The explosion of digital technology has provided countless benefits to today’s businesses. With Document Management, you have unprecedented power to manage, store, and access your digital business documents. Following a few best practices will ensure that you make the most of your investment in a Document Management solution.
Develop a smart metadata strategy — Not unlike paper documents, without a smart system, digital documents can become unwieldy piles of data. With Document Management, accessing a document is facilitated by what it is, rather than where it is. This means that each file should have all pertinent data properly indexed in order to be found, such as customer identification, dates, project names, and other keywords. Systems with smart, relevant metadata strategies make it easy to search, display, and organize documents.
Optimize procedures for digital processes — When moving to a Document Management strategy, you should do more than just convert paper processes—you should transform them. By taking advantage of Document Management’s capabilities for notifications, routing, approvals, and other streamlined workflows, you’ll eliminate inefficiencies that stem from paper-based thinking.
Assign meaningful user permissions — One of the top benefits of Document Management is improved security, but this feature is meaningless if there’s no distinction among who is permitted access to sensitive information. This is especially true for confidential data that’s linked to certain company departments, such as human resources, legal, and accounting. Unnecessary exposure means unnecessary risk, so be sure to maximize Document Management’s security capabilities by establishing different viewing and editing permissions based on data type and user. Ultimately, each user should only be able to access data that is relevant to them.
Train, train, train — All the features in the world are useless if your teams don’t know how to use them, so thorough training is the cornerstone of Document Management. Include system orientation and training as part of your onboarding processes, and ensure employees have the skills they need to take advantage of these tools. Fortunately, there is an abundance of training material available both online and through your business technology vendor that makes it simple to train your teams without reinventing the wheel.
Document Management can be a powerful addition to any business’ toolbox, and following these straightforward best practices will ensure that you make the most of it. Contact us today to learn more about Document Management solutions for your business.
