Advanced Document Management Solutions: Collaboration, Enterprise Content Management, Computing In The Cloud

Beyond sharing, there’s a need to collaborate on business and social projects that would be nearly impossible without having the web. For example, a little company owner hires a book keeper component time to update his accounting software, this kind of as Quickbooks, with receipts, invoices, bills, and so on. In “the old days”, the book keeper would have to be onsite or stop by the office and pick up all of the difficult copy documentation to ensure that they could update Quickbooks back at their own office. Now, the receipts, invoices, bills, and so on. could be scanned and posted on a content sharing and collaboration site such as SharePoint or Box.net (as a side note, SharePoint is a server based product provided by Micorsoft and Box.net is a Web 2.0 cloud computing site). The book keeper could be granted entry to these files and they can continue their work with no time commuting back and forth to the office to pick up the documents. It gets even better. Let’s say two businesses, separated by a thousand miles, are partnering together to bid on a big government project. They both have to perform on the bid proposal which happens to become a MS Word document. The Word file can be placed in a shared content material management folder. Comments and corrections towards the bid could be additional and revisions to the bid can be tracked.   Access to the document can be controlled thus ensuring the document is secure from non-designated employees viewing the document. You’re now in control of your documents. You can handle your time more effectively and efficiently. Manage your docs, do not let them manage you!

“But what if I have “tons” of digital docs(word docs, spread sheets, PDFs, mp3, etc.) and I want to find them easily and only permit entry to particular employees?” That’s refereed to Enterprise Content material Management (ECM). “Doesn’t that require some extremely trained IT personnel to implement and maintain a system like that?”  Yes and No. More NO than YES. As I pointed out previously, there are server and cloud computing items available that can fit most all needs. From a loved ones member wanting to privately share photos with other loved ones members, towards the little company owner who needs to partner with other companies and part time contractors, to the large company with literally millions of documents, you will find options.  For most of us, you will find free of charge to competitively priced solutions available which will meet most individual and small company needs. Here are several examples.

1)  Google Apps (free/fee): Google Apps provides the small company their own domain, e-mail hosting, Google docs, Google Calendar, Google Contacts and other selected features. Sharing and collaboration with permissions is really a strong point and it’s simple to use with a short learning curve. Your documents are stored on Google’s servers so disaster recovery is assured. The only drawback, as with any Cloud Computing item, you will find storage size limitations. If you have gigabytes of data, you’ll need to look to a server dependent option.
2)  Microsoft SharePoint (free/fee):  As I mentioned previously, SharePoint is really a server based product offered by Microsoft.   If you are running Windows Server 2003 or higher, you’ve SharePoint services for free of charge. IT assistance will be needed to implement SharePoint Providers or the Portal version ( fee). Hosted SharePoint options are also offered by providers such as 1and1.com and GoDaddy.com. The understanding curve for SharePoint is a little more steep and longer. But, if you have gigabytes of information and your own server, you can store as much content material as your server will allow.
3)  Box.net ( fee):  Box.net is really a really powerful, yet simple to use cloud computing ECM solution. Box’s strong points are integration with 3rd party software program vendors and its universal document viewer. Like Google Apps, entry to docs could be controlled by the end user. Again, integration with 3rd party software vendors helps the end user to be able to easily modify and revise documents from within the Box.net environment.  
4)  Documentum ( fee): If you are a director or VP of a large company, then you’ll wish to consider this really effective server dependent enterprise answer. You will find a number of modules that may be additional and customized as required this kind of as; Document Manage, Company Procedure Management, and so on. Implementing any larger server dependent ECM solution will need specialized IT support and a training program for end users will be required. The implementation will require time training and budget but the advantages will be worth it.  

At Twin Imaging, we can help you determine the best ECM and/or collaboration tools that will help your organization to share, collaborate and manage content material. . . Manage your documents, do not let them manage you.

Get more details on Document Management and Scanning Services and Secondary ElectronicStorage for Disaster Recovery. Visit www.twinimaging.com