International student scientific bulletin. Analysis of the current state of the world EDMS market - NT1300: Electronic document management systems - Business Informatics 14 main directions of development of the world EDMS market

Dear Readers! Due to the fact that when collecting material for this study, the functionality of the MOTIV system presented in the review was incorrectly assessed, the editors, at their discretion, made adjustments to the diagrams to more accurately reflect the functionality of the specified product. The corrected diagrams indicate the functionality of the MOTIV system version 1.1, which existed at the time of selection of test participants (March 2010). It is possible that some parameters of other systems are also estimated incorrectly.

We also remind you that at the moment the material is very outdated and cannot serve as a basis for assessing the functionality of modern versions of these systems or the relationship between them.

In a modern organization, electronic document management systems (EDMS) are becoming an indispensable element of the IT infrastructure. With their help, commercial companies and industrial enterprises increase the efficiency of their activities, and in state institutions, on the basis of electronic document management technologies, the tasks of internal management, interdepartmental interaction and interaction with the population are solved. The generally accepted abbreviation is SED, although SAD (office automation system), SEDO (electronic document management system) and SADO (document flow automation system) are also used along with it.

An electronic document management system (EDMS) is an organizational and technical system that provides the process of creating, access control and distribution of electronic documents in computer networks, as well as providing control over the flow of documents in an organization.

Initially, systems of this class were considered only as a tool for automating the tasks of classical office work, but over time they began to cover an ever wider range of tasks. Today, EDMS developers orient their products to work not only with correspondence and ORD (organizational and administrative documents), but also with various internal documents (contracts, regulatory, reference and project documentation, documents on personnel activities, etc.). EDMS is also used to solve applied problems in which an important component is work with electronic documents: management of interaction with clients, processing of citizens' requests, automation of the work of the service department, organization of project document flow, etc. In fact, any information system that provides work with electronic documents.

The EDMS market in recent years has been one of the most dynamically developing segments of the domestic IT industry. In 2009, according to IDC, against the background of an almost 50% reduction in the total software market in Russia, this segment showed high resilience. According to the data for 2009, its decline was no more than 20-25%. In numerical terms, the EDMS market today, according to CNews Analytics, is about $ 220-250 million.

Consumers of electronic document management technologies are organizations of various scale and specifics. Traditionally, the public sector remains the key consumer of EDMS. According to experts, about 30% of projects for the introduction of electronic document management technologies are carried out by government agencies. At the same time, it is important that it was the interest of the state that became the basis for the stability of the EDMS market, which, even during the crisis, received a significant impetus for development. Electronic document management was named as a key element of the concept of "electronic government", the implementation of which should contribute to the elimination of bureaucratic obstacles in the interaction of the state, population and business, as well as to reduce corruption. As a feature of the implementation of projects in government bodies and large state institutions, it is worth noting increased requirements for information security. We are talking about the construction (development) of secure electronic document management systems based on replicated software products.

About EDMS developers

Choosing solutions of the EDMS class, the customer considers various options: a box-based solution, a solution based on a platform or custom development. Russian developers mainly offer ready-made solutions, while Western developers act as platform suppliers on the basis of which design solutions and custom developments are implemented. According to statistics, in the structure of the market, the share of Russian developers is about 95% of the total number of projects for the implementation of EDMS. One of the explanations is that in Russia the specificity of working with documents is still strong, based on domestic traditions of management.

It is worth noting that a number of suppliers began to provide EDMS to customers in the SaaS (Software as a Service) mode, but so far this approach, due to a number of reasons (trust in the provider, the quality and reliability of communication channels), is rather considered as a form of acquaintance with the capabilities of the system, and not as a real approach to workflow automation.

One of the emerging trends is the use of ECM (Enterprise content management) systems for working with documents.

Based on the materials of the free encyclopedia (Wikipedia):
Enterprise content management (ECM) - enterprise content management or corporate information management.

Within the framework of the ECM concept, workflow is considered as one of the tasks of ensuring work with corporate information. This approach is mainly supported by Western developers. And although in Russia the demand for such technologies is still at the stage of formation, many domestic EDMS have already implemented various ECM components: document management, document image management, long-term storage of documents, workflow management, and collective work with documents. Fundamentally ECM technologies differ from EDMS by deeper elaboration of issues of web content and multimedia content management.

Government initiatives around the "Electronic Document"

In 2009-2010, several global government initiatives began to be implemented in Russia related to the organization of official electronic interaction between the state, population and business, aimed at increasing the level of penetration of information technologies into various aspects of state and public life. These include the approval of the list of public services provided to the population via the Internet, and the approval of provisions on the interdepartmental document management system, which were the first important steps towards the implementation of the concept of "electronic government".

It is important to note that the question of the legal basis of an electronic document is still open. Today, the activities of participants in electronic document management are governed by laws and regulations on the use of electronic digital signatures (EDS), GOST and instructions for office work and archiving, laws and regulations on information technology. It turns out that the rules and procedures for working with documents have been determined at the state level, there are security requirements for information systems, but the legal status of an electronic document has not yet been determined in the legislation.

EDMS standards

Today, the activities of EDMS developers are practically not regulated. Developing software products and implementing implementation projects, developers and suppliers, to one degree or another, are guided by the following regulatory and legal documents:

GOST R 51141-98. Office work and archiving. Terms and definitions (approved by the decree of the State Standard of the Russian Federation of February 27, 1998 No. 28);
Federal Law No. 1-FZ of January 10, 2002 “On Electronic Digital Signatures” (as amended on November 8, 2007);
GOST R 6.30-2003. Unified system of organizational and administrative documentation. Requirements for paperwork (approved by the resolution of the State Standard of the Russian Federation of March 3, 2003 N 65-st);
Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation of September 22, 2009 No. 754 "On approval of the Regulation on the system of interdepartmental electronic document management";
Federal Law of July 27, 2006 No. 149-FZ "On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection".

When implementing projects for the implementation of EDMS, in the case of working with personal data, it is necessary to be guided by the requirements of Federal Laws of July 27, 2006 N 152-ФЗ "On Personal Data" and of December 27, 2009 N 363-ФЗ "On Amendments to Articles 19 and 25 of the Federal Law "On Personal Data".

Since GOSTs are of a recommendatory nature, the developers include maximum flexibility in their solutions, so that on the basis of the system it would be possible, depending on the customer, to implement various schemes for working with documents. Often, the architecture and logic of the system should provide different and, at times, opposite approaches to document automation. The lack of generally accepted standards is a problem not only for developers, but also for customers, since the choice of requirements for the EDMS becomes too subjective. Enterprises often cannot even focus on industry practices (this approach has proven itself well when choosing a supplier of IT systems of the ERP, CRM, HRM, etc. class). The rules and regulations for working with documents may differ from company to company, not only within the same industry, but even within the same group of companies. A few simple examples: does the enterprise work in accordance with GOSTs or not? How clearly work with documents corresponds to GOSTs? Is the top management ready to work in the system or will assistants and secretaries work for the top management? Does the company use any of the Western management practices? What automation tools do employees use in their work? And although in general the complex of tasks of electronic document management is quite clear, the methods of their implementation vary greatly. It turns out that one of the main requirements for the developers of modern EDMS is to offer a solution that is adequate in terms of price, quality and implementation time, regardless of the specifics of the customer's work (in other words, satisfying any specifics).

Technical capabilities of modern electronic document management systems

The review considers the nine most common EDMS in Russia: Directum (Directum), DocsVision (DocsVision), Globus Professional (Prominfosystems), PayDox (Paybot), 1C: Document flow (1C), Boss-referent (BOSS-Referent, IT Group), BUSINESS (EOS), EVFRAT (Cognitive Technologies), MOTIV (Motive). We deliberately did not include in it the solutions of Russian developers based on the Documentum platform (EMC Documentum), since in this case we cannot talk about any specific functionality and replicability. To prepare the review, information from open sources was used: information materials and demo versions of software products. The presented view on the EDMS is an attempt to assess the capabilities and readiness of software products to solve urgent problems of organizing electronic document management in an enterprise.

