Document Management Systems

A document creation and assembly solution built on the Microsoft Office System can improve productivity and reduce errors by enabling content reuse, streamlining document assembly, and optimizing content capture processes. With dynamic document assembly, an organization can also improve the quality of deliverables and broaden the scope of content available for reuse.

The Challenge
Organizations face mounting challenges around storage, organization, and retrieval of vital records and documents. Information is held in a wide variety of formats and repositories, and the volume of information is constantly growing. In addition, client teams are often geographically separated and team members may work in different applications. Finally, government controls, regulatory guidelines, and client demands regarding records retention are tighter than ever before.

Organizations increasingly recognize the critical need for a good document management and retention solution, but they might find implementing such a solution to be prohibitively time-consuming or expensive.

As a result, employees often create ad hoc file structures for each project, leading to unnecessary manual work. Teams struggle with inconsistent file structures across projects and applications. Organizations face increased risk due to lost or unsaved documents and a lack of corporate quality control and enforcement of standards and guidelines.

The Solution
An automated document management and retention solution built using the Microsoft Office System can help project teams easily organize, share, and access important engagement documents, increasing collaboration and team productivity.

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Figure 1-  Illustration showing how a document management and retention solution can create an organized file structure where information can be easily stored, retrieved, and shared

A document management solution can streamline the processes around creating document repositories, file structures, and team sites; identifying required records; defining disposition schedules; and providing team members with access to project sites and documents. A solution can also address how teams store and manage records throughout the life of the project.

A document retention solution may use Microsoft Office 2007, SharePoint Server 2007, Forms Server and other Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies for file system setup, management, and security. Team members can navigate through the file system using familiar Office interfaces like those in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and Microsoft Office Word 2007. A solution might also feature applications like Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 and Microsoft Office Live Meeting to enhance collaboration.

A solution built on the Microsoft Office System can help address specific document management and retention challenges. As an example, for a firm that performs project managements, SharePoint document management solutions enable:

  • Automation of document management setup procedures. Using e-forms, basic metadata such as customer name, project start date, and contract type, can be captured automatically at the start of the project. In addition, team members can be selected, required records can be designated, and disposition schedules can be defined for the project.
  • Central location for engagement documents. Using SharePoint Products and Technologies, a central project site can be created to provision an engagement project with standardized templates, allow Web-based access to all records, provide easy administration of file systems, enable central policy enforcement by records managers, administer security, and assign access privileges to team members.
  • Integration of file system across all Office applications. XML support gives team members the ability to save and access files in their native formats from any Office application interface. Team members can also save records across applications using drag and drop functionality

Imaginet Document Management Services 

Microsoft Office 2007 and SharePoint Server 2007 provide a cost effective way for organizations to manage documents and records. Imaginet provides consulting services for document and records management in the following areas:·         Information taxonomy design

  • Document management policy design
  • Information retrieval and usage policy
  • Document retention and storage capacity planning
  • Archiving alternatives
  • SharePoint design and architecture
  • SharePoint configuration
  • Infrastructure design and security
  • SharePoint operations and maintenance
  • Training for employees

Contact us for SharePoint and Microsoft® Office document management consulting  services at: sales@imaginets.com.