Document management system is a software for tracking, managing and storing files/documents to reduce paperwork. It is one of the pre-cursor technologies to content management imposing controls and management capabilities onto other documents. It includes content and document capture, document repositories, workflow, output systems, COLD/ERM and information retrieval systems. Some of the key features of a document management systems are: 1. Check in / Check out and locking – This is for real-time editing co-ordination of a document so that if a person does changes it does not overwrite another’s. 2. Version Control – Documents differ in terms of versions. Tabs need to be kept for how current documents came to be and how different they are from the previous documents. 3. Roll-back – Incase of an error or a fault, a prior version can be activated. 4. Audit trail, to permit the reconstruction of who did what to a document during the course of its life in the system 5. Annotation and Stamps, Document management eventually was incorporated into content management in no small measure because there is more information available to us today than ever before, and most of it is not being created by us. Thanks to the mainstreaming of a whole range of sources like the Web, thumb drives, smartphones, etc., the need has accelerated to deal with information of all kinds: not just in terms of more media types like text vs. images vs. voice files, but also in terms of how structured – and thus how readily managed – it all is. Document management systems today range in size and scope from small, standalone systems to large scale enterprise-wide configurations serving a global audience. Many document management systems provide a means to incorporate standard physical document filing practices electronically. These include: Storage location Security and access control Version control Audit trails Check-in/check-out and document lockdown. Document management, while still known and utilized independently, it is also a common constituent found within an Enterprise Content Management setting.
Nicole Amondi ,Business Development Manager