What Electronic Document Control Software are you using? 'Canned' or In-House?

[Al the Elf]

For those in the Cove who are using/managing/responsible for Electronic Doc Control applications, it would help me to find out :

a) What you are using ?
b) Roughly how many docs are in your system ?
c) Briefly what your perception of the application is (good/bad/indifferent/etc) ?

Please - I'm not chasing sales pitches from suppliers (which I'm sure the moderators will lob into another forum if they appear here), rather an understanding of what the practitioners amongst us are currently using.

I already use electronic doc control [a) Workbench Professional from Ideagen, b) 10000, c) good] but my org is starting to change shape and I'm setting off to evaluate other potential electronic solutions - what better place to start than the tools used by Cove contributors...

Hope you can help...

Cheers, Al.

 

[RoxaneB]

a) What you are using ?

QSI's QS9000A ver. 5.6u

b) Roughly how many docs are in your system ?

768...excluding Quality Manual, training records, training plans, and some other documents.

c) Briefly what your perception of the application is (good/bad/indifferent/etc) ?

Indifferent. It's good, but has issues. All I can say is that I've learned one thing by purchasing an off-the-shelf document control package. Never...EVER...modify it. Cause when you upgrade to the next release, the funtionality you put in before does not carry forward and suddenly you have to decide if you want your old system in the new release (a lot of programming) or stick with the new release as-is (and train everyone on what is basically a brand new system).

 

[SteelMaiden]

a) What you are using ?
We had our own written to work with our other SQL and Oracle databases. It is integrated with payroll, so 1) people can see automatically if they have any new/revised docs to review when they fill out their time cards.
2)Also allows us to know if there are people who are not regularly reviewing docs
3) I don't have to enter job titles or names in for assigning notification routing.
b) Roughly how many docs are in your system ?
600
c) Briefly what your perception of the application is (good/bad/indifferent/etc) ?
It may not be quite as slick as some of the prepackaged ones (QSI, etc) but we can modify anything whenever we want without fear of blowing up the program.

 

[Claes Gefvenberg]

a) What you are using ?

A (pretty old) home made application, managed and used via the intranet.

b) Roughly how many docs are in your system ?

I'm on vacation, so the rough estimate will be very rough: I'd say about 400 documents....

c) Briefly what your perception of the application is (good/bad/indifferent/etc) ?

As I said it's pretty old and the administrator interface can hardly be considered state of the art anymore (it was, some years ago), but it does the job. The user interface still has a few miles in it.

/Claes

 

[gerrybean]

a) Fuji-Xerox DocuShare
b) 2680 but we're only just starting
c) Its ok. Has some bugs & undesirable attributes but nothing we can't work with. One of the best features is that it handles sending notifications of new documents or ones requiring review/approval. Also auto-archives old versions of documents.

 

[Greg B]

Hi All,

This is a thread I started some time ago:
http://Elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=6418
and a couple of in house books on how to use it.
http://Elsmar.com/Forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1620
http://Elsmar.com/Forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1621

The system is free and intranet based. I recieve NO 'kickbacks' from endorsing this product. I just recommend it because I use it and think it is very simple. However....My company is in the midst of researching new systems that will track our emails, archive ALL documents (memos, letters, in coming snail mail etc). We had the first session today with a mob called REDMAP. First impression is that it is a very good system but we will need to see a trial up and running to see how well it works with our company.

If you want just a system that controls your Manuals and Procedures etc then use the Freeware system I have recommended. We have been using it incident free for two years and our IT guys don't have to do a thing with it.

Greg B

 

[Al the Elf]

Q's for Greg

Thanks for the link Greg - The demo gave me a feel of a "controlled" MS Explorer. What scale of documentation have you been handling with this approach ? I read the manuals and wasn't clear about a couple of things :
a) is there any link to e-mail e.g. to advise that a doc has hit a review date
b) is there any embedded approval process, or does this happen prior to your documents being "posted" onto the system ?

I'd also be really interested to hear about your thoughts on the REDMAP trial.

Cheers, Al.

 

[mdoody]

Document Administrator

In my company, we are using a Lotus Notes database. This allows all parties to access the database. The advantage is that the document function was already installed in Lotus Notes. Disadvantage - not a very flexible program.

 

[Greg B]

Thanks for the link Greg - The demo gave me a feel of a "controlled" MS Explorer. What scale of documentation have you been handling with this approach ? I read the manuals and wasn't clear about a couple of things :
a) is there any link to e-mail e.g. to advise that a doc has hit a review date
b) is there any embedded approval process, or does this happen prior to your documents being "posted" onto the system ?

I'd also be really interested to hear about your thoughts on the REDMAP trial.

Cheers, Al.

Al,
The system is a Document Management System that allows you to place your documents on the intranet and be assured that the master copies cannot be tampered with. It is more a library than a management system. It does not integrate with your email or carry out scheduled events. Although the author is constantly updating it thru his website. He allows people to submit requests and highlight faults and then he sets about remedying them or designing a better system. Once you load a document to it, it only takes a copy and your master is left in it's original position unable to be tampered with. The document that people call up can be changed by them but they are only accessing a copy from the system not the system original. The system will also keep a copy of updated documents and the reasons they were changed, revision numbers, authors etc. For a free system it is excellent and it has saved us a lot of headaches while we search for a full blown management system. I could see small business' using this very well. Our registrar loved it as he could find the history of every document.

Greg B

 

[mshell]

We use our company intranet and microsoft access to manage our documents. Most of the documents are created in word, converted to a pdf and posted to the intranet. Each PDF is set-up as read only so that changes can not be saved.

Our interactive forms are created in either word, excel or access and are password protected to prevent modification. They are also set-up as read only so that the input can not be saved to the intranet.