However, deep folder hierarchies can "€œbury"€ content making it difficult to find so a flattened view of the repository is also necessary. Search is the most common technique to achieve this flattened view. Some products support the notion of "€œsmart" or "€œdynamic"€ folders which are essentially collections of documents based on saved searches.

To avoid duplication, they system should be able to create a reference to a document in another location rather than creating a copy. Access control to both the reference and target should be applied in clear and consistent ways.

Workflow helps communicate the state of a document and coordinate collaborative participation in the documents lifecycle. For example, a workflow may ensure notification of and verification by required users that quality requirements for metadata tagging and classification are met. The distribution of relevant information or pointers to this information and the transformation into formats to support internal or external document management processes like PDF conversion can be automated by these workflows. Versioning and archiving optimizes the availability of the right information at the right time. Document lifecycle management often combines the management of classification, format, security, location and user access for a document from its creation to eventual distribution.

Notification functionality, such email but also RSS, are useful to coordinate the efforts of multiple people (such as in a workflow) or announce the change of state or availability of a document.

As the system is rolled out to users, it is useful to have key stakeholders monitor the system for how it is being used. An advanced search feature can serve as a basic reporting mechanism to identify how many documents are being added to the system, what kind of documents are being added to the system or whether documents have missing or incomplete metadata. Other forms of reporting offer dashboards to track the status of a project across departments, and locations.