Document Management in the Business - a comparison of approaches

Introduction

Do you sometimes struggle to remember where you stored that file? Do your staff save Word or Excel documents to their desktop or "My Documents" were they are inaccessible to others?Are you confident all documents are being backed up? Can you always find documents written by your colleagues when they are out of the office?

Perhaps then it is time to form a document management strategy. In this article we will consider some of the approaches you might take.

Folder structure

This is perhaps the simplest and most commonly used strategy. Build a set of folders on the file server and a set of instructions for their use. The most common, and that suggested when you install Microsoft's Small Business Server, is no more than a folder for each user. You then leave it to the individual where to put documents. It is clear this is poorly structured and will lead to difficulties in finding document created by colleagues.

A little better is for example to create a folder for example for each customer and even a folder structure below that, for example Correspondence, Quotes, Orders and so on. This is certainly better, but still relies on the discipline of staff.

It has always astonished me that Microsoft built a product called Office and never built a file cabinet to go with it. I always assumed they would so all the way back in the 1994 I decided there was no reason to build one myself. Well they never did and I have finally built Net-Cabinet, but let me continue.

Chuck it in a big pot and look later

Microsoft's operating systems include a general search tool to help you find a file. Google have a product, Google Appliance that takes this further offering a great search tool to find files. So relying on a good search tool you can ask users to just store documents anywhere and rely on finding them later.

We have studied this and believe it is inefficient. It is better for the author to categorize the document either by location or by tagging to help others find them later than to ask the person trying to find a document to guess on the content. The approach is always floored as the searcher does not know if the document even exists. The cost or relying on a general search can be estimated and it is a significant waste of resource.

Automated filing systems

A small utility running on each machine takes a document as it is saved and writes it to a sensible and safe location, giving it a consistent name. At this time Tags are entered by the author to help others (and indeed them self) find the document later. It takes literally a few seconds to tag a document and thereafter finding a document can be quick and efficient. Search times of less than a second to find a document in 250,000 can be demonstrated.

Once a document is tagged this effectively allows it to be filed in more than one location. A document may relate to a customer,a supplier and a project. It can then appear in a virtual folder for each. This approach matches they way our minds work and is a natural fit for the way we work. user training is minimal and users will embrace the new approach very quickly.

Document Management Systems

The simple automated filing system can be extended to include support for paperless offices, workflow and other document management features. These more complex systems can be very effective, but their deployment is costly and needs careful consideration. The processes used in the business has to be carefully investigated and mapped into the workflow.

The law of diminishing returns

Analyzing the cost and effectiveness of the approaches that a business can take to manage documents in the business shows a range from free to very expensive. The range is also from very simple to very complex. As always there are diminishing returns from the investment in time and money. The automated filing systems like Net-Cabinet offer a low cost and simple to implement approach that yields the majority of the benefits.

Offer your business the benefit of a managed document storage and retrieval and you will be surprised of the size of the benefit. In-action is the most expensive course.

Ian Manning, Baycastle Software

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