The criteria highlighted in the review will help you analyze the possibilities of the considered solutions from the point of view of the technical implementation of certain EDMS tasks. All possibilities are divided into seven functional circuits:

registration and entry of documents;
work with documents;
workflow management and control;
search and analysis of information;
Information Security;
support for paper workflow;
standard customization tools.

General characteristics of the systems were presented in a separate table.

The review provides a number of obvious criteria inherent in all the systems under consideration (and all systems of the EDMS class, in principle), and the criteria that make it possible to distinguish solutions from each other. In general, the functional capabilities of the systems coincide, and only a detailed elaboration of some of the fundamental tasks of document flow and the peculiarities of their implementation allow us to compare various solutions. It should be noted that there is a fairly large implementation practice for all the systems presented in the review. These systems are used by hundreds of organizations to automate their workflow. In addition to these solutions, there are more than 50 software products on the market that are not widely used.

If we analyze the new versions of systems that hold leading positions in the market, then it should be noted that over the past three years their development has been mainly aimed at improving service capabilities, since the basic capabilities in one form or another have already been implemented earlier. If we talk about new technical capabilities, then we can note the potential for the development of EDMS in the direction of managing various types of content (multimedia), the use of auto-processing technologies and parsing the content of the document. But so far such functionality is not mandatory for EDMS, and most importantly, the demand for it in Russia has not yet been fully formed.

When comparing the functionality of the EDMS, the following designations are adopted:

"+" - the opportunity has been implemented;
"+/−" - the opportunity is available within the limited functionality or additional software is required;
"-" - the opportunity has not been implemented.

Table 1. General characteristics of the most popular EDMS

Rice. 1. General characteristics of the most popular EDMS

Table 2. Registration and entry of documents

Rice. 2. Registration and entry of documents

Table 3. Working with documents

Rice. 3. Work with documents

Table 4. Workflow management and control

Rice. 4. Workflow management and control

Table 5. Search and analysis of information

Rice. 5. Search and analysis of information

Table 6. Information security

Rice. 6. Information security

Table 7. Support for paper workflow

Rice. 7. Support for paper workflow

Table 8. Standard configuration tools

Rice. 8. Standard customization tools

Table 9. Final assessment of the ERMS functionality

Rice. 9. Final assessment of the ERMS functionality

To conduct a comprehensive assessment, we will consider the presented EDMS according to the price / functionality ratio that is clear to everyone. We do not consider the third important criterion - "Implementation period", since it strongly depends not only on the customization tools provided by the system, but also on the qualifications and motivation of the project team. Below is the position of the systems in terms of the "optimal price / functionality" ratio for small projects (for 20 users) and for fairly large projects (for 100 users).

Diagram 1. "Optimal price / functionality" EDMS (20 users)

Rice. 10. "Optimal price / functionality" EDMS (20 users)

Diagram 2. "Optimal price / functionality" EDMS (100 users)

Rice. 11. "Optimal price / functionality" EDMS (100 users)

These diagrams are built according to the principle of the "magic quadrant of Gartner", in which the systems located in the I quadrant have the optimal ratio according to the criterion "optimal price / functionality". In the II and IV quadrants of the diagram, there are systems that do not have balanced indicators of price and functionality.

The criterion chosen for the study allows us to evaluate various EDMS from the point of view of their readiness to solve real problems of electronic document management in a modern enterprise. The group of leaders, both in the case of small projects (Diagram 1) and large projects (Diagram 2), included the Directum, DocsVision, MOTIV and EVFRAT systems. The rest of the systems are located in the II and IV quadrants. The only exception was the DELO system, which also fell into the I quadrant of the diagram for the SED for 20 users. The results obtained by the EDMS Globus Professional, PayDox, 1C: Document Management, Boss Referent, BUSINESS, show that these systems do not offer an integrated approach to automate work with documents, but are niche proposals focused on solving only a certain class of electronic document management problems. The absence of systems in the III quadrant is explained by the fact that the review considered the most common EDMS in Russia, and not all systems currently offered to customers.

We hope that this overview will be useful for you when choosing a system. I would like to note that by introducing EDMS today, the organization not only increases the efficiency of its activities, but also, which is very important, gains valuable experience and practice in new conditions - in the conditions of electronic document circulation.

P. S. For the preparation of the review, only publicly available materials from the official websites of the EDMS manufacturers were used. After the publication of the article, it turned out that due to the incomplete description of the products by the "Industrial Information Systems" company, the information about their solution is inaccurate. We will study this issue in detail and describe the results in the next article.

Market of electronic document management systems

Currently, in the domestic IT industry, one of the most dynamic areas is the market of electronic document management systems (EDMS).

With the overall dynamics of the IT market 6% (according to IDC) in 2013, its growth amounted to about 23%, which, in addition, exceeds twice the global indicators of this segment, as well as the growth rate of the software market (15%). archive document flow electronic program

According to Denis Vladimirovich Morozov, Deputy Head of the Center for Analytical Systems and Development, the reason for this state of affairs is associated with the implementation of large-scale informatization programs in the public sector and the active construction of electronic government.

It is the electronic document flow that is, in fact, the circulatory system of a state or commercial enterprise.

The volume of the EDMS market in Russia, according to various estimates, is about 26 billion rubles, of which about 75% falls on implementation services and about 25% - directly on the sale of licenses.

In the structure of the market, most of the sales are accounted for by large enterprises (about 45-50%). The public sector almost completely occupies the other half of the market (about 40-45%), leaving SMB no more than 10-15%.

Competition in the EDMS market is rather tight today. At the same time, more than 60% of the market is controlled by five companies: EMC, Cognitive Technologies, 1C, Directum and Microsoft (according to IDC data for 2013) in terms of turnover. At the same time, it is known that EMC and Microsoft are represented on the EDMS market by replicated solutions of partner companies.

Among the research participants, we selected EDMS, which are actively developing and have proven themselves in the user environment: 1C: Document Management, CompanyMedia from InterTrust, DocsVision, SharePoint and Delo from EOS, Directum, Tezis from a Russian developer Homemont and E1 EVFRAT software from Cognitive Technologies.

It is worth noting that, in addition to the products participating in the review, several dozen more systems are presented on the EDMS market, most of which have not received large-scale distribution.

Market leaders' products have approximately the same set of key functions (document registration, life cycle control, routing, reporting, etc.).

Therefore, it makes no practical sense to compare systems according to these criteria.

On the other hand, when choosing a system, opportunities that are among the market trends and are an extremely necessary addition to the EDMS functionality are of increased interest (for a number of developers, along with the basic capabilities, they are included in the basic functionality) when working with documents in organizations of different levels. These include services for maintaining contracts, a web client, work management, integration with 1C, maintaining a client base and an archive of documents, entering and recognizing documents (OCR), as well as citizens' appeals.

Looking ahead, we can say that in the near future such innovations as the possibilities of gamification and socialization of solutions can easily enter this list.

This is a kind of new stage in the development of the EDMS, which allows the presentation of information in a playful form, as well as communication between users of the system according to the principles of organization, close to social networks.

One of the defining criteria for choosing an EDMS buyer was and remains the price of the product.

For the best presentation of the price proposals of the research participants, we chose two comparative sections for the maximum configuration (based on the sale of a license for 200 users) and the minimum configuration (based on the sale of a license for 10 users).

In preparing the study, information from open sources was used (the Internet, information sites of the considered software products and development companies, demo versions of the EDMS).

Thus, among the functional criteria of the study was the presence of options in the EDMS:

- web client,
- maintaining contracts,
- work management,
- integration with 1C,
- maintaining a client base,
- archive of documents (automatic import of documents),
- document recognition (OCR),
- citizens' appeals.

The results of comparing the functionality of the EDMS according to the specified criteria are presented in the table below.

Scoring according to these criteria was carried out according to a three-point system:

2 points - if the function is present in the software product and is included in the basic system configuration declared by the developer (there is no need to purchase it additionally);
1 point - the function is declared by the developer, but is not included in the basic package (you must purchase it additionally);
0 points - the function is not declared.

The table of comparison results of the EDMS functionality according to the criteria: "Availability of a web client", "Maintenance of contracts", "Work management", "Integration with 1C", "Maintaining a client base", "Archive of documents (automatic import of documents)", "Recognition documents (OCR) "," Citizens' Appeals "

Below are the results of comparing the cost of EDMS in their declared minimum configuration. The minimum set should be understood as the minimum available set of system functionality, including the possibilities considered in the study. The calculation uses the prices declared by the developers for user licenses, which allow using all the minimum functionality of the system.

