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Q: How do you select the most appropriate document management system?
A: You have to have a look at the needs of each individual client.
With many of our government clients, they have an existing document management system embedded within the organisation. And we simply interface scanned files directly into that application.
So, we’ll emulate the file schema, via CSV or Excel spreadsheet which allows automated import into that existing system. We can also utilise the clients existing data to automate multiple search profile tags.
Microsystems frequently provide our clients with recommendation and procurement advice as to what software’s out there that would best serve them in the environment that they have.
Whether it’s simply a departmental need, say accounts payable where they want to introduce a workflow to the accounts payable process, through too a full corporate solution encompassing all of the company record keeping needs.
Most EDM application today will manage all Corporate Information including Outlook files, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations etc. Basically any digital information can be absorbed into the EDM / ECM application.
We also have situations where clients have a small application that does not warrant the purchase of EDM Software. They simply require an intelligent tree structure on a DVD and nothing proprietary.
So, it really is horses for courses as far as how we’re presenting the information back to our clients. But, where we excel, I suppose, is the record management considerations that we put in play.
Each of our salespeople have many years of industry experience, they ask the specific questions to gain a close understanding of what each client is trying to achieve. We discuss the possibilities that technology can provide and then we make common sense recommendations that are available to the client relative to their actual needs.
Q: It sounds like Microsystems takes a holistic approach in deploying document management systems.
A: What’s important when you introduce a document management system is that you’ve actually got content to populate that system to immediately deliver out to the employees or staff. What they are then able to appreciate is the efficiencies gained while it’s being introduced, as opposed to a governance system that’s deployed with no content, without content there’s no perceived need for it, there’s no immediate benefit being derived.
So, if you swap that around, and you come to Microsystems, we can actually undertake the scanning, we’ve created the content, the vital records determined as being useful within the organisation.
We’ll then deploy the document management system with that content embedded, train the staff on how to use the system, how to locate their records within the application, and then how they can continue to add to the system.
What you therefore gain is a situation where any change management aspects of staff being resistant to changes in their work environment are negated to the highest degree possible.
All Employees understand the benefits from day one.
Additionally training regimes are minimized because the staff are accessing their information every day because that’s where their information now resides rather than a filing cabinet.
So, you train people once, they get better and better, and it’s only the high-end questions and functionality that then are Stage 2, Stage 3, Stage 4 training regimes that you’re implementing rather than simple search queries, I can’t remember how to do it, I don’t know my log on, I can’t access this etc.
When a document management system is deployed without content there’s a real resistance to change, there’s no perceived benefit, staff are reluctant to embrace it.
So, if you reverse the model and you scan your vital documents first, you embed that within the Document management system and then deploy it, the difference in acceptance levels are considerable.
