Enterprise Content Management (ECM) | Document Management
Capturing and storing digital assets for your organization with an ECM or DM solution is only the first step. Now you need to leverage those digital assets to drive revenue and cut costs further. So here is your checklist for making technology choices to complement and future-proof your ECM or DM implementation.
What to Consider When Selecting Your ECM or Document Management Solution
1. Metadata Maintenance (Automation)
If your long term problem has been the categorization and organization of digital assets, then you must address this long term maintenance issue. And do not forget that the meaning and importance of metadata will change over time, and the quality of tagging will depend on the perspective of each end-user. Not to say folksonomies or allowing end-users to contribute tags is not useful; it is, but have no doubt that automation is the only scalable solution. Do not leave tagging to the end-users. The end-user is overwhelmed already, so you need to reduce the metadata maintenance requirements on their time. To automate metadata maintenance tasks, you will need a solution that supports entity extraction and tools for vocabulary management. This ensures the longevity of your solution for digital assets of all types by minimizing your reliance on end-users to maintain it.
2. Findability
No use storing digital assets securely with redundant backups if no one ever uses them or, worse yet, has no ability to discover those assets. Keep in mind that tagging is often insufficient because a two-line email might have the same number of tags as a 50-page report – but obviously, 50-pages have more content to index/tag than two lines in an email. Also, do not settle for a faceted search or simple content analytics, either. Your ability to empower users to find relationships between documents, people, and events is paramount. Look for solutions based on RDF or semantic web technology to reveal relationships, so your end users can build profiles and aggregate facts about a person or document without having to read every line. Linked data and semantic web technology saves time and builds value.
3. Total Control
Can your IT department and developers manage all the software and directly work with it, or is the solution dependent on proprietary code, limitations in functionality? Can you use the metadata for more than search? Can you integrate with BI systems? Can this support email and CRM systems and leverage the daily inflow of information from conversations and transactions? Look for solutions that are not simply point solutions, but platforms with a measurable benefit for more than one application.
4. Total Cost of Ownership
Future proof? Does the software rely on proprietary code or require specially trained and certified developers? Look for solutions that rely on open source and open standards. Open source could mean that the search engine is Lucene or SOLR, or the structured database is mySQL. Or perhaps the solution can leverage my existing investments in enterprise licenses for Oracle or SQL. In any case, you need to look at the ancillary licensing costs related to the implementation and then the maintenance of the solution… be aware of hidden staffing costs, certifications, and license costs!
5. Flexibility for Applications
Can you provide direct access for application developers to access, search, and build upon the information you are storing? Can they effectively use the metadata? Can you search the actual text and content of files or only the metadata? If you cannot build upon what you store and give your IT team easy access to support your end-users, then you have created an archive. Your ability to search and build upon the full text of what is stored is the key to maximizing the ROI of your information management strategy.
6. Flexibility for User
What are the native tools and applications that your users have to access documents and metadata? Can you easily develop applications that access and utilize the text within these documents or only the metadata? What is the search capability? Are you generating more support requests with this implementation than you are solving? The main point is that users need to be able to mashup, visualize, and access the documents – document management is not synonymous with archiving. The more access options and end-user controls you can utilize, the better.
7. Security
Can you manage security for users, groups, collections of documents, categories of documents, and/or by location of data? Can you change those settings and provide audit logs to journal the changes in security settings? How about mapping security protocols from one organization to another for access to the same document repository? There is no right solution for every organization, so the security offered must be scalable and flexible.
8. Audit and e-Discovery
Can you capture all required elements for dispositioning data and files in compliance with the legal requirements of document management policies? Are you ready for e-Discovery and auditors? Can you map the capabilities of your solution to the e-Discovery Reference Model? Truly you can kill two birds with one stone here and create allies within your legal department.
The tools and applications you select for your ECM or DM solutions that integrate easily can address a variety of IT tasks - saving time and money. Moreover, you can win many advocates in your user community by saving them time and helping them do their jobs better.