To assess the EDMS according to this criterion, the system cost scale was divided into seven equal intervals with a distance of 20,200 rubles (the difference between the highest and the lowest EDMS cost divided by the number of intervals), within which it was considered that the study participants had the same cost and received the same points ...

In this case, the minimum score (1) was assigned to the EDMS with the highest price, and the maximum score (in this case, 7) - with the lowest.

Comparison table of the EDMS according to the criterion "The cost of the system in the minimum configuration"

Below are the results of comparison of the EDMS according to the criterion "The cost of the system in the maximum configuration".

As in the case of assessing the EDMS according to the criterion of the cost of the minimum configuration, the scale was divided into seven equal intervals with a distance of 141,298.6 rubles (the difference between the highest and the lowest EDMS cost divided by the number of intervals), within which it was assumed that the study participants had equal value and received the same points. In this case, the minimum score (1) was set for the EDMS with the highest price in this configuration, and the maximum score (in this case, 7) - with the lowest.

Comparison table of the EDMS according to the criterion "The cost of the system in the maximum configuration"

Then the criteria were ranked according to their level of significance for a potential user. The ranking was based on the data of a sociological survey of 7563 representatives of the IT service of medium and large enterprises in Moscow and 21 cities from the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The most important criterion for the respondents was the price criterion of the EDMS in the maximum configuration. He was given the highest score of -1. Other criteria received values in the range from 0 to 1 in proportion to their level of significance for users.

Criteria significance coefficient table

The final score of each SED was calculated as the sum of the marks obtained for each criterion, multiplied by the weight of each criterion. A summary table of the study results is shown below.

Thus, the winner of our rating was the E1 EVFRAT system of Cognitive Technologies. The system has the most complete functionality at the lowest cost. The absence of additionally purchased modules makes the system attractive to customers of different status and rank. The second place is taken by the EDMS DocsVision. Despite the need to purchase the necessary functionality using plug-in modules, the price of the basic configuration of the system remains quite favorable, although it is inferior to the E1 EDMS EVFRAT.

And, finally, the third place in the ranking was taken by the Thesis system. EDMS is more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses - with a small number of licenses, the basic functionality declared by the developer is quite sufficient for work. However, the system starts to lose noticeably with an increase in the number of user licenses.

The development of human civilization is accompanied by an amazing increase in the volume of information created, processed and stored. For example, according to the magazine ASAP, about 6 billion new documents appear in the world every year. According to the Delphi Consulting Group, currently in the United States alone, more than 1 billion pages of documents are created every day, and more than 1.3 trillion are stored in the archives. various documents.

It should be noted that the streams of corporate information are extremely diverse in terms of sources and forms of its presentation. However, they can be conditionally classified according to the form of storage: into electronic and paper documents. It is estimated that currently only about 30% of all corporate information is stored electronically (both structured ”in databases and unstructured). All the rest of the information (about 70%) is stored on paper, making it difficult to find it. Nevertheless, this ratio is gradually changing in favor of the electronic form of storage (in particular, through the development of electronic archiving systems). According to Delphi Consulting Group, the volume of corporate electronic text information doubles every 3 years. According to the forecast of the same magazine ASAP, by 2004 only about 30% of corporate information will remain in paper form, and 70% of information will be stored in electronic form. It is unlikely, of course, that someday all documents will only become electronic, but there is no doubt that the electronic form of document storage will prevail in the future.

These impressive figures and data only indicate that for any enterprise or organization, the issues of workflow optimization and control over information processing are of key importance. This statement can be confirmed by the following data. According to Siemens Business Services, a manager spends up to 80% of his working time on working with information, up to 30% of employees' time is spent on creating, searching, agreeing and sending documents, each internal document is copied, on average, up to 20 times and up to 15 % of corporate documents are irretrievably lost (while, according to ASAP magazine, the average employee spends annually up to 150 hours of his working time looking for lost information). There are also estimates that work with documents accounts for up to 40% of labor resources and up to 15% of corporate income.

That is why efficient management of enterprises and organizations not least of all depends on the correct solution of the problems of the prompt and high-quality formation of electronic documents, control of their execution, as well as the thoughtful organization of their storage, search and use. The need for effective management of electronic documents led to the creation electronic document management systems (EDMS), to which this article is devoted. The main purpose of the article is to present to Jet Info readers a retrospective of the current state of the world EDMS market, the prospects for its development, as well as a fairly large number of examples of EDMS application in the world. You can get acquainted in more detail with all the issues related to EDMS using a fairly large number of specialized Web resources (both Russian and English), for example, www.document.ru, www.docflow.ru, sites of EDMS developers, etc. ...

Basic concepts of electronic document management systems

The purpose of the EDMS

According to industry analysts, electronic document management includes: the creation of documents, their processing, transmission, storage, output of information circulating in an organization or enterprise, based on the use of computer networks. In general, it is customary to understand the management of electronic document flow as the organization of the movement of documents between departments of an enterprise or organization, groups of users or individual users. At the same time, the movement of documents does not mean their physical movement, but the transfer of rights to their use with the notification of specific users and control over their execution.

IDC defines the concept of EDMS as follows (meaning EDMS ”Electronic Document Management Systems): “EDMS provide the process of creation, access control and distribution of large volumes of documents in computer networks, as well as provide control over the flow of documents in the organization. Often these documents are stored in special repositories or in the file system hierarchy. The file types that EDMS typically support include: text documents, images, spreadsheets, audio data, video data, and Web documents. The general capabilities of the EDMS include: document creation, access control, data conversion and data security ”.

The main purpose of the EDMS "is the organization of storage of electronic documents, as well as work with them.(in particular, their search both by attributes and by content). The EDMS should automatically track changes in documents, deadlines for the execution of documents, the movement of documents, and also control all their versions and subversions. An integrated EDMS should cover the entire business cycle of an enterprise or organization ”from setting a task to create a document to writing it off to the archive, provide centralized storage of documents in any format, including complex compositional documents. EDMS should combine disparate document flows of geographically remote enterprises into a single system. They must provide flexible document management both by rigidly defining traffic routes and by freely routing documents. In the EDMS, a strict delimitation of users' access to various documents should be implemented, depending on their competence, the position held and the powers assigned to them. In addition, the EDMS should be adjusted to the existing organizational and staff structure and the enterprise's office management system, as well as integrate with existing corporate systems.

The main users of the EDMS are large government organizations, enterprises, banks, large industrial enterprises and all other structures, whose activities are accompanied by a large volume of created, processed and stored documents.

Basic properties of EDMS

Openness

All EDMS are built on a modular basis, and their APIs are open. This allows you to add new functions to the EDMS or improve existing ones. Currently, the development of applications integrated with EDMS has become a separate type of business in the industry of industrial software production, and many third parties are ready to offer their services in this market segment. The possibility of relatively simple addition to the EDMS of many modules from third parties significantly expands their functionality. For example, for the EDMS, modules have been developed for inputting documents from a scanner, communication with e-mail, with programs for sending faxes, etc.

High degree of integration with application software

The key feature of the EDMS is a high degree of integration with various software applications through the use of technologies OLE Automation, DDE, ActiveX, ODMA, MAPI and others. And directly when working with documents, there is no need to use the EDMS utilities. Users deal only with ordinary application programs: at the time of installation of the client part of the EDMS, application programs are supplemented with new functions and menu items. For example, a user of the MS Word word processor, opening a file, immediately sees libraries and folders with EDMS documents (from where he selects the document he needs). When saving, the document is automatically placed in the EDMS database. The same applies to other office and specialized programs.

It should also be noted that in most of the common EDMS, integration with the most famous ERP systems is implemented (in particular, with SAP R / 3, Oracle Applications, etc.). It is the ability to integrate with various applications that is one of the characteristic features of the EDMS. Thanks to him, the EDMS can act as a link between various corporate applications, thereby creating the basis for organizing office work in an enterprise. Some industry analysts even believe that EDMS may well become the basis of the corporate information system of an enterprise or organization (there are other opinions).

