What is the best Electronic Document Control Management System?

M

melmusic85

#1
I am working for a big company in the Oil & Gas industry and was hired to do Document Control. We are looking at purchasing a Document Mangement System, which will allow us to file drawings and documents electronically, and retrieve them with ease, create transmittals and such...

What is THE BEST system out there for this?? I am huge on organization and consistency, but also need something that is user friendly for those that will not be working with the system on a day to day basis....


also... needs to be a good system as we are going for ISO....
 
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Coury Ferguson

Moderator here to help
Staff member
Super Moderator
#2
Re: What is the best Document Control Management System?

I am working for a big company in the Oil & Gas industry and was hired to do Document Control. We are looking at purchasing a Document Mangement System, which will allow us to file drawings and documents electronically, and retrieve them with ease, create transmittals and such...

What is THE BEST system out there for this?? I am huge on organization and consistency, but also need something that is user friendly for those that will not be working with the system on a day to day basis....


also... needs to be a good system as we are going for ISO....
See this post for some suggestions on Document Management System (Software) - Look here: Document Control Software Suggestions - Anyone using MIPSIS?
 

Marc

Hunkered Down for the Duration with a Mask on...
Staff member
Admin
#3
I am working for a big company in the Oil & Gas industry and was hired to do Document Control. We are looking at purchasing a Document Mangement System, which will allow us to file drawings and documents electronically, and retrieve them with ease, create transmittals and such...
How many documents are you going to have to control? All locally, or globally? How many people in your organization?

There are a lot of factors to consider when choosing a document control system.
 

Marc

Hunkered Down for the Duration with a Mask on...
Staff member
Admin
#5
QSi works well for us, but it is in a Notes environment.
Good point. I have also seen browser based software that will ONLY work with Internet Explorer because it is reliant upon MickeySoft Active X.

One of the biggest problems I have found with 'big' software packages is often they are relatively complex to administrate. Note that I'm not talking about every day user experience, but actual administration.

The simpler your solution, the better. But again, there are many factors to consider. Have you written down your actual needs?

Oh, and don't let a sales person simply 'demo' the software on a PC they bring. Make them show you, or get a guarantee in writing, that it will run on the systems and network you have in place. I've seen many companies end up making significant unanticipated hardware and network upgrades when the software was installed on their system.
 
D

ddunn

#6
Are you using an ERP such as SAP or Oracle? Both have a good Product Logistic Management (PLM) system.
 
H

Hondo812

#7
I only used it for a short period (3 months) but eRooms was pretty good. It is a web based platform so that your documents are available wherever you can connect to the internet.'

Good luck in your search.
 

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#8
I am working for a big company in the Oil & Gas industry and was hired to do Document Control. We are looking at purchasing a Document Mangement System, which will allow us to file drawings and documents electronically, and retrieve them with ease, create transmittals and such...

What is THE BEST system out there for this?? I am huge on organization and consistency, but also need something that is user friendly for those that will not be working with the system on a day to day basis....


also... needs to be a good system as we are going for ISO....
Sorry to say, there is no BEST system - all require some sort of compromise - be it cost, user friendliness, and system maintenance (Marc accurately terms it "administrate.")



See this post for some suggestions on Document Management System (Software): Look here
Yeah, that's one link, but this one probably gives a better overview

Good point. I have also seen browser based software that will ONLY work with Internet Explorer because it is reliant upon MickeySoft Active X.

One of the biggest problems I have found with 'big' software packages is often they are relatively complex to administrate. Note that I'm not talking about every day user experience, but actual administration.

The simpler your solution, the better. But again, there are many factors to consider. Have you written down your actual needs?

Oh, and don't let a sales person simply 'demo' the software on a PC they bring. Make them show you, or get a guarantee in writing, that it will run on the systems and network you have in place. I've seen many companies end up making significant unanticipated hardware and network upgrades when the software was installed on their system.
Marc makes good points here. I'm seeing better and better systems which are accessible world-wide via internet rather than being resident on an organization's own computers. The trick is the "software" is continually maintained by the software seller, but the data resides either on computers owned by the organization or by their customers, suppliers, and storage rented at server farms. A few clicks of a mouse to establish identity, and thus access rights, and the individual user can drill down through a menu to access any document he is entitled to and, conversely, be completely blocked from any he is NOT entitled to, no matter where in the world its computer is located as long as it is connected to the internet. This means a user could conceivably access documents on his own server, a customer's server, or a supplier's server simultaneously just by clicking through a menu. The menu actually is a "query engine" which parses the menu choices into machine language queries of the various databases, seeking out the individual meta tags associated with each document.

The mistake most companies make in adopting a system is "penny wise and pound foolish," concentrating on initial cost instead of net value in use. A good consultant can make the bosses with ink in their pens understand why they should go for net value in use.

Bottom line:
No easy "one size fits all" answer - system may have to be tailored, not just an off-the-shelf version and it is important to really consider the impact of dealing with "legacy documents" (ones created BEFORE the document management system is put in place.)
 

Stijloor

Staff member
Super Moderator
#9
I am working for a big company in the Oil & Gas industry and was hired to do Document Control. We are looking at purchasing a Document Mangement System, which will allow us to file drawings and documents electronically, and retrieve them with ease, create transmittals and such...

What is THE BEST system out there for this?? I am huge on organization and consistency, but also need something that is user friendly for those that will not be working with the system on a day to day basis....


also... needs to be a good system as we are going for ISO....
You may want to contact Scott Renkes or Amy Ankrum at Qualtrax.

NOTE: I am not an employee of Qualtrax. However, I have made presentations at their users conference about auditing and corrective action.
 

Kales Veggie

People: The Vital Few
#10
I started looking into an electronic document control management software with web access.

I did research on the web and was overwhelmed with companies offering such a product.

(list: master control, qualtrax, mipsis, onbase, etq to new a few).

My requirements include (thanks to Wes post from awhile ago).

- easy search and retrieval (documents opening in a viewer, not the native application, documents include drawings, 3d models, flow chart, power points, word and excel documents, pictures)
- audit trial on revision and status
- workflow for approval
- group printing of documents
- multiple security levels
- security level setting for each document
- access to documents for web users (suppliers, customer and employees while traveling).
- reporting feature showing "workflow" status of documents.

What are you using? Have you made a comparison between these product that you can share?
 
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