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What is document management? What is an electronic document management system?
Document Management refers to any method that is used to organize and control files and documents. Electronic document management systems, including document management software, provide a means to employ document management on a computer. Traditional document management systems include utilizing file cabinets, drawers, or any other type of physical storage space that also allows the ability to organize its contents.
While these traditional document management systems may be comfortable to use and easily available, they have significant drawbacks that eventually cause inefficiencies, lapses in productivity, and possibly complete data and file loss. Suppose your current system is a basic file and folder system, using traditional filing cabinets as the primary storage means. Any time a file is required, either you personally get up, go to the filing cabinet, and retrieve the file, or you tell your assistant to do it, which may end up taking even more time. Furthermore, you have to be aware of where the document you are looking is filed, and if it is an obscure document type, it may be placed in one of many locations, further increasing document retrieval times. And you will only find this document if the person that used it before re-filed it correctly. If not, the document could now be in one of hundreds of places, if not lost all together. What if someone is using the document right now? You could end up on a wild goose-chase all over the office, just looking for one document.
Electronic document management systems allow you to find the files you need instantly. They drastically reduce document retrieval times, allowing you to get more work done in significantly less time, thereby cutting unnecessary overhead costs and increasing overall productivity. They also provide the tools for various industries to comply with legislation that specifies procedures for record keeping. Some examples include financial service companies and Sarbanes-Oxley; medical practices and HIPPA; and the legal industry with requirements regarding discovery. Specific departments within organizations, such as human resources and accounting, can greatly benefit from electronic document management. Even individuals, with items like tax returns, mortgages, wills, receipts, and a host of other paper files can benefit by providing safekeeping and security to their most important files.
With electronic document management software like Docsvault being so affordable and easy-to-use, these benefits are now becoming available to average individuals, professionals, and small-to-medium businesses. Read on to find out about the many advantages that comprehensive document management software, such as Docsvault, can provide to make your office, your business, and your everyday life incredibly more productive and efficient. With Docsvault, your document management system will be easy-to-use, affordable, and provide state-of-the-art security, making it even more worthwhile to implement.
Learn more about Docsvault…
What are the benefits of an electronic document management system?
There are five main benefits to electronic document management systems:
- cost savings
- implementing security
- easy data access
- immediate disaster recovery
- procedure consistency
Cost savings are realized in various ways. Studies by Forbes ASAP have shown that the average professional wastes 150 hours a year solely to looking for documents. Now assume that this professional’s time is valued at $30 per hour. That means $4500 is wasted per year per individual just in searching for documents. These costs can be immediately eliminated with a good document management system. These systems can also eradicate costs that go to recreating lost or misfiled documents. Yet another way to save costs is by eliminating file cabinets that take up physical space. With real estate prices always increasing, an electronic document management system can free up valuable space for other purposes.
Implementing security for your files and documents is one of the most pressing issues in today’s workplace. Keeping files safe from the competition, thieves, and ill-natured employees is an ongoing process. Electronic document management systems allow you to put various roadblocks in place to prevent these occurrences. Various levels of password protection give access to files and folders only to those with authorization. Certain cabinets and folders can even be hidden so they seem to be non-existent. Encryption can provide impenetrable security, even if someone happens to get away with theft, and the Audit Trail feature track all activities and file access, providing a logbook of events.
As described earlier, providing easy access to documents can drastically reduce costs and increase efficiency. Electronic document management systems can also control multiple users trying to access the same document. Here, various users can view the original document, but only one person can make changes at a time. This is done by having users “check out” the document. Other users can wait in line to have access as soon as the original user is done. Version Control provides a means to know which version is the latest and what changes were made to each version. Users can even access older versions. In a multiple-user environment, an electronic document management system can considerably increase the efficiency of the workgroup.
Recovering from a disaster is also a very real concern. Electronic document management systems provide multiple ways to ensure your home or business does not get crippled after a disaster. One way is by providing data backup features for offsite storage. Another is a repository exporting feature to map your entire repository to another location.
The last main benefit that electronic document management systems provide ensures procedure consistency. With employees usually wanting to do things their own way, an electronic document management system can ensure that employees do things by protocol.
