in a business setting. you would obviously need to set permissions and the like, but this could enhance productivity, efficiency, accuracy. it may cost money, but it would pay itself off very quickly. documents would be store via department/category. with a search feature if you are having trouble tracking it down. and all files should be stored on a server. it wouldn't be all that difficult to implement. it would be well worth it!

[Yase Ge]

There are already many adding challenges in the above comments. I want to say something about prioritizing the need for CDMS (collaborative document management system) in an organization. I think the most important capability challenges of CDMS are Capture, Integration and Indexing.

Capture is an important capability in CDMS since many incoming data are not electricity based. Images of paper documents using scanners and get more information by the Optical character recognition (OCR) software could enhance the capture capability.

Integration is commonly available for office suites and e-mail or collaboration/groupware software, is important for sharing document directly into other applications.

Indexing is tracking electronic documents and it an important capability for the end users. It could provide classification and word indexes extracted from the documents' contents.

[Jarmila Alanez]

There are many Document Content Management solutions out in the market. There are Free ware, Open Source and Closed source solutions. The ones I advice to use are between the Closed source and the Open Source, because they both solved pretty much the security issue of having someone threatening your documents. For closed source we have Microsoft and Oracle. They both offer very good products for Document Management. I personally prefer to work with Alfresco, which is an Open Source solution for Document Management, they also offer another product for it with IT professionals to assist you, that product cost a little fee for maintenance. It offers Collaboration, versioning to go back and see the changes made for you or your co-workers, which time and what. They also offer disaster recovery, and high security.

If you guys are interested in taking a look, here is the link:

http://www.alfresco.com/index-b2.html

[Ayesha Boyd]

I have found that while working in corporate america, there is always some type of debate as to which document repository system is best for the company. Most companies might use Sharepoint, while others might be leaning more towards open source software. I am currently going through this as work where the company standard is to use sharepoint, while other groups want to use their own personal wiki which is an open source software. Is it that the company already has a contract with that company as to why they will not bulge on their decision? I have always thought this to be interesting because what good is a collaboration tool when no one is effectively using it.