Document Management - White Paper (ID 5277).pdf Jul. 2014 | Page 30

Secure document management architecture should contain the
following:

all applications have a better chance of staff acceptance during
implementation, and involve a minimal training effort for new
employees to effectively utilize the system.

•

Authentication -- through user names and passwords

Backend integration

•

Administrator authorization -- permissions granted to users or
groups of users

Backend integration is not the sharing of interfaces, but rather the
sharing of data from existing systems.

•

Compatibility with network user groups -- where the DMS can
borrow the list of users, their definitions and groups from an
existing network

•

Ability to audit past file access or user action history to spot
or investigate suspicious activity

For companies that already rely on a widely distributed database,
backend integration with DMS also contributes to a seamless
transition. It is important that company databases with a specific
focus -- such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
for customer and prospect interactions and lead tracking,
Health Records Management (HRM) for patient medical charts
and forms, and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) for
manufacturing and engineering -- integrate well with the DMS,
rather than cause interference with repeated data entry or data
discrepancies.

Integration
As mentioned earlier, one can evaluate the usability of a DMS
in large part based on how much of workers’ daily routine is
changed by its adoption. Integration of a DMS into existing
systems aims to minimize the amount of disruption to normal
office work cycles.

A dividend of backend integration between DMS and existing
systems or databases is a quicker and more unified way to classify and index files in the DMS because the data is managed from
a single source.

User interface integration
Document management solutions differ from other business
applications in that they function less as a standalone system,
but instead one that is intended to be used in concert with other
applications (namely, those that are used to create and edit the
files or documents being managed and tracked).

To use the customer contact information from a CRM application
as an example: metadata for all documents related to a given
customer can be driven and populated by a direct link to that data
in the CRM system. Some systems also provide a bidirectional
link, so if a user has permission to modify certain customer
information in the DMS, this update will also be reflected in the
CRM system.

Ideally, the integration between the DMS and other applications
is such that an employee can search for and open a file from the
document repository from inside a business application -- as well
as edit and save changes -- without having to use a separate
application interface. An effective DMS will feature this type of
integration within any document-generating application, including
word-processing, spreadsheet, CAD, or image-editing systems.

Integration can be achieved through various with seemingly
disparate applications, and can consist of out-of-the-box interface
capabilities within the DMS, such as the ability to create custom
SQL queries from the DMS to the other system, or by other
means such as scripting tools and APIs.

DMS solutions that include this type of seamless integration with

Consult the user guides of existing company applications for
backend compatibility information.
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EASY DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT

Forrester Research,