Apart from these five main benefits, each application within each industry will continuously find new advantages of implementing an electronic document management system. It all depends on to what extent each individual or organization utilizes the tools provided.
How do I convert to an electronic document management system?
In order to use an electronic document management system, you must own or use some type of computer. For individuals, a PC is most likely the hardware, whereas with small businesses, a server would be more appropriate. The other piece of hardware required is a scanner. Various types of scanners currently exist that can fit your budget and needs.
The core component of an electronic document management system is the document management software. It is important to software that provides extensive features, is easy-to-use and affordable, and easy to install and implement. One such software is Docsvault by Easy Data Access. Docsvault makes higher priced document management technology available to average users and organizations through a simple interface, richness in features, and low price, coming together to provide extraordinary value.
Next, we will take a look at what features are typically used to convert to an electronic file and document management system. All of the features that will be mentioned from here on are also included in Docsvault. For simplicity, we will assume that the computer used is a PC.
The first step in using document management is to setup a file repository. A file repository specifies where the files that you bring into the software go on your PC. Document management software will always ask you where you would like to send the files. Most often the software will create a special folder on your PC’s hard drive to save all of your files. The next step is to import, or bring in, all of your files into the software and the repository, which can be done in various ways.
Importing your paper files and other physical documents will require digitizing them with a scanner. Good document management software will have an intuitive document imaging or document scanning component included. Using this tool, simply scan in all your files. The advantage of managing your documents electronically is multiple-fold. First, when you scan in the document, good document management software will allow you to assign your own descriptive classes to the files you import, called Properties. Instead of having just a file name or date created, you can make your own fields that describe your files, like client name, due date, document type (letter, fax, etc), or any other field you want. What’s more, good document management software will allow you to group these Properties into Profiles. You then have the ability to assign a Profile to any document you scan or import. You can create multiple Profiles, allowing you to assign different Profiles to different file types. For example, you could have Picture Profile for your pictures that had Properties like Date Taken, Picture Of, and Where Taken, and then have a Document Profile for your various documents that had Properties like Document Type, Author, and Purpose.
You are not limited to just scanning in your files. You can import from your local hard drive, a USB drive, a FTP site, or any other place that your PC can access.
Next, you use your document management software to create a filing structure that can emulates your traditional system. The electronic version has many more options, including the ability to create folders inside of folders. What’s more, you can automatically assign certain Profiles to folders, so any time you put a new file in that folder, it gets the Profile you designated. You simply fill in the Property fields and are on your way. Good document management software will have an intuitive layout for accessing, creating, and navigating this folder structure. Some software, including Docsvault, will allow you to put password protection on individual folders, so you can keep things where they belong and not worry about having the wrong people accessing them.
What are the main features in an electronic document management system? How do I benefit from them?
In this section, we will go through some of the more popular features of an electronic document management system and how they drastically improve the productivity and efficiency of the workplace. Again, all of the features mentioned are included in Docsvault unless otherwise stated.
Document Scanning and Organizing
The first feature we will go over is the built-in scanning interface. It is referred to as ‘built-in’ because all of the parts necessary to scan in your paper documents is included in the document management software. All you need is a compliant scanner and the proper hardware to hook everything up. The software itself then can control and manage the scanner, allowing you to digitize documents from one place. This makes converting to a paperless office that much easier.
The next group of features and functions that will be discussed is the document organization tools. The first of these features is the Cabinet-Folder-File structure. This feature allows you to mimic traditional file cabinet systems. You begin by making a virtual cabinet. Within this cabinet, you can place folders. Now, within these folders you can place more folders or begin placing files and documents. The advantage to this virtual filing cabinet is that you can make as many cabinets as you need and that you can place folders inside of folders, something that is physically impossible with traditional physical filing systems. The possibilities of how you arrange cabinets, folders, and files are endless.
