There are a few main methods that users rely on to find the documents that they need: navigation, search, and bookmarking.

• Navigation is typically less preferred by users because it is manual and, in larger repositories, can be frustrating as users must constantly drill blindly down into directories hoping to find what they need.
• Simple Search is the most frequently used method to navigate a repository. Users have become accustomed to narrowing and widening their criteria to get a manageable result list (see more about searching below).
• Advanced Search is less frequently used but it can be indispensable to find the documents within large repositories of documents that describe a narrow set of topics. Filtering by metadata attributes such as date, author, in addition to full text can save time paging through long lists of results. Advanced search often combines full-text searching with filtering on metadata attributes, folder location and document type. It is also used as an ad-hoc reporting tool to understand the contents of a repository such as recently added documents.
• Bookmarks, “Shortcuts,” or “Network Places” are important to be able to quickly return to a document or folder or to send a colleague a reference. Typically, users work on a single document or a group of documents over a period of time. Being able to go directly to that location, rather than navigate from the route of the repository every time, is a critical usability factor. Having bookmarks is also critical to being able to reference one document from another or email a reference to a document rather than the document as an attachment. Some web interfaces work with browser bookmarks better than others. If frames or designs that interfere with bookmarks are used, there needs to be some other way to generate a persistent link to an asset or folder.

All these access features should be bound to a set of security policies. Accounts to a document management system should be easy to establish and administer. Integration with the corporate directory (usually LDAP) allows users to manage a single set of credentials. Role and group based authorization makes it easier to apply security policies.