Features of document storage

EDMS operate mainly on the basis of distributed architectures and use various combinations of technologies for collecting, indexing, storing, searching and viewing electronic documents. In most of the EDMS, a hierarchical document storage system is implemented (according to the “cabinet / shelf / folder” principle). Each document is placed in a folder, which, in turn, is on the shelf, etc. The number of levels of nesting when storing documents is not limited. One and the same document can be included in several folders and shelves due to the use of the link mechanism (the original document in this case remains unchanged and is stored in a place determined by the ERMS administrator). In a number of EDMS, even more powerful storage capabilities are implemented by organizing links between documents (these links can be established and edited graphically).

Any document in the EDMS has a certain set of attributes (for example, its name, the author of the document, the time of its creation, etc.). The set of attributes can change from one type of document to another (it remains unchanged within one type of document). In the EDMS, document attributes are stored in a relational database. For each type of document, using visual tools, a card template is created, where the names of document attributes are presented in a clear graphical form. When a document is entered into the EDMS, the required template is taken and the card is filled in (attribute values are entered). After filling out, the card is associated with the document itself.

In most cases, the server part of the EDMS consists of the following logical components (which can be located both on one or on several servers):

Storage of attributes of documents (cards);
Document storages;
Full-text indexing services.

Document storage usually refers to the storage of document content. Attribute store and document store are often collectively referred to as “document archive”. To store attributes in most EDMS, Oracle, Sybase, MS SQL Server and Informix DBMS are used, which provide a search for documents by attributes.

To store the content of documents directly in most EDMS file servers are used MS Windows NT, Novell NetWare, UNIX, etc. In this case, heterogeneous combinations of network environments can also be implemented. For example, a database with document attributes can run under UNIX on a TCP / IP network, and the documents themselves can be stored under Novell NetWare over an IPX / SPX network. It should be noted that the great advantages of the EDMS are the storage of documents in the original format and the automatic recognition of many file formats.

Recently, it has become increasingly popular to store documents along with attributes in a database. This approach has advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is a significant increase in the security of access to documents, and the main disadvantage is "low efficiency of working with documents with a large amount of stored information. This approach also requires the use of powerful servers with large amounts of RAM and hard drives. In addition, in the event of a database failure, it will be very difficult to recover the documents stored in it. It is also necessary to be strictly tied to a specific DBMS.

Features of document routing

EDMS modules responsible for document flow are usually called document routing modules. In general, the concepts of “free” and “rigid” document routing are used. With “free” routing, any user participating in the workflow can, at his discretion, change the existing route for the passage of documents (or set a new route). In the case of “hard” routing, the routes for passing documents are strictly regulated, and users are not entitled to change them. However, with "hard" routing, logical operations can be processed when the route changes when some predefined conditions are met (for example, sending a document to the management when a particular user exceeds his official authority). In most EDMS, the routing module is included in the delivery set, in some EDMS it must be purchased separately. Full-featured routing modules are developed and supplied by third parties.

Access control

The EDMS implements reliable means of delineation of powers and control over access to documents. In most cases, they are used to define the following types of access (the set of assigned powers depends on the specific EDMS):

Full control over the document;
The right to edit but not destroy the document;
The right to create new versions of the document, but not edit it;
The right to annotate a document, but not edit it or create new versions;
The right to read the document, but not edit it;
The right to access the card, but not the content of the document;
Complete lack of access rights to the document (while working with the EDMS, every user action is logged, and, thus, the entire history of his work with documents can be easily monitored).

Track versions and subversions of documents

When several users work with a document at the same time (especially when it needs to be coordinated in various instances), a very convenient function of the EDMS is the use of versions and subversions of the document. Suppose the contractor created the first version of the document and submitted it to the next user for review. The second user modified the document and created a new version based on it. Then he passed his version of the document to the next instance to the third user, who created the third version. After a certain time, having read the comments and corrections, the first executor of the document decides to modify the original version and, on its basis, creates a subversion of the first version of the document. The advantage of the EDMS is the ability to automatically track versions and subversions of documents implemented in them (users can always determine which version / subversion of a document is most relevant in terms of the order or time of their creation).

Availability of utilities for viewing documents of different formats

The majority of EDMS includes utilities for viewing documents (the so-called "viewers"), which understand many dozens of file formats. With their help it is very convenient to work, in particular, with graphic files (for example, with drawing files in CAD systems). In addition to the basic set of viewing utilities (included in each EDMS), you can purchase additional utilities from third parties that are well integrated with the EDMS.

Annotating documents

When organizing group work on documents, the ability to annotate them is usually very useful. Since in some cases users are deprived of the rights to make any changes to the document in the process of its approval, they can use the opportunity to annotate it. In most EDMS, annotation is implemented by including an attribute for annotation in the document card and giving users the rights to edit such a card field. But this solution is not always acceptable (especially when annotating a graphic document). In this regard, in some EDMS there is a so-called “red pencil” function, with which you can graphically indicate the flaws in the image itself. Software tools that implement the "red pencil" function are widely offered by third parties.

Support for various client programs

The clients of most EDMS can be PCs with MS Windows, Windows NT. Some EDMS also use UNIX and Macintosh platforms. In addition, all modern EDMS allow you to work with documents through standard Web-navigators. Since Web browsers can be hosted on a variety of client platforms, this makes it easier to solve the problem of ensuring the operation of the EDMS in heterogeneous network environments. When using Internet technologies, the EDMS has another server component, which is responsible for accessing documents through Web-navigators.

General classification of EDMS

ECM concept

The issue of EDMS classification is rather complicated due to the rapid development of the market for these systems. Moreover, since 2001, the concept of "Enterprise Content Management (ECM)", not electronic document management (according to Forrester TechRankings). Term ECM appeared with the light hand of the trade association AIIM International and covers all corporate information management systems.

At the same time, if Forrester Research defines ECM as an integrated approach to document and web content management then, for consultancy Doculabs, ECM Enterprise Content Management is “a category that combines the capabilities of corporate document management systems and content management systems with the ability to manage the entire lifecycle of enterprise content (while the number of types continues to grow)”.

From the perspective of industry analysts, the ECM concept offers many business benefits. An ECM system that integrates all content and process-oriented technologies within an enterprise provides a common infrastructure for managing its workflow, minimizing the need to deploy and support multiple technologies to implement various business functions. The essence of this approach (also called infrastructure) is that corporate content should not belong to only one application or system. It should be available for many applications and freely redistributed between them. An important property of the ECM infrastructure (including the corresponding applications of most vendors in the industry) is its independence from a single universal content store... The ECM infrastructure integrates many specialized (or legacy) data repositories (even from competing vendors), including but not limited to electronic product document repositories, e-mail, Web content repositories, file systems, and even database management systems. In this way, ECM infrastructure provides a common integration (or virtualization) layer for each data repository(allowing you to query them from anywhere throughout the enterprise), thereby minimizing the need to integrate electronic document management systems and content management systems from multiple vendors. In addition, with the help of the ECM infrastructure, such corporate content management services are implemented as personalization, access control, user rights management, etc. (which simplifies the administration and maintenance of the ECM system).

The capabilities of ECM systems can be divided into several main categories:

General content management features, which is understood as the ability to manage a variety of electronic objects (images, office documents, graphics, drawings, Web-content, e-mail, video, audio and multimedia). The ECM system provides a repository for all these types of electronic objects with various library services (content profiling, check-in / check-out functions, version control, revision history, document access security, etc.), as well as the ability to manage data objects throughout their entire life cycle.

Process control functions, which are understood as the ability to automate and manage business processes and workflows.

Integration with other ECM systems, implying the ability to integrate ECM systems with external ERP systems, office applications, content repositories, and other EDMS. Integration can be done using a variety of approaches, including the use of object-oriented interfaces (such as EJB), connectors, APIs, enterprise application integration technologies EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) and etc.

It should be noted that ECM has existed until now only as a concept, and ECM infrastructure today heavily is only a look at the prospects for the development of the EDMS market... For example, some industry vendors talk a lot about content management, but their systems only focus on managing Web content or office documents. In addition, they lack clear vision on how to create an open ECM infrastructure that integrates specialized repositories across the enterprise. According to analysts from Doculabs (which researched solutions from leading EDMS developers), although vendors recognize the importance of the ECM concept, they are still far from fully implementing it in their systems.