Also included in the document organizational tools are Properties and Profile assignment. Profiles and Properties allow you to add your own descriptive fields to any file you import. An easy example is as follows: suppose you are scanning in your photos. After a photo is scanned, the Properties feature allows you to make custom descriptive fields like Date Taken, Taken By, and Taken At. After you assign these properties, you can fill in these fields with the appropriate information, like May 14, 1983, Mom, and At Home. Instead of painstakingly assigning each of these Properties to every file you import, you can create a Profile that lumps these Properties together and automatically assigns them to files. You can even assign Profiles to a folder or an entire cabinet, giving each file inside the same Profile. Continuing the example, you could call the group of photo properties Photos. Now every time you scan in a photo, you assign it the Photos Profile and fill in the appropriate fields. This benefits you in two ways. First, it allows you to customize the way you organize all of your files and folders. You can make more obscure files easier to manage. This gives you much more flexibility in the way you organize your documents when compared to traditional physical filing systems. Second, the retrieval of these documents also becomes easier. With document management software like Docsvault, you can search for files based not only on file name, but also the properties and profiles that you have assigned, drastically reducing the amount of time you spend looking for files.
Another more subtle feature when you import your files into the software is the ability to add notes. This feature is self-explanatory—any time you bring a file into the software, you can assign notes to it. This will help you remember special circumstances or descriptions that may be associated with files that you bring into the software.
Document Managing
Microsoft® Office integration is very popular feature. With this, you can automatically organize documents from the Microsoft programs you are already comfortable with. For example, with Docsvault, you begin by going to the File menu and selecting Save to Docsvault. From here, you can assign where to save within the repository, assign Properties and Profiles, apply the various security settings (to be discussed), and add descriptive notes. You can also access Docsvault through Outlook, giving you a means to organize and archive all of your emails as well.
Some document management software, including Docsvault, also includes a built-in PDF creator. This feature allows you to create PDF files from any application with printing capabilities. PDF is an Adobe file format and is quickly becoming the most popular file format for sharing documents around the world. You can create PDFs by simply going to File > Print and select the software’s PDF writer under the Printer Name. With Docsvault, for example, you select Docsvault PDF as the printer name. The document then gets automatically saved in the software as a PDF wherever you specify.
Another feature is Version Control. With this feature, you have the ability to create new versions of documents every time you save them. This is done by first ‘checking out’ the document from the software repository. This allows the software to make the necessary moves to allow the feature to work. By ‘checking out’ the document, you are essentially opening the document. Once you make your changes to the documents, you save it as you normally would. You then proceed into the software and ‘check in’ the document. By following this procedure, the software will make new versions every time you save. You can also attach notes to each version, giving you the ability to track what changes were made with each subsequent version. Software like Docsvault even allows you to revert back to an older version. This is to ensure that you are not committed to any changes that you make to a document.
File Search and Retrieval
The search feature also has a lot of functionality associated with it. Apart from performing ordinary searches, good document management software will have advanced search characteristics. One such characteristic is full-text indexing. Anytime you bring a text document into the file repository (the database where the software keeps all the files), the software will automatically index the files and the text within the files. This allows you to search for files based on the text within the files, so if you only remember the first two words written within a document, you can still find it. But remember, files will only be indexed if they are text documents. Files like photos with text embedded within the photo will not be indexed. Another search function that is not often found in software is saved searches. With document management software like Docsvault, you can save frequently used search criteria, including profiles and properties, indexed text, notes, or any of the other search parameters. All of these search functions come together to virtually eliminate file retrieval times, allowing you to find the documents you need when you need them.
File Security
We will now shift towards security features. The first is encryption security. Docsvault is the only known document management software that provides 128-bit encryption security for your files and documents. When a file is encrypted, it is basically scrambled in a unique way. The only way to unscramble the file is to have key. Encrypting your files makes them impenetrable, even by the developers of the software. There is no better way to prevent access to your most valuable digital files than to encrypt them.
Controlling access to files and documents is another way electronic document management provides security. You can implement multiple layers of password protection that gives access only to those users that are authorized. Certain files and folders can even be hidden so that other users don’t even see that they exist.
Another security feature is Audit Trail. This feature provides a logbook of events and changes that have occurred to your documents and settings. It keeps track of changes to specific files, folders, and cabinets by filename, username, event time, event type, or file path. It even tracks changes made to settings and preferences. This feature is invaluable when multiple employees are continuously accessing and modifying files within the repository. Its value can even be seen with individuals with a home office. If children are consistently using the computer, their antics could unknowingly change settings and delete important files. Think about the advantage of Audit Trail as follows: without Audit Trail, there is no record of who has viewed and modified a file, making it virtually impossible to bring inefficiencies and mistakes in a business process to light. With Audit Trail, you know exactly what is happening.
