Top 14 Reasons Why Different Types of Document Management Systems Fail
Not too long ago, your office was full of paper.
Paper came into your office as invoices and checks, it was printed in stacks by your employees who stapled and paperclipped the madness to share in (face-to-face) boardroom meetings, it was rolled up into balls to throw at nervously-focused interns, and it was filed away in monstrous filing cabinets that made it impossible to adopt the minimalist Scandinavian design trend all the cool offices had.
Fast forward a couple of years: you traded printers for scanners, staples for software, boardroom meetings for Zoom, and your overstuffed office for something that felt more like IKEA.
You waved a magic wand and all those stacks of paper disappeared. And by that, we mean that you engaged an enterprise document scanning company to complete your dreams of digital transformation—one tiny decision that leaped you forward into the mainstream. Within weeks you had future-proofed your operation against fires, floods, and possessive employees. You ended your monthly storage bunker expense, downsized your operations, and put a single couch in the middle of an empty office (with one plant on one table for one coffee mug).
Everything was sunshine, lollipops, and unicorns because you were finally light, nimble, budget-tight, and modern. Whoop whoop, n’am sayin’?
Not so fast! Things aren’t perfect. (It wouldn’t be a good story without a twist in the plot).
The piles of paper are gone, hallelujah, but you haven’t given your employees clickable bliss yet. Sure your staff admire your digital savviness already, but it’s a straight shot to Terrific Town from where you stand if you install a system to manage your new database of thousands of digital files. Terrific Town is all about supercharging productivity and team happiness while keeping a chunk of change in your coffer.
A Document Management System (DMS) makes digital files easy to create, share, track, search for, find, and store. A DMS gets organization going across departments, automates processes, and takes advantage of the digital base you’ve already put in place. It’s time to get out of the gross (digital disorganization) and get into the granular (efficient analytical insights)!
So you think, “Yes, okay, let’s do it!” and you feel like somebody oughta give you at least a pat on the back or, say, a mug for the minimalist Scandi-modern side table beside the couch in the airy room that used to be stuffed with filing cabinets.
But… don’t get cozy on that couch yet because there are different types of Document Management Systems out there and the pressure is on you to pick the right one.
What DMS is right for your company?
Good question! Here’s the answer:
They’re not all created equal. Choosing an under featured DMS creates gaps in processes and security, which ends up costing you that chunk of change you saved by going paperless. You don’t want to feel crummy in the end game!
You want the right system for your future goals that ticks all the boxes and sets off confetti in the minds of your employees every day. A system like that requires customization (because no two businesses are exactly the same).
You look different in your plaid pants than Marvin looks in his down the street (you look better in yours). Different industries have different needs for file structure, legalities, compliance, and security. Your inputs and outputs are different than Marvin’s company down the street. If you make a widget and Marvin makes a dongle, your system needs to make wonderful widgets, which simply won’t design dapper dongles if Marvin installs the same DMS.
Customization is key.
The best DMS for you is figured out by contacting the right vendor—who knows about Document Management Systems and what you want your DMS to do.
Let’s start by looking at the different types of Document Management Systems promoted by sales departments around the world so you know which ones to close the door on with deadpan eyes and which one to go for full steam ahead with surety in your veins and excitement in your soul.
Read on for the lowdown, padres.
Types of Document Management Systems:
Shared Drives (digital filing cabinets).
In-house systems built from scratch (custom but costly)
Single application DMS (too small)
Full feature DMS (ding ding ding!)
Here’s the big question: how do different types of Document Management Systems fail?
They fail in 14 different ways!
Break it down:
Shared Drives
Your nephew graduated from tech college and sold you on a shared drive as a great DMS solution, overseen by his geeky eyeballs, managed meticulously by him. Sounds like a money saver, right? Ermmm….
At first, maybe. But that system doesn’t scale without adding more servers and hiring more recently-graduated tech dweebs to keep the bleeps and bloops flashing and bonging. Even then, shared drives lack important features:
Indexing fail
Sorting digital files on a shared drive is the same as sorting paper files in cabinets. Files can be opened, changed, saved, and closed, but they can’t be cross-referenced or tagged. You can’t apply helpful metadata to them.
Snapshot fail
You can open Word documents and Excel spreadsheets, but what about contracts attached to emails? You need a complete file record of everything coming in from clients, employees, and outside contractors. This isn’t possible on a shared drive.
Version Control Fail
Shared drives don’t care about duplication. They only care about making those duplicated files easy to access and save. Redundant records create tracking nightmares that turn your digital files into disorganized soup. That’s risky because decisions require the right documents, not chaos chowder.
Access Fail
Assigning access levels and permissions is a cumbersome task on a shared company drive. Sure, you can limit access to certain folders, but that’s about it. And that doesn’t cut it.
Remote Access Fail
We’re working outside the office now. Setting up a server to handle remote access queries requires too much time and too much money—and that doesn’t make sense. Servers churning away in chilled rooms aren’t the proper infrastructure to offer fast, reliable, secure access from outside the organization—it’s a deal breaker limitation.
Lost File Fail
“Lorraine just deleted the file, everybody!”
“No I didn’t, Wayne! It’s right here (I think)……………..oh, shoot! I put it in the wrong folder.”
Shared drives don’t care if you delete a file or put it somewhere no one can find it, making it a lackluster solution for digital document management. Same problems as before, only digital.
Disaster Recovery Fail
Your on-site server is… on site. That means if you work in, say, Louisiana, hurricanes and tornadoes aren’t out of the question. Hurricanes and tornadoes have a habit of disrupting business as usual and can rip apart a server like a bear with a honeycomb. Business continuity shuts down if documents are shredded because a server took a ride in a tornado or a swim in the drink.
Human Fail
We’re lazy. Be honest. Even Oliver, who’s OCD, has down days. But without a proper DMS, all members must maintain up-to-the-minute accuracy of records, ensure correct indexing after properly scanning at the right resolution, and put those files exactly where they’re supposed to be every single time. That’s a lot of room for error. We’re not putting bets on this one. Not even on Oliver.
The downfall of a shared drive DMS is that old habits die hard. The servers might be running in tip-top shape (for now), but digital files are taking on a folder structure that looks like your old filing cabinet mayhem. You opted to use a shared drive to save money but sharing permissions weren’t set up properly so files were updated by two employees at once, duplicated, and saved in the wrong spots. The nimbleness starts to feel nasty.
And Nephew Tech Guy just got a better offer and left.
A DMS built from scratch
Just no. A custom-built DMS focuses on technology, not information. It takes too many resources to design, flesh out, test, and deploy. Custom-builts are bulky beasts and time-eating money-gobblers. They may look and sound robust but they aren’t on par with slimmer, industry-proven DMS systems.
Time fail
Time is money and too much time given to researching, developing, complying, testing, and supporting a custom DMS is a massive commitment of resources. Back in the day this might have been the only solution to meet your needs. Not today though.
Focus Fail
An in-house DMS pours hours into development. The tech gets more priority than information flow mapping and security. It’s not the hardware that’s important. It’s the software… and the training.
Training Fail
Did the tech gal fully understand the system she was building? Can she explain how to add records and navigate the DMS to your staff? Because if users don’t understand how to use the system, they’ll find ways to circumvent it by going back to how they did things before. In-house systems take a while to implement and often require longer training times—which creates frustration. They’re not as user-friendly as a tried-and-true full-featured DMS.
Support Fail
Did tech gal do her structural thang and then skedaddle? Or did she stick around (demanding a high price tag) to support the new system? Technology skills and support skills aren’t the same ballgames. Tech people will go for tech roles and jump ship after install if another stadium calls.
Single Application DMS
Egads. Narrow focus does not make a DMS powerful. This happens when an existing DMS used for a single department is machined to fit the needs of the entire company. It worked for one thing, it can work for more things, right? Why can’t it grow from a sprout to a jungle?
Ehck.
Because stretching technology like that tends to cost more than it’s worth and making circles fit stars leaves corners empty.
Narrow focus fail
We certainly appreciate ingenuity and using what you already have to make what you need—that’s thrifty and it’s also dang admirable. That’s why grannies across the country cut up suit jackets and trousers to make quilts. And that’s what makes the best sci-fi movies.
But that’s not what makes the best company-wide DMS. The needs of one department are different from the needs of all the others.
Silo Fail
When different departments use different records management strategies, information ends up isolated. Essential information isn’t shared between departments. When this happens, employees try to communicate outside the DMS to get the information they need. Inefficient access to information causes delays. Delays jam up your business process. Jams reduce productivity. It’s a race to the bottom not a lift to the top.
Those are the failures of shared drives, home-made systems, and stretched out single-application systems. Here are the reasons why a full-featured DMS works best:
Full feature DMS: the shortest route to the top
A full-featured digital Document Management System is more powerful than shared company drives, more cost-effective and streamlined than an ECM system put together in-house, and better suited to entire organizations than single-department systems reconfigured for broader purposes.
The role of a Document Management System is to provide a systematic structure that makes sense across all departments and is easy to use by all employees, amplifying productivity from bottom to top. A robust DMS combines Cloud storage with specialized software that manages all records in one central location securely, saving you thousands of dollars each year thanks to efficiency, compliance, and employee happiness—not to mention speedy customer service satisfaction!
Revolution Data Systems uses the best digital Document Management System software available today. We put our trust in ApplicationXtender, an affordable DMS that scales to needs, has a large install base in every industry, and is equipped with features that clients love like full-text search, workflows, batch scanning and indexing, APIs that access deep content capabilities, fast deployment, easy integration with line-of-business applications, and add-on modules to get the most out of your investment.
Call us today to talk about your needs and we’ll show you how ApplicationXtender creates those unicorns you’ve been working toward.