EDS classification

According to IDC analysts, currently there are the following main types of EDMS (while some of the EDMS can simultaneously belong to several types, since they have the corresponding functions for them):

EDM focused on business processes (business-process EDM). They are at the heart of the ECM concept. Systems of this type (EDMS) are designed for specific vertical and horizontal applications (sometimes they also have industry applications). EDMS systems provide the full lifecycle of working with documents, including working with images, management of records and workflows, content management, etc. EDMS systems provide storage and retrieval of 2-D documents in original formats (images, CAD files, spreadsheets and others) with the ability to group them into folders. It is believed by some industry analysts that (depending on the indexing scheme and applications used) this document-oriented approach can provide up to 80% of the functionality of a PDM system in a number of EDMS systems at a lower cost of implementation. The most famous developers of EDMS systems are Documentum (Documentum system), FileNet (Panagon and Watermark systems), Hummingbird (PC DOCS system), etc. its activities in the implementation of such functions in the EDMS as template management, dynamic presentation management and Web content publishing. It should be noted that while almost all EDMS systems provide a good level of implementation of repositories and library services for managing electronic content (for example, images and office documents), each of them is strongest in its own field. For example, in systems from companies Open Text and iManage, office document management is most well developed. In turn, systems from Tower Technology, FileNet, IBM, and Identitech are particularly strong in managing high-volume product images.

Corporate EDM (enterprise-centric EDM). Systems of this type provide the corporate infrastructure (available to all corporate users) for creating documents, collaborating on them, and publishing them. The basic functions of corporate EDMS are similar to those of the EDMS focused on business processes. As a rule, corporate EDMS is not focused on use only in any specific industry or on solving a narrow problem. They are being introduced as company-wide technologies. The development and promotion of corporate EDMS is carried out by Lotus (Domino.Doc system), Novell (Novell GroupWise), Open Text (LiveLink system), Keyfile, Oracle (Context system), iManage, etc. project documents for external and internal users, conducting online discussions, distributed planning and document routing, etc.

Content management systems. Systems of this type provide content creation, content access and management, content delivery (down to the level of sections of documents and objects for their subsequent reuse and compilation). The availability of information not in the form of documents, but in the form of smaller objects makes it easier to exchange information between applications. Web content management requires the ability to manage various content objects that can be included in a Web presentation (for example, HTML pages and Web graphics). In addition, Web content management requires the ability to create presentation templates that enable dynamic content to be presented and personalized (based on user preferences, user profiles, etc.). Content management systems from Adobe, Excalibur, BroadVision, Documentum, Stellent, Microsoft, Divine, Vignette and others are well known in the world market. FileNet, Tower and Identitech also offer a certain level of Web content management. In turn, IBM is partnering with Interwoven and Open Market to provide Web content management capabilities, and Tower has integrated its e-document management software with Stellent's Web content management solutions. ...

Information management systems ”portals. Such systems provide information aggregation, information management and delivery over the Internet / intranet / extranet. With their help, it is possible to accumulate (and apply) experience in a distributed corporate environment based on the use of business rules, context and metadata. Portals also provide standard Web browser access to a range of e-commerce applications (typically through an ERP system interface). Examples of portals are Excalibur, Oracle Context, PC DOCS / Fulcrum, Verity, Lotus (Domino / Notes, K-Station).

Imaging systems. With their help, the information scanned from paper carriers is converted into electronic form (usually in TIFF format). This technology is at the heart of the translation into electronic form of information from all legacy paper documents and microfilms. The basic functions of a standard image processing system include: scanning, storage, a number of image search capabilities, and more.

Workflow management systems. Systems of this type are designed to provide routing of workflows of any type (definition of file routing paths) within corporate structured and unstructured business processes. They are used to improve the efficiency and controllability of corporate business processes. Workflow management systems are usually purchased as part of a solution (for example, EDMS systems or PDM systems). Here one can note such developers as Lotus (Domino / Notes and Domino Workflow systems), Jetform, FileNet, Action Technologies, Staffware, etc. A good level of workflow management is also provided in their solutions by FileNet, IBM (through integration with MQ software Series Workflow), Identitech, Tower (through integration with Plexus and Staffware software), Gauss (through integration with Staffware software), etc.

The classification of EDMS proposed by IDC can be supplemented See also corporate electronic records management systems... The corporate records management software market segment is about 5 years old. Corporate records are fixed in time and immutable. They are evidence of business transactions, various rights and obligations, etc. Enterprise users must determine for themselves what content needs to be made a corporate record (such a decision requires an assessment of the future needs of their business). Enterprise solutions requiring content preservation include major business systems including ERP and accounting systems, mail systems (e.g. MS Exchange), reporting and output management systems, e-commerce systems, collaboration software (project management systems). , online conferencing, etc.). Examples of records management systems include software Capture from Tower Software, iRIMS from OpenText and Foremost from TrueArc.

Many important functions for managing records in the ERMS were not previously available (for example, classification functions). Methods for physically deleting records and indexes at the end of their life cycle (if necessary) were also not implemented. According to the Gartner Group, enterprise users need to complement their Web sites with records management systems. A number of Web content management system developers are already extending their functionality with Web site records to support Web site records. Work in this direction became especially noticeable in 2002. For example, Stellent integrated its content management software with Foremost records management system from TrueArc (it should be noted that the integration of records management software with EDMS is very difficult, since it is necessary to solve the problems of duplication repositories). With this integration, it became possible to take “snapshots” of the Web site and manage them like records. Interesting features such as the recording of screens encountered during an online transaction are also implemented (for example, in the WebCapture software from Tower Technology). Open Text has acquired PS Software, a records management company, and has integrated its iRIMS software as a module into its LiveLink software. Documentum, IBM and Interwoven (among other content management software vendors) complement their content management software with the functionality of records management systems.

Many corporate users want to collect data from different applications running in a heterogeneous environment and generate reports electronically. This capability is especially necessary for companies using ERP systems (in which a lot of information is always collected and stored, but there is not always the ability to flexibly generate all the necessary reports).

That is why the so-called output management systems ”OMS, the main purpose of which is to generate output documents. In some OMS systems, the capabilities of archiving and long-term storage of output reports and documents are additionally implemented. Due to this, many of the OMS systems are classified by the Gartner Group as integrated document archive and retrieval systems (IDARS)... However, the main reason for the popularity of OMS systems is still the market niche they occupy, ”the generation of documents and reports in the information systems of enterprises and organizations, built using ERP systems. According to Gartner Group analysts, one of the weaknesses of modern ERP systems is precisely the poor management of the generation of output documents (ERP systems developers are more focused on increasing the functionality of key modules of their software than on “secondary” issues of ensuring the generation of output reports that do not have, in their opinion, good market prospects). This lack of ERP systems was the main factor in the emergence and rapid development of the OMS systems market. A number of OMS systems are only responsible for the distribution and delivery of the output documents (electronically ”in HTML, XML and PDF formats). OMS systems are often integrated with document and image scanning software packages. A useful feature of some OMS systems is interaction with legacy corporate systems.

You can also note special modules for managing electronic documents embedded in ERP systems (SAP R / 3, Baan, etc.). However, the capabilities of these modules are rather limited, since it is almost impossible to create a universal and fully functional ERP system.

Benefits of using the EDMS

According to Forrester Research, 38% of Fortune 500 companies believe that acquiring a modern EDMS is critical to the success of their business. In accordance with the opinion of industry analysts (there are quite a lot of such opinions, which differ at certain points from each other), the benefits for corporate users when implementing an EDMS are quite diverse. For example, according to Siemens Business Services, when using the EDMS:

Personnel labor productivity increases by 20-25%;
The cost of archiving electronic documents is 80% lower than the cost of storing paper archives.

It is also generally accepted that tactical and strategic benefits are acquired with the implementation of the EDMS. Tactical benefits are determined by the cost reduction in the implementation of the EDMS associated with: freeing up physical space for storing documents; reducing the cost of copying and delivery of paper documents; reduction of personnel and equipment costs, etc. strategic refers to the benefits associated with improving the efficiency of an enterprise or organization. These benefits include:

The emergence of the possibility of collective work on the

Alexander Glinskikh (Ph.D.)

