management, Is it really document mgmt? I don't know what I need, so here's the problem....

Hi everyone.

Here's the situ: I work for a health insurance company in the mid
south, and I work in a small group of 6 people that together comprise
the Executive Development/Succession Management function. Our work is
info/document/data intensive.

We are all using the MS XP/Office Professional programs like
Powerpoint, Excel, Access, Word, and also use Lotus Notes (a seperate
problem) for email and database. We all have our own C: drives with
limited space, our own personal accounts on a server, and a secure
common shared server for saving our files. We use ALL the MS software,
so we have tons of Word files, Excel files, etc.

The problem: we usually save our files to the common share drive and
then all hell breaks loose. No one uses any common way of naming files,
we have multiple versions of the same file out there, or even worse,
multiple copies with minor changes, and on and on. You can see where I
headed by now.

We need a simple and cheap way to manage our files and something that
everyone in the group can use, and at the same time. I'd like to find
something that creates and saves versions olf documents, creates a
naming protocol and then enforces it, gives iknfo about who created a
file, when, why, and who has changed/updated. I looked at DocuCabinet a
little, but it seems to be geared for scanned images rather than a MS
Office environment.

Can anybody give me some direction....
- Is this "document management"? Terms are important because I have
searched the web and haven't come up with much.
- Is there software out there that would help?
- Is it fairly inexpensive?
- Are there resources beyond software? Like Consultants, books,
articles, sharable knowledge and experience?

This is very much "Document Management" (DM). DM typically includes
electronic document version control, access control, a robust audit
trail and metadata management. Each of these items sound like they are
requirements for your organization.

If you are especially concerned about costs, focus your search on
vendors that license their software based on the number of users as
opposed to the number of servers. Also, consider the hardware
requirements when you do your vendor selection, because often times the
money you might save with a cheap DM system is wiped out when you have
to add additional hardware.

In terms of books, I recommend Ann Rockley's book "Managing Enterprise
Content":
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735713065/sr=8-1/qid=1143045947/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-6892976-1619307? %5Fencoding=UTF8.

Matrix Logic Corporation is a reseller of the Hummingbird DM product
( http://www.hummingbird.com/products/enterprise/dm/index.html ). I
would be happy to speak with you about your particular requirements if
you would like to reply to me directly.

Erik Gellatly
Matrix Logic Corporation

You should look for a Document Management system that can store any
file format, provide version management/history, utilize a SQL database
(instead of a proprietary one), have built in access security, and
integrates with Lotus Notes so that you have a single corporate
repository for all documents and email/attachments.

We implemented such a solution for an insurance company in Arkansas
which also included Document Imaging, Storage Management with data
mirroring, Web access and much more.

Be careful with solutions that really comprise of multiple products
from multiple vendors. If you can find one vendor with a single
product that does all what you need, then you will have much less
worries and administration overhead.

http://www.enarainc.com/documents/RKFL_ENARA_SAPERION_CaseStudy.pdf

Louis,

Yes, it is document management. You might want to take a look at our
DoucXplorer product. DocuXplorer features include integration with MS
Office allowing your users to save their files directly to the DX
Library. You can set the program up to allow for multiple versions of a
document and full content search.

Setting up an Index Set with up to 35 user-definable fields allows
users to enter index data to indentify each document. You can set up a
naming convention for exported documents or email attachment based on
these index entries.

DocuXplorer is affordable and provides for a downloadable 30-day free
trial. Please visit our website to see if DocuXplorer can provide with
a solution.

Ira Fogel
DocuXplorer Software

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You don't need document management, you need cobaboration Document
Management System, and be careful about word collaboration becase same
companies can sell you DM without any integration with desktop
application.
Prety good choices are Interwoven Worksite, HummingBird DM realy bad
choise is Filenet P8.

Enara mentioned that is better to have all products from one wendoor,
its't the ECM propaganda. When you have BPM for claim proccessing, and
you notice that you need WCM and Colaboration DMS is better select the
product which have requested features from another wendoor.

To start with, how about discussing it with the group, to come up with
some system(s?) for naming files?
Also, using the doc title, and other metadata as appropriate, will be a
great warm-up and start doing some good immediately.

If it is a Windows server, the more recent versions include Windows
Sharepoint Services, which can help too.

What's new since last post?

Sounds like Microsoft Sharepoint is something you might wanna look in
to!

I would encourage you to take a look at DocClarity. DocClarity is a
fully managed web hosted document management solution. The majority of
our clients are involved in the commercial real estate profession
because they are so laden with paper and electronic tenant leases,
amendments, insurance contracts, etc. But we do have other clients and
thousands of customer accesses across all lines of business. An ASP is
worthy of considerration due to the benefit of no capital expenditure
for your company. CFO's like that! There is no hardware or software
to buy and (yea!) no maintenance fees. Our core technology is Stellent
Universal Content Manager. Stellent has been labeled one of the
visionaries for ECM (Enterprise Content Management) by Gartner
consulting. You simply pay for what you use. Visit us at
www.docclarity.com or email me at XXXX@XXXXX.COM . We're
here to help and good luck.