Methods of Document
Management

These solutions are designed for and have a core strength in the management of documents and content. They are typically platforms that manage every aspect of a documents lifecycle from access and search, to sharing, collaborating, workflows and also archiving, insight from anywhere. Their core focus and capability though, as the name suggests, is managing documents and content. DMS can be in the cloud or on premise and there are 2 board sub-group.

• Enterprise – for management all forms content across business silos and departments are powerful, scalable customisable platforms that can be tailored to almost any purpose. Sometimes these are called Enterprise Content Management Systems or Managed Content Services.
• Departmental – these DMS tend to be lighter weight and are better suited to the Document Management challenges of a single department or team rather than having the scale to manage all content and workflows across a business and its departments.

Collaboration and workplace productivity solutions such as Microsoft 365 often have document management capabilities and mechanism for sharing content ie Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Onedrive. Whilst each of these applications serve a purpose for collaboration, their end to end Document Management capabilities can be limited and can contribute to “document chaos”. Modern Document Management solutions tend to integrate with these platforms such as Microsoft 365 to provide those capabilities alongside the benefits of Document Management

These solutions have a strength in managing, optimising and automating digital processes. There are typically platforms that manage every aspect of a Business Process which often includes the management of documents relating to the process. They tend to have all the end to end management capabilities of a Document Management System alongside powerful workflow capabilities that can easily handle customisations, integrations to all most any system such as an ERP as well as complex workflows mapping, governance and execution such as concurrent processes or require a mix of automated with human processes and intervention. They excel at digital processes, management and automation of them. The more advanced ones adhere to the industry standard for Business Process Modelling and Notation (BPMN 2.0).

There are 2 broad categories of BPM solutions.

Application Specific – These BPM solutions are typically optimised for automating and managing one or a collection of very specific processes in a business or department such as Expenses, Account Payable, Employee or student Onboarding etc. Their specialism and strength can also be their weakness in some cases as it encourage silos. These applications will typically integrate with other systems and typically manage associated documents.
Customisable BPM Platforms –  These BPM platforms are highly customisable and can be tailored to manage almost any document or digital process. They often include templates or pre-configured solutions for certain departmental processes or knowledge work. They tend to have a strength in integration with other systems and applications. They typically incorporate the full suite of Document Management and BPM capabilities for managing and automating the management of documents and data throughout its life. BPM platforms can help remove silos in information and documents, systems and cost. Key Applications include contract management, finance workflows, sales proposal management, Internal or external approvals, HR document workflows, sales order processing, case management, project management and customer specific workflows.

Many businesses (55%) still have old departmental file shares that can only be accessed on the network or via VPN access. This is a really basic form Document Management that is really only a limited storage tool. Core document management capabilities around search, version control, easy & governed collaboration and editing of documents, back-ups, easy access from anywhere, meta-data driven capabilities, user-based control, tracking – are all completely missing.  This approach doesn’t have the benefits of Document Management System and is a major source of operational inefficiency and risk.