Introduction
Basic concepts of electronic document management systems
- The purpose of the EDMS
- Basic properties of EDMS
- General classification of EDMS
Analysis of the current state of the world EDMS market
- general review
Russian EDMS market
- general review
Examples of using EDMS in the world
- EDMS in healthcare
- EDMS in pharmaceuticals
- EDMS in the field of issuing loans
- EDMS in the field of patenting
- EDMS in the field of design
- Application examples of OMS systems
Integration of EDMS with other applications
Features of the choice and implementation of EDMS
conclusions

Introduction

It should be noted that the streams of corporate information are extremely diverse in terms of sources and forms of its presentation. However, they can be conditionally classified according to the form of storage: into electronic and paper documents. It is estimated that currently only about 30% of all corporate information is stored electronically (both structured - in databases, and unstructured). All the rest of the information (about 70%) is stored on paper, making it difficult to find it. Nevertheless, this ratio is gradually changing in favor of the electronic form of storage (in particular, through the development of electronic archiving systems). According to Delphi Consulting Group, the volume of corporate electronic text information doubles every 3 years. According to the forecast of the same magazine ASAP, by 2004 only about 30% of corporate information will remain in paper form, and 70% of information will be stored in electronic form. It is unlikely, of course, that someday all documents will only become electronic, but there is no doubt that the electronic form of document storage will prevail in the future.

Basic concepts of electronic document management systems

The purpose of the EDMS

IDC defines the concept of EDMS as follows (meaning EDMS - Electronic Document Management Systems): "EDMS provide the process of creation, access control and distribution of large volumes of documents in computer networks, as well as provide control over the flow of documents in the organization. Often these documents are stored in special repositories or in the hierarchy of the file system. File types, which are usually support EDMS include: text documents, images, spreadsheets, audio data, video data and Web-documents. Common EDMS capabilities include: document creation, access control, data conversion and data security. "

The main purpose of the EDMS is to organize the storage of electronic documents, as well as work with them.(in particular, their search both by attributes and by content). The EDMS should automatically track changes in documents, deadlines for the execution of documents, the movement of documents, and also control all their versions and subversions. An integrated EDMS should cover the entire business cycle of an enterprise or organization - from setting a task to create a document to writing it off to the archive, provide centralized storage of documents in any format, including complex compositional documents. EDMS should combine disparate document flows of geographically remote enterprises into a single system. They must provide flexible document management both by rigidly defining traffic routes and by freely routing documents. In the EDMS, a strict delimitation of users' access to various documents should be implemented, depending on their competence, the position held and the powers assigned to them. In addition, the EDMS should be adjusted to the existing organizational and staff structure and the enterprise's office management system, as well as integrate with existing corporate systems.

Basic properties of EDMS

Openness

High degree of integration with application software

Features of document storage

EDMS operate mainly on the basis of distributed architectures and use various combinations of technologies for collecting, indexing, storing, searching and viewing electronic documents. In most of the EDMS, a hierarchical document storage system is implemented (according to the "cabinet / shelf / folder" principle). Each document is placed in a folder, which, in turn, is on the shelf, etc. The number of levels of nesting when storing documents is not limited. One and the same document can be included in several folders and shelves due to the use of the link mechanism (the original document in this case remains unchanged and is stored in a place determined by the ERMS administrator). In a number of EDMS, even more powerful storage capabilities are implemented by organizing links between documents (these links can be established and edited graphically).

In most cases, the server part of the EDMS consists of the following logical components (which can be located both on one or on several servers):

Storage of attributes of documents (cards);
Document storages;
Full-text indexing services.

Document storage usually refers to the storage of document content. Attribute store and document store are often collectively referred to as "document archive". To store attributes in most EDMS, Oracle, Sybase, MS SQL Server and Informix DBMS are used, which provide a search for documents by attributes.

Recently, it has become increasingly popular to store documents along with attributes in a database. This approach has advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is a significant increase in the security of access to documents, and the main disadvantage is the low efficiency of working with documents with a large amount of stored information. This approach also requires the use of powerful servers with large amounts of RAM and hard drives. In addition, in the event of a database failure, it will be very difficult to recover the documents stored in it. It is also necessary to be strictly tied to a specific DBMS.

Features of document routing

EDMS modules responsible for document flow are usually called document routing modules. In general, the concepts of "free" and "rigid" document routing are used. With "free" routing, any user participating in the document flow can, at his discretion, change the existing route of the documents (or set a new route). In the case of "hard" routing, the routes of passage of documents are strictly regulated, and users do not have the right to change them. However, with "hard" routing, logical operations can be processed when the route is changed when some predefined conditions are met (for example, sending a document to the management when a specific user exceeds his official authority). In most EDMS, the routing module is included in the delivery set, in some EDMS it must be purchased separately. Full-featured routing modules are developed and supplied by third parties.

Access control

Full control over the document;
The right to edit but not destroy the document;
The right to create new versions of the document, but not edit it;
The right to annotate a document, but not edit it or create new versions;
The right to read the document, but not edit it;
The right to access the card, but not the content of the document;
Complete lack of access rights to the document (while working with the EDMS, every user action is logged, and, thus, the entire history of his work with documents can be easily monitored).

Track versions and subversions of documents

Availability of utilities for viewing documents of different formats

Most of the EDMS includes utilities for viewing documents (the so-called viewers) that understand many dozens of file formats. With their help it is very convenient to work, in particular, with graphic files (for example, with drawing files in CAD systems). In addition to the basic set of viewing utilities (included in each EDMS), you can purchase additional utilities from third parties that are well integrated with the EDMS.

Annotating documents

When organizing group work on documents, the ability to annotate them is usually very useful. Since in some cases users are deprived of the rights to make any changes to the document in the process of its approval, they can use the opportunity to annotate it. In most EDMS, annotation is implemented by including an attribute for annotation in the document card and giving users the rights to edit such a card field. But this solution is not always acceptable (especially when annotating a graphic document). In this regard, in some EDMS there is a so-called "red pencil" function, with which you can graphically indicate the flaws in the image itself. Software tools that implement the "red pencil" function are widely offered by third parties.

Support for various client programs

General classification of EDMS

ECM concept

The issue of EDMS classification is rather complicated due to the rapid development of the market for these systems. Moreover, since 2001, the concept of "Enterprise Content Management (ECM)" rather than electronic document management (according to Forrester TechRankings). Term ECM appeared with the light hand of the trade association AIIM International and covers all corporate information management systems.

At the same time, if Forrester Research defines ECM as an integrated approach to document and web content management then, for consultancy Doculabs, ECM Enterprise Content Management is "a category that combines the capabilities of enterprise document management systems and content management systems with the ability to manage the entire lifecycle of enterprise content (with a continuing growth in the number of types)."

The capabilities of ECM systems can be divided into several main categories:

Process control functions, which are understood as the ability to automate and manage business processes and workflows.

EDS classification

Information management systems - portals. Such systems provide information aggregation, information management and delivery over the Internet / intranet / extranet. With their help, it is possible to accumulate (and apply) experience in a distributed corporate environment based on the use of business rules, context and metadata. Portals also provide standard Web browser access to a range of e-commerce applications (typically through an ERP system interface). Examples of portals are Excalibur, Oracle Context, PC DOCS / Fulcrum, Verity, Lotus (Domino / Notes, K-Station).

Many important functions for managing records in the ERMS were not previously available (for example, classification functions). Methods for physically deleting records and indexes at the end of their life cycle (if necessary) were also not implemented. According to the Gartner Group, enterprise users need to complement their Web sites with records management systems. A number of Web content management system developers are already extending their functionality with Web site records to support Web site records. Work in this direction became especially noticeable in 2002. For example, Stellent integrated its content management software with Foremost records management system from TrueArc (it should be noted that the integration of records management software with EDMS is very difficult, since it is necessary to solve the problems of duplication repositories). With this integration, it became possible to take "snapshots" of the Web site and manage them like records. Interesting features such as the recording of screens encountered during an online transaction are also implemented (for example, in the WebCapture software from Tower Technology). Open Text has acquired PS Software, a records management company, and has integrated its iRIMS software as a module into its LiveLink software. Documentum, IBM and Interwoven (among other content management software vendors) complement their content management software with the functionality of records management systems.

