Book Excerpt
Managing Large Collections of Documents

Reprinted with permission from
Intranet Document Management, by Joan Bannan

Sample Project Plan

Implementing a Document Management System is similar to implementing a software development project. Too often, the standard development lifecycle (SDLC) or information systems best practices are skipped and deemed unnecessary because "we're just installing an off-the-shelf product."

But because most of these systems are highly configurable, it is necessary to treat them in a systematic manner by obtaining requirements, trying them on a pilot group, testing, reconfiguring, and so forth.

Next we look at the steps a good project plan should include.

Prepare for Pilot Test

The following tasks (not necessarily in this order) should be completed before implementing a pilot test:

Identify a project manager.
Document the business needs to be met by the Document Management System.
Identify users and docs.
Gather the user requirements. (See the detailed checklists at the end of this chapter.)
Resolve/plan the front end:
which front end (if there are multiple choices)
required or optional use of system
Scope out any add-ons (for example, imaging software).
Obtain commitments for resources ...
- administrator/resource commitment
- pilot group commitment
- server in lab
- user training
- help desk support
- vendor support
- training staff.
Ensure that the pilot group has met basic workstation requirements (for example, TCP/IP, network connectivity, and so forth)
Identify technical tests (for example, network, memory issues, conflicts with other software, and so forth) and people to conduct technical tests
Identify user tests and people to conduct user tests

Install

The installation should be completed in this order:

Install server(s)
Install users
Load identified documents onto system
Train users
Conduct s

Conduct Pilot Test

You've laid the groundwork and are ready to conduct the pilot test. Here are the main points:

Conduct identified technical tests
Conduct identified user tests
Use in daily tasks.

Evaluate Pilot Test

Now you must evaluate your system, based on feedback from the pilot group:

Determine which requirements were met
Document results of tests
Decide to proceed or evaluate a different system.

Roll Out System

You're ready to roll:

Incorporate pilot learnings into project rollout
Repeat the appropriate pilot steps but for rollout.

Checklists

List of Benefits

One of the benefits of using an electronic Document Management System is less time spent handling individual paper doc. The associated cost savings result from:

labor savings due to a reduced need for filing paper updates and changes to documentation
reduced paper distribution and considerable related costs (reproduction, printing, manual distribution, and envelopes)

Another benefit is improved information availability:

current and timely information (no lost opportunities)
telecommuting and its associated benefits
less retrieval time
reuse of previous work instead of re-creating it
reduced real estate for physical document storage
better authoring and editing
elimination of redundant, proprietary systems for accessing vendor documentation

High-Level Requirements Checklist

The checklist in the next section has even more nitty-gritty details of what to look for in a Document Management System. You can treat the following as a shopping list by filling in specific details for your own site:

Be compatible with company and industry computer standards and scaleable over the entire company and its range of applications.
Store document files in native formats (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and so forth).
Search, based on content or meta-data of the documents.
Check out documents and start applications. Support integration with front-end applications. For example, opening a file through Word forces access through the Document Management System.
View meta-data formation.
Check in documents.
Provide revision control, legal and regulatory archiving, and automatic deletion as configured by clients.
Send documents to archive. Support full range of electronic storage media (magnetic disk, read/write optical disk, WORM, CD-ROM, and tape).
Be usable by all networked workgroup employees and be corporate licensed.
Provide an optional multilevel hierarchical object management model (for example, library, room, cabinet, drawer, folder, document, and object).
Provide security protection at many levels.
Support connection to other applications, specifically index databases and document meta-data through application programming interfaces (APIs).
Facilitate disaster recovery planning and data redundancy.

The Document Management System may include these interrelated systems, based on client requirements:

view and annotation application
workflow management system
image management software
forms processing
scanning paperdocuments

The most effective Document Management Systems are thoroughly integrated with project management (create projects, members, tasks, and schedules) and workflow (view status, define routing, and approval processes).

more...

Because Document Management Systems are highly configurable, it is necessary to treat them in a systematic manner by obtaining requirements, trying them on a pilot group, testing, reconfiguring, and so forth.

Joan Bannan is Assistant Webmaster for the Pacific Telesis Shared Services Intranet, Internet and Extranet. She is a member of the Northern California SGML Users Group and author of several books, most recently Intranet Document Management. Reach Jon through her web site at www.bannan.com.