Decisions, decisions...

How to choose a document management system when the choices are overwhelming

Vacations are winding down, the weather is cooling off, and students are heading back to school. (Since we’re located in a college town, we definitely notice when 40,000+ students re-converge for the start of classes!)

The start of school brings back memories of opening a brand-new box of crayons. When you were growing up, how many different colors were in your crayon box? The standard box usually contains red, blue, yellow, purple, orange, brown, black, and green. These days the choice of crayon colors is mind blowing.

Having more choices isn’t a bad thing…it just sometimes complicates figuring out what you need. Like the crayons…you know you want to color a tree green. But do you want it to be jungle green, pine green, shamrock green, tropical rain forest green, granny smith apple green, forest green, or maybe asparagus green?

Choosing the right ECM system can be similarly complicated. You know you want to manage your documents, content, and processes. But do you need ECM, document management, records management, workflow, BPM, imaging, eForms, COLD, or importing? Or some combination of all of those?

The article Electronic Document Management: Seven Fundamentals That Should Never Be Compromised summarizes it well, stating, “As you search for an EDM system to satisfy daily business needs, don’t settle for anything that could jeopardize the integrity and usability of your information.”

The article provides you with a list of seven items that you should strongly consider when evaluating a potential document management system:

• Ease of Use
• Security
• Searchable content
• Scalability for current and future needs
• Document retention/records management needs
• Email storage
• Ease of administration and support

Also, take a moment to check out the 8 Things You Need to Know to Build an ECM Strategy post for some additional tips to consider.

Bottom line:

Choices aren’t a bad thing when it comes to document management decisions…unless they get in the way of choosing the system that’s best for your organization. By understanding the fundamentals that are most important to success, and deciding not to compromise on those, you can rest assured you’re making the right decision.

Talk with us:

DocFinity document management software offers one of the best price-to-feature ratios in the industry. Contact us today to see a solution that matches your company's business requirements. Don't settle for anything less than what you need.

For more information or to schedule a demonstration, please Contact DocFinity now.