How to empower the end user in Document Management Systems
Todays challenges with a DMS
Most Document Management Systems (DMS) today focuses on the documents themselves and how to keep them secure. Which often results in complicated sharing capabilities and documents so deeply hidden they get lost. No doubt users spend a large amount of time searching for their documents in storage libraries, battling with lifecycles and static workflows on individual documents.
This brings us to the main problem, there is little to no concern for the end user experience in document management systems. This makes for a low innovation level with a limited feature set. This is OK for some organizations, though many times the DMS ends up not being used unless there is a formal requirement.
It is important to design a safe path for the document, but also the business process, so that you also can let users know how that path is laid out.
Working with a DMS that has a low innovation and usability level will affect your business:
Users store document locally
Users send documents via email
Users not knowing which was the latest version
Data loss due to multiple versions of the same document
Users do not follow or know the formal business process
Non-compliance with regulation and law, the required formal number and types of documents is not fulfilled for the business
Expensive maintenance and training costs
GDPR, you do not know where you sensitive information resides when documents are stored multiple locations.
How do we change this standard?
By democratizing document management and make sure to empower all users of the DMS!
Let us explain: by democratizing document management you give users a chance to understand how a document travels from it’s point of creation to it’s final approval. Answering questions like, through which stages does it need to pass? How far along has it come? Can I stop the chain of events to edit my document, and then send it for review again?
This occurs often in a DMS and the ability to change your approval chain or even lifecycle is important. Also grouping documents together in the same review or approval process.
If the users are allowed this flexibility they can manage their time and tasks more efficiently. It can also prevent users from making common mistakes as they can follow the effects of their immediate actions and stop the request themselves. This will empower all users of the DMS, on different levels, to complete their tasks with greater accuracy.
Users must be allowed to change lifecycles, approval chains and routing, document relationships and association without being locked by the documents. Most document management systems today does not allow this.
Will this compromise on security?
No. One of the most important challenges of a DMS is to maintain security without affecting usability. The security should be there, but the users should not notice it. They should be able to go about with their daily routine and know that their documents are safe both at rest and in transit. Even better is to reduce the need for transit of documents by having a awesome DMS!
In addition a well document business process model will help users and IT staff understand how documents are secured by default. Yes, your DMS should manage this too!
The modern workplace
As more and more companies modernizes their workplaces and expects users to work from any location, the software they use must also keep up and change to meet the changing business requirement. That is why we believe in democratizing document management to make it a sustainable solution for both the company and it’s users and partners.