Choosing a Good DMS (Document Management System)

DMS or Document Management System is a solution formed by a set of technologies that runs together for managing, organizing and recording a large number of documents in one location. Because it enables efficiency hence, it improves productivity with the use of electronic documents. DMS focuses on storing documents and produce a paperless environment in organizations. With DMS, your staff will no longer spend time finding, printing, filing, and copying documents.

Some common functions of Document Management System include capturing paper documents (receipts, reports, contracts etc.), monitoring or tracking documents being accessed, restricting access to high-level documents, indexing, retrieving, and editing.

Choosing a Good DMS

There’s a wealth of Document Management software on the market. Choose the one that best fits the need of your company or organization. These are some characteristics you need to look for when searching for a good DMS:

• Security – Security is very important in every organization. A great DMS is able to limit document or folder access to give privacy. Users will have role-based access depending on the type of documents they use for their work. The more confidential a document is, the higher level of authorization will be. Thus, securing backup documents and an effective disaster recovery strategy is important.
• Search / Indexing Functionality – Indexing helps in searching and retrieving documents by associating information on files. Therefore, having advanced search engines in the DMS, it will enable fast access to any preferred files or documents. With the use of individual keywords or automatic pre-filled field, it can search the entire library.
• User-Friendly – The system must have an easy to use interface, simple and intuitive. Because when it is easy to understand, it minimizes the time on training employees. The design should encourage people to use it and want to use it.

• Cross Platform Compatibility – Since we already have an advanced technology, having software that is accessible to different devices is not impossible to have. Documents access must also be available through smartphones, tablets, and not only through laptops and desktop computers.
• Document Scanning – Check if the software is able to scan multiple documents on the queue. It will help you finish other tasks without wasting time while waiting for every single document to finally finish scanning.
• Versioning – This is helpful with documents that update often and accessed by multiple employees. As a result, they will be able to see: earlier versions of documents, when and who viewed/edited the document.

Now that you have these tips to guide you when choosing a document management system, you have to decide which type — a self-hosted or cloud-based DMS solution that best fits your needs.

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