Electronic Document Management Involves:
- Management of company documentation on all media
- Document workflow management
- Following time limits and generating respective reports
- A flexible system of access rights to documents
- Assigning user rights according to roles
- Contact Management
MicroLink Estonia is the leading provider of Document and Information Management solutions in the Baltic States:
- We have performed around 300 document management implementations in Estonia
- We employ 20 document management consultants in Estonia
- We have 9 years of experience
- We use the ISO 9001:2000 Certificate Implementation Methods
- We employ certified product consultants
- We have our own Development Teams
- We have extensive skills in Document and Archive Management
- We have extensive knowledge of various Document Management solutions
Implementation
MicroLink consultants follow strict implementation methods. The period of the implementation process depends on the state of the client’s document management, the rules set, and the human resources employed by the client in the implementation process. In Estonia, the implementation of document management takes four to six months on average. A fully digital system would take even more time.
Pre-Analysis
Pre-Analysis is an additional step in the implementation process, during which documentation-related processes are optimized and mapped to avoid later shortcomings that would require extra resources on both sides.
User Support
After implementation, the client would need support to cope with the new system. The clients of Postipoiss can turn to HelpDesk for 24-7 support. Livelink customers can benefit from support provided by HelpDesk or product consultants.
Myths of Document Management
Here is an overview of the most common myths related to document management.
Software will solve all our problems
This perception is still quite widely spread even though long gone are the days when document management meant the registration of mail.
Today, you can use Excel tables to keep record of mail, and upload them to a shared server. Purchasing DMS solely for mail registration would clearly be too uneconomical.
Document Management is only for secretaries
This myth reduces the solution to the state of mail registration once again, and deprives the clients of using its advantages to the full.
The IT Department is responsible for DMS
Here you have to ask yourself: Who benefits most from this solution?
In some cases the IT Department itself may need DMS, e.g. for the management of project documentation. But usually this is not the case. The processes of selecting suitable software and implementation should involve those employees who will later use the advantages of document management in their work. For others it is just a tiresome task.
We will perform implementation on our own
It used to be a common viewpoint in businesses that DMS implementation without any professional help will cut expenses. And document management providers bought it. Today most of those who declined help have become unsatisfied clients that pose problems for themselves and their partners. Also service providers have learned from their mistakes. Experienced DMS providers would rather not sell their licenses at all than sell them without implementation. No matter how enthusiastic the clients may seem to perform their own implementation, they will still need professional support.
We will train our employees on our own
As a rule, the implementation fee includes also the training of future users.
But some businesses still believe they can cope on their own. At best, the users are trained by the advanced user, at worst they have to cope on their own with the help of manuals. They hardly ever succeed. As a result, the number of active users is reduced from 20 to 3 – to those whose job responsibilities include the use of DMS.
Experience has shown that the best results are achieved by training users in their working environment where they store documents and data they use in everyday work. After initial training, the employees should have about a month for practice. After a month or two, an additional training should be conducted to resolve any problems they encountered during the practice period. Investment in training will help the employees to have actual benefits from DMS.
We need DMS to give an overview of the sales figures
You can’t have it all. Document management does not deal with figures (except features like automatic numbering of documents). DMS deals with the management of documents and information. Financial software deals with figures. There is software available that deals both with documents and figures, but it usually isn’t fully competent in document management.
It makes everything so complicated
Beginnings are always difficult. The database contains no information at the beginning and you need to fill in new fields with every new entry. People sometimes say it would be easier to save the information on the PC’s C: drive. But the advantages of Document Management will become apparent over time.
The advantages of DMS will reveal themselves when enough documents have been stored on DMS and you need to find a document quickly, create a report or find out who is holding a certain document. The aspect of control is also important for many users – in DMS it is easy to determine who has done what.
Let’s keep on using the old system together with the new one
If you do that, the employees will keep on depending on the old system and have no obligation to use the new one. Some will try the DMS; the others will still store data on their C: drive. As a result, you have a mess.
It should be an outdated conception that software itself can solve all the problems at workplace. Let’s buy a DMS – that’ll do the trick! What you really need is to determine the requirements of your company first and then choose suitable software to support them.
Otherwise you are only creating chaos at the office.
Software Solutions 