Document Archiving, File Retention, Data Backup and Repository Exporting
Good document management software will also provide all the tools to provide data backup and repository exporting. These features ensure that your home or office is not crippled after a devastating disaster, like floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes. One feature that addresses this is CD/DVD data backup. The document management software will provide a means to create a CD or DVD, assuming your computer has the appropriate burner, which has your full document repository on it. You can then store this CD or DVD offsite, making sure your documents are in multiple locations. With Docsvault, this process is made even easier with one-click burning, providing an effortless means to produce data backups. With files often being stored in one central location, such as a laptop, any theft, damage, or loss of this location would be devastating.
This feature can also be used for document archiving and record retention. This allows various industries to comply with legislation calling for specific procedures for record keeping. It can also free up valuable office space by eliminating filing cabinets and instead having a few CDs or DVDs in its place.
Repository exporting is the last feature regarding data backup. This feature allows users to export the entire file repository to any location. With Docsvault, the advantage of this is that the entire cabinet-folder-file structure is retained in the export. Users can then access the files and folders, in their original filing structure, even if the Docsvault software is unavailable.
Electronic Document Management Conclusions
You should now be comfortable with the details regarding an electronic document management system. With so many drawbacks of traditional filing systems and the seemingly endless advantages of an electronic system, the reasons behind implementing an electronic document management system should now be obvious. The only item remaining on the agenda is choosing the right document management software.
Chances are that if you read this Beginner’s Guide to Document Management, you are not too comfortable with implementing new technology. That’s where Docsvault, the latest document management software by Easy Data Access, comes into the picture. The number one goal in designing Docsvault was to make every aspect incredibly simple and intuitive. Every single step of using Docsvault is easy. Installation takes only a few steps, and since we designed the interface with drag-and-drop functionality like Windows file explorer, learning Docsvault is almost second nature. What this means to you is that you can now implement high-end document management software without all the IT headaches and training. Best of all, Docsvault is incredibly affordable, making it an exceptional value.
Learn more about the solutions and benefits that Docsvault provides.
Learn more about the single-user Docsvault Professional Edition.
Learn more about the multiple-user Docsvault Small Business Edition.
Glossary
audit trail – an electronic logbook that tracks changes to settings, preferences, and major events within a program
check out – refers to the process of temporarily removing a file or document from the repository so that changes may be made
check in – refers to the process of replacing a file or document after it has been ‘checked out’ from the repository after changes have been made
component – a specific sub-unit of software that has its own functionality
data backup – refers to the process of transferring files and information to another media type, such as CD or DVD, for the purpose of offsite storage for disaster recovery
descriptive class – a classifying field associated with files that provides information about that file. Examples include: file name, date created, date modified, file type, etc.
document archiving – refers to the process of taking old files and documents and organizing them in a way that allows convenient access at later date
document imaging – refers to a component of software that allows you to convert paper files into electronic files
document management – refers to the methods of organizing, storing, and controlling documents and files, whether paper or electronic
document management software – type of software that allows users to electronically organize, store, and control files and documents
document management system – any system that employs the methods of document management
document scanning – refers to the conversion of paper files into electronic files via some sort of scanning hardware
electronic document management – a document management system that is completely electronic, meaning the organizing, storing, and controlling of files and documents is done on a computer
file encryption – to alter a file using a unique code so as to be unintelligible to unauthorized parties
export – refers to the process of sending data from one program to another program or location
file repository – refers to the location where data files and documents are kept
file retention – refers to the process of keeping documents and records for the purpose of compliance with legislation; generally speaking is the process of keeping documents and records for possible future use
full-text indexing – refers to the methods that software uses to catalog all words within files and documents to enhance search functions
import – to bring in files or data into a program or location
Microsoft® Office integration – refers to the process of coordinating certain functions of software with Microsoft® Office programs
PDF – acronym for portable document finder;
properties – in document management context, refers to custom descriptive classes that can be assigned to files
profiles – in document management context, refers to groupings of properties that can be assigned to files
scanning interface – the interaction method between a user, a computer, and a scanner.
version control – in document management context, refers to the ability to manage iterative changes made to files and documents
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