Create and Store
Despite the time spent creating and reading documents, most business users do not perceive themselves as content managers. Instead, they focus on the business process that they are responsible for, to which the content, and the management thereof, is simply an aspect.
For this reason, most content creators and consumers are impatient with
any additional, seemingly unnecessary responsibilities that a document
management system would enforce. Hence, save-as and using the "attach" or "send" file functions feel like the most expedient
way to share document based information. That transparency has to be
balanced with the need for single source storage, good metadata and
classification that will increase the reusability and accessibility of
the content.
To achieve this balance, the content creator's need for efficiency
and the content consumer's need for high quality, accessible content,
a document management solution should have the ability to be tailored
to work seamlessly with the business processes that it supports. Below
is a set of baseline characteristics that any document management
solution should have.
An author needs to be able to add or update content using tools and processes that are familiar
to him and make use of his usual work environment. For example, being
able to save a document from Microsoft Word right into the content
repository or being able to drag files into a folder using Windows
Explorer.
The system should support configurable metadata capture and validation.
Where possible, it is preferable that the system be able to
automatically extract certain metadata fields based on the properties
of the document and/or where it is placed within the directory
structure. Care should be taken in determining metadata requirements
that capture enough information to make the content accessible and
reusable yet do not overburden or frustrate content contributors.
Maximus 2008 Reloaded 11
