Electronic Document Management System – Basic Considerations

As organizations increasingly move towards a paperless environment due to an increasing need in storing more and more documents, a advantageous Document Management System (DMS) must be in place to cope not only with the increasing volume to keep these documents but also to make distinct that these documents are searchable for consume in the future.

There are a few basic components of how an electronic document management system ought to have. Any organization contemplating the feasibility of such a system would have to think these factors before implementing it.

1. Capturing

There are two parts to this – (1) migrating all old documents into the new platform and (2) capturing of future documents. For the archaic, documents are usually in hardcopy form and needs to be scanned. All softcopy documents can be imported in their native formats. New processes may need to be planned to incorporate capturing of future documents in electronic formats, bypassing the need for scanning.

2. Storage and Archiving

There is a need to know the exact location where the documents are to be stored – offsite in an external server or hosted in-house. Requirements needed are the amount of storage space and the accessibility of data.

3. Indexing and Retrieval

Indexing and retrieval are intricately linked. Without a proper indexing process, searchability of electronic documents is considerably reduced as volume exponentially increases with the growth of the organization. Indexing can be done via text indexing, templates, meta-data and a file/folder structure.

4. Distribution

An electronic DMS can benefit any organization that has many offices separated by large geographical distances. Email systems have already attested to the benefits of increased and effective communication across large distances. An electronic DMS can aid in greater and more efficient collaboration.

5. Security

Data stored in electronic forms have different security requirements from hardcopy storage of documents. Less physical in nature, electronic documents can be easily accessed, duplicated and transmitted. Security procedures like authentication, access rights management, audit trails ought to be established so as to protect the confidentiality and sensitivity of certain information. A disaster recovery plan ought to be implemented in case of emergencies as well.

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