That is why the so-called output management systems (OMS), the main purpose of which is to generate output documents. In some OMS systems, the capabilities of archiving and long-term storage of output reports and documents are additionally implemented. Due to this, many of the OMS systems are classified by the Gartner Group as integrated document archive and retrieval systems (IDARS)... However, the main reason for the popularity of OMS systems is still the market niche they occupy - the generation of documents and reports in the information systems of enterprises and organizations built using ERP systems. According to Gartner Group analysts, one of the weak points of modern ERP systems is precisely the poor management of the generation of output documents (ERP system developers are more focused on increasing the functionality of key modules of their software than on "secondary" issues of ensuring the generation of output reports that do not have, in their opinion, good market prospects). This lack of ERP systems was the main factor in the emergence and rapid development of the OMS systems market. A number of OMS systems are only responsible for the distribution and delivery of output documents (in electronic form - in HTML, XML and PDF formats). OMS systems are often integrated with document and image scanning software packages. A useful feature of some OMS systems is interaction with legacy corporate systems.

Benefits of using the EDMS

Personnel labor productivity increases by 20-25%;
The cost of archiving electronic documents is 80% lower than the cost of storing paper archives.

The emergence of the possibility of collective work on documents (which is impossible with paper office work);
Significant acceleration of the search and selection of documents (by various attributes);
Increasing the security of information due to the fact that work in the EDMS from an unregistered workstation is impossible, and each EDMS user is assigned their own authority to access information;
Improving the safety of documents and the convenience of their storage, as they are stored electronically on the server;
Improved control over the execution of documents.

Analysis of the current state of the world EDMS market

general review

The global EDMS market will soon be 20 years old. It is very fragmented, as it hosts both world-famous multidisciplinary IT companies and relatively little-known (or known only in their market niche) firms. According to various estimates, there are now several hundred software applications in the world (which can be classified as EDMS) that differ from each other both in functionality and in technological solutions. Hundreds of companies are engaged in the development of applications in the field of electronic document management in the world, the most famous of which are (in alphabetical order): ACS Software, Action Technologies, Adobe, Artesia, AXS-One, BroadVision, Cyco, Cypress, Datamax Technologies, Datawatch, Divine, Documentum, Dynamic Imaging, Eastman Software, Excalibur, FileNet, Hyland Software, HP / Dazel, Hummingbird, Gauss Interprise, IBM, Ideal, Identitech, iManage, Interlucent Internet Solutions, Interwoven, InterTech, Ixos Software, Jetform, Keyfile, Kofax, Lotus Development, Microsoft, Mobius Management Systems, Novell, OIT, OpenText, Optio Software, Optika, Oracle, OTG, Plexus, Radnet, RedDot Solutions, Siemens Nixdorf, SER Macrosoft, SER Solutions, Saperion, Saros, Staffware plc, Stellent, Symantec, Tower Software, Tower Technology, TrueArc, TSP; Unisys, Vignette, Westbrook Technologies, etc.

IDC analysts consider the prospects for the global market for document and content management technologies ( document and content technologies - DCT) quite favorable (report "Document and Content Technologies Applications Forecast and Analysis, 2000-2004") due to the continuing growth of the need for corporate users to improve the efficiency of their collective work with corporate documents (according to GartnerGroup, by the end of 2001 there were about 40 million users of EDMS). In this report, IDC identifies the following segments of the DCT market: the EDMS itself; content management systems for enterprise portals; and content management systems for e-commerce. IDC forecasts the global DCT market to expand from $ 1.1 billion in 1999 to nearly $ 4.4 billion in 2004, with an average annual growth rate of 32% (by comparison, according to IDC's Document Management Market Review and Forecast: 1998-2003 ", in 1998 the volume of the world EDMS market was about $ 750 million, including $ 200 million for the Western European market). The growth of the DCT marketplace is also fueled by the continued expansion of e-commerce and the increased demand from enterprises for Web-compatible, integrated information access tools. At the same time, consumers' demand for tools for collecting, searching and analyzing information is growing especially rapidly, with the help of which it is possible to more quickly process heterogeneous collections of text files, graphic files, video and audio files. According to IDC, EDMS sales form the basis of revenue in the DCT market at present. However, the segment of e-commerce applications is growing faster. 1998-1999 the volume of this segment increased by 143.1%. For comparison, the volume of the EDMS segment in the period under review increased by only 19.5%, and the volume of the application segment for enterprise portals - by 64.6%.

A more recent IDC forecast (Document and Content Technologies Market Forecast and Analysis Summary, 2001-2005) assesses the outlook for the global document and content management systems market during the downturn (and with a reassessment of its post-9/11 outlook). And although the global market for these systems has not repeated its extraordinary growth of 89% (as in 2000), IDC predicts good development prospects for it. IDC's initial forecast is based on data collected in 2000 and the first quarter of 2001. This market is forecast to grow at an annual rate of 47.2% (from $ 2 billion in 2000 to over $ 14 billion in 2005). After the tragedy of September 11, the forecast was revised downward. IDC analysts believe enterprise users' plans to acquire document and content management systems will be delayed for the first three quarters of 2002. The market is expected to recover by the end of 2002 and during 2003-2005. According to the Gartner Group, demand for corporate document management systems will continue, but their developers are under pressure from market conditions (requiring further price reductions), continuing product differentiation and the need to provide VAR capabilities. The popularity of portals will continue to grow. According to the IDC forecast (report "Worldwide Enterprise Information Portal Software Forecast and Analysis, 2001-2006"), the volume of the world software market for creating corporate information portals ( enterprise information portal - EIP) will increase from $ 550.4 million in 2001 to $ 3.1 billion in 2006. In turn, according to the forecast of the Gartner Group, the average annual rate of development of the market segment of portals over the next 5 years will be 30% (while analysts from Ovum believe that in the current difficult situation in the global economy, many "portal" initiatives will simply be "put on the shelf"). Interest in image management systems is also growing significantly.

The analysts of IDC did not pass by the market of services in the field of content and document management (report "Content and Document Management Service Market Forecast, 2001-2006"). IDC predicts that this market will grow at an average rate of 44% annually to reach $ 24.4 billion by 2006. These services include IDC planning and design services, as well as implementation, training and support services for customers. to help them manage their corporate content effectively.

According to the general opinion of analysts, the importance of the introduction of modern EDMS to ensure the successful conduct of business has remained, and in the foreseeable future their importance will only increase.

Main trends in the development of the global EDMS market

Further development of the market, its consolidation, the appearance of new participants on the market, differentiation of the offers of market participants

In the EDMS market, mergers and acquisitions continue, and to a large extent - by world-renowned IT firms (Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, Baan, etc.) that have entered a new field of activity. The process of absorption of EDMS developers by large IT firms and embedding their technologies into their own solutions has become noticeable. For example, in April 2001, Microsoft bought Ncompass Labs in Vancouver, Canada, a developer of the Resolution Web content management system, which became the basis for Microsoft Content Management Server 2001, released in early August 2001. Web Management Vendors -content create alliances with portal developers (or acquire them). This creates a kind of synergy between Web content management systems and portals (this convergence of Web content management systems and portals creates a new form of teamwork). Partnerships have also begun to form between developers of document and content management systems and vendors of image management systems (for example, Artesia and Vignette).

Many vendors differentiate their offerings, develop or improve their own workflow components. This is the case, for example, of Oracle, which added a workflow component to its Oracle Applications Suite. ERP systems developer for midsize enterprises, JBA International (www.jbaworld.com), has also added a workflow module to its system. At the same time, Lotus Development offers its workflow system that can be used to automate Domino-based customer service applications. In September 2001, Vignette released Vignette Content Suite V6, which brings together previously standalone Web content management, personalization, application integration, content aggregation and syndication, analysis and reporting of website traffic.

Integration of EDMS with common corporate applications

Integration of enterprise data and applications is one of the greatest challenges enterprises face today, and will continue to be an issue in the future. According to IDC analysts (Surviving the eBusiness Transition: Strategies for Enterprise Information Management), in the era of e-business, only those enterprises will succeed that have the most thoughtful formulation of their corporate information management strategy ( Enterprise Information Management - EIM). The goal of an EIM strategy for any enterprise is to provide easy and quick access to all corporate knowledge and data and the ability to manage corporate information from anywhere (it must be relevant and accessible in all contexts). These enterprises will need deep integration of all of their enterprise applications that communicate with each other.

In this regard, the possibility of integrating the EDMS with other corporate applications (both our own and other developers) is of particular relevance. According to IDC ("Enterprise Integration Software Forecast & Analysis, 2001-2005"), the global enterprise application integration software market grew 88.4% from 1999 to 2000, confirming the importance of integrated solutions for enterprises. Although its growth rate will slow down over the next 5 years due to the difficult economic conditions in the world, IDC believes that this market will continue to outperform the entire software development industry until 2005 (with an annual growth rate of 43.9%).

Despite the current economic downturn, IDC analysts believe that enterprises will continue to participate in integration projects for the following reasons:

Integration of enterprise applications enables better use of complex heterogeneous systems;
The need for legacy systems to work together with new applications remains;
The ongoing process of mergers and acquisitions in the global IT market is forcing enterprises to integrate applications in their heterogeneous corporate information systems.

It should be said that the industry is actively solving the issues of unifying the development of EDMS and their integration with common operating systems, applications, various interface environments (in particular, the consortium Workflow Management Coalition, working hard to create appropriate standards). Currently, dozens of IT companies offer their enterprise application integration solutions based on different (and sometimes incompatible) technologies. This diversity of offerings often makes it difficult for enterprise users to choose the right integration strategy and integration solution providers.

It is interesting to note that the integration methods offered by integration solution providers are changing as well. Currently, the main layer of integration (virtualization) is mainly the API provided by a single provider of enterprise content management infrastructure. That is, even if content repositories from multiple companies are integrated, the API provider becomes the primary infrastructure vendor for the entire enterprise. but in the future, it is planned to move from integration through APIs(which are system-dependent) to integration via Web services based on communication via XML messages using system-independent dictionaries and protocols (one of the first - back in 2000 - the idea of Web services was promoted by Microsoft in its .NET solution , Sun Microsystems, HP, and Oracle are now supporting this idea and are incorporating Web services tools and components into their own J2EE platforms.) This will eliminate the dependence of the enterprise on a single vendor (if it is necessary to integrate corporate applications), although it will require the creation of new standards. Enterprise content management infrastructure developers plan to expose their software as Web services starting in 2002 using standards such as SOAP, ebXML, or UDDI. Industry analysts believe IBM and Documentum may become the leading providers of enterprise content infrastructure in the future. Both companies have already implemented integrated search and content management capabilities for multiple repositories. For example, Documentum integrated Lotus Domino software, while IBM integrated both Documentum 4i software and FileNet Panagon software.

An example of integration is the joint venture between Documentum and PricewaterhouseCoopers. They have integrated all the functionality of Documentum 4i eBusiness Edition software into the SAP / R3 ERP system and mySAP.com software. This integration allows SAP R / 3 users to create bi-directional communication channels for information and content between SAP R / 3 software and the corporate website. In addition, the integration enables SAP R / 3 users to archive content for the Documentum 4i platform to optimize the SAP R / 3 experience. Software used for integration eConnector for SAP developed by Documentum - an integrated set of content management services for the SAP R / 3 environment. There is also an example of seamless software integration Documentum 4i eBusiness Platform with software Siebel eBusiness Applications 7 allowing to provide a unified presentation of data about the client and documents reflecting the history of relationships with him (such as letters, commercial offers, contracts, financial documents, etc.), as well as the management of this distributed information.

In turn, Informative Graphics has integrated Brava! (Java Viewer and Annotate Solution) with Documentum 4i eBusiness Edition software, allowing you to view documents and drawings stored in the Documentum database through standard Web browsers. And IBM has integrated its Corepoint call processing application with MQSeries Workflow software.

IDC believes that enterprise application integration software developers will continue to have favorable revenue growth opportunities in this market over the next 5 years. The leaders among them will be vendors of business software, application servers and databases.

Strong demand for OMS systems

Since most users of ERP systems do not want to have problems with the formation and output of various reports and documents, then demand for OMS systems in the medium term will remain strong... The Gartner Group predicts that the reporting management and output management systems market segment will grow at an average annual rate of 30% over the coming years. A certain impetus to the development of OMS systems will also be given by the further spread of electronic business, which is very demanding on the availability of distributed generation of output documents in the information systems of enterprises.

Technological changes in the industry

In the EDMS over the past few years, certain technological changes have been manifested. For example, the EDMS with a two-tier architecture of the "client-server" type is now being replaced by three-tier architecture systems... Such systems are much easier to integrate with other corporate applications through the API-interface (although the capabilities of CORBA, COM / DCOM, etc. interfaces remain).

Another notable change is simplified document management in many EDMS. This trend began to show itself several years ago, when Lotus Development released Domino software, which provides low-cost revision control for underlying documents. In 2000, Microsoft began to do the same, working on increasing functionality in document and knowledge management (as part of the Tahoe project). As a result of the project execution, the basic document management functionality was provided free of charge for Microsoft office applications (the same functionality is implemented in MS Site Server and MS Exchange software). In turn, the Oracle iFS (Internet File System) software also provides free basic version checking and check in / check out functionality based on the Oracle8i DBMS.

According to analysts IDC and GartnerGroup, in the near future, traditional EDMS will face certain difficulties due to the fact that infrastructure software providers (Lotus and / or Microsoft) will offer EDMS functionality based on their core technologies without the need for additional investments in the implementation of document management applications (which have their own cost). In addition, IDC predicts (report "Collaborative Applications Market Forecast and Analysis, 2000-2004") that in the future there will be a shift in focus from "clean" EDMS to technologies for collaborative work with electronic document controls, knowledge management and content management solutions. information (portals).

It should also be noted that now, in the overwhelming majority of EDMS, in order to achieve market attractiveness, multilingualism.

Changes in consumer preferences

The increased functionality of the EDMS is now in many cases simply not in demand by consumers. A fairly large number of EDMS is simply oversaturated with functionality that is often not needed in an ordinary enterprise. In connection with this circumstance (as noted above), inexpensive basic document management functionality(implemented, for example, in a number of software products from Microsoft, Lotus, Oracle, etc.) becomes more and more attractive to consumers.

At the same time, on the market the demand for complex vertical EDMS solutions remains for pharmaceuticals, construction, insurance and other industries. A number of industries (such as the production of medical equipment, aerospace construction, transport, jurisprudence, etc.) generally require particularly strict control over certain documents and their content.

Analysts predict intense demand for workflow technologies mainly for their use in application integration and business process automation.

The idea of purchasing EDMS from small companies by corporate users is becoming less and less popular. As a result, there are favorable opportunities for the rapid development of large and well-known vendors in the software development industry in this market.

Development of Internet-oriented EDMS

The key condition for the success of EDMS in the world market is their Web-orientation. Web content management systems are beginning to play a central role and will continue to grow in functionality over time. Gartner Group analysts predict that the global Web content management software market will grow from $ 4 billion in 2001 to $ 6 billion in 2003. By the end of 2002, 80% of the Global 2000 companies will have Web management systems. -content.

The growing popularity of mobile Internet access will also contribute to the development of Web-oriented EDMS - for delivering various content through these systems to mobile devices. Therefore, these systems are now implementing the functions of mobile access. In addition, continuing industry specialization and integration will accelerate the evolution of Web content management systems. There is also a gradual shift from content management technologies to knowledge management technologies.

Rapid change in the market orientation of EDMS developers

A dynamic change in the market orientation of EDMS developers has become the order of the day. For example, Documentum started out as a document management company, then morphed into a knowledge management firm and then content management systems (the next step is to implement the ECM concept). And all these metamorphoses took place in just 18 months. It should be noted that the term "document management" itself can now be found on the websites of only a few EDMS vendors (most EDMS developers no longer use this terminology). But, whatever the name of these systems - document, knowledge or content management (with the prefix "e" in front of them), their main task