A Look at Document Management for the Intranet
Copyright © 1996 LEXIS-NEXIS, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T. Microsoft Office is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
By Mary-Ellen Fremuth
Overview
Information creation, management and dissemination is a process that is not well managed in most
companies. Internal organizations and groups are usually left to themselves to implement their own
solutions without a common methodology, which creates inconsistent and incompatible solutions.
However, various Internet technologies have emerged, like intranets and the World Wide Web
(WWW), which provide consistent, platform-independent solutions for these problems. Usually it is
the role of the MIS organization to provide these solutions, as well as to provide leadership for
future business solutions based on these technologies.
Current Situation Analysis
Currently, organizations use a variety of methods for document management. These range from
filing hard copy to using a shared network resource. In most cases, the document management
functions and content are local to individuals or teams and specific to one particular hardware
platform. None of the current solutions are feasible to implement for an entire enterprise. Therefore,
some groups are not able to access needed information easily or in a timely manner.
Many organizations have begun to use WWW technologies to solve these issues. The benefits of
these technologies include an information dissemination vehicle which is global in nature, platform
independent, and provides a single access point to any intellectual capital (one authoritative source
of information).
As companies adopt WWW technologies internally, they naturally tend to concentrate on pure
information dissemination which incorporates document conversion, document publication, and
document retrieval processes. In my experience, document conversion and document publication
usually fall into the hands of MIS individuals. Many internal webs are started as "grass roots"
projects where the startup group takes responsibility for converting corporate documents and
publishing them onto the internal web in order to get buy-in from the rest of the organization.
Document retrieval is accomplished via a web browser and possibly several helper applications
(or viewers) used to view specific document types. Over time, as the intranet gains acceptance and
popularity, several inherent problems occur:
The document conversion process becomes over burdened with requests for conversions
and updates.
The publication process becomes a bottleneck to getting information on the intranet quickly.
Browser helper applications become difficult to globally install, update, and support. In
organizations that have multiple desktop platforms, viewers for some file types are not
available or are cost prohibitive (e.g. a UNIX® workstation user can not easily and
seamlessly view Microsoft Office® documents).
As the collection of documents grows, documents become difficult to locate.
Documents are forgotten and become outdated leading to incorrect information.
A Document Management Solution
As internal webs grow and the demand for document conversion and publication increases,
methods for allowing information owners to publish and maintain their own documents on the
intranet becomes increasingly desirable. Furthermore, methods for search and retrieval of relevant
documents becomes increasingly important for intranet users.
One solution is to combine Internet technologies with flexible document management functions
therefore providing a structured and secure methodology for information to be accessed anytime,
from anywhere, while consolidating and eliminating the current solutions and defining the future use
of such technologies. By designating one (or more) internal web server(s) as the one authoritative
source of enterprise information and defining the method of access to that information as a web
browser, intranets can meet several major requirements that will bring value to their users:
Document Retrieval (Audience: Entire company)
Platform independent (on the fly document conversions giving the ability to view
documents created on other platforms).
Flexible searching for information (keywords, phrases, etc.).
Flexible presentation of search results lists (sorting results by user preference).
Direct document access (no searching needed, user doesn't need to know the
location).
Document Management (Audience: Designated information owners)
Easy contribution (check-in) of documents and objects (graphics, charts, etc.) into the
repository via a web browser.
Easy modification (check-out) of documents and objects in the repository via a web
browser.
Document version control.
Collaboration (documents can have more than one author).
Maintainence of retention schedules (keeping the document database up to date,
archiving aged information, etc.).
Usage statistics (who reads what, when, and how often).
Security
Action-based security (who can do what when).
The key benefits from such a system include increased communication, information owner-based
maintenance and dissemination of documents, information organization and preservation,
decreased time to find specific information, and support for rapidly developed solutions using
Internet technologies.
Cost savings include the reduction or elimination of current document management processes and
their associated technical support and user training processes, the reduction or elimination of
producing and disseminating hard copy materials, the reduction or elimination of reproducing lost
documentation, and the increased performance and better informed decision making from well
informed employees.
Conclusion
In conclusion, for web-based intranets to be valuable to users, they must go beyond pure
information dissemination and provide flexible management and retrieval of enterprise wide
information, while laying the foundation for support of future web-based applications.
Disclaimer
This document is based on my experiences regarding intranet development at LEXIS-NEXIS and
other corporations. It reflects my personal opinions regarding the evolution towards true document
management that an intranet must make in order to provide value. All opinions are mine and may or
may not be those of LEXIS-NEXIS.
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