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Document management systems are a core software that every company needs, as documents, and information are at the heart of every organization. Whether an online document management system or an on premise document manager, these systems go a great way towards the ideal of a "paperless office" that every company strives for. The following are the essential capabilities every document management system should have:- 1. The ability to import. Since having a completely paperless office is not possible, the document management system should have the capability to integrate with physical document workflow. This means the document management system should allow for scanned documents, or batches of scanned documents to be directly imported into the system. Good document management systems also integrate with the company fax. 2. The ability to store. The document management system is the centralized repository of all the documents in the organization. The system should enable secure storage of all these documents. The ability to store includes the ability to organize the documents in a way to reflect the organizations structure - by teams, departments, divisions etc. Since the system is where the company's core asset, its documents, are, it should be highly secure, and have backup features. 3. The ability to find. In addition to document storage and organization, employees should be able to easily access documents when they are needed, and dig to the exact document they need. This means the system should be accessible easily whether the employee may be in the office or travelling. To enable employees to find the specific information they are looking for, the system should have robust search capabilities. 4. The ability to edit. Users of the system should be able to edit documents, and undertake document collaboration within the system itself. The system should also be able to track who edited information, what exactly they changed, when they changed it etc, for governance purposes. 5. The ability to automate. Documents in an organization never exist in a vaccum. They are always part of a workflow, or in other words, an important company process. The document management system should include the ability to automate recurring business processes involving documents, rather than employees manually having to access the correct document every time, forward them to the right person etc. A few examples of this is the purchasing process in a company, where the process is initiated with the filling of a form, which must go through various departments and approvals before a purchase is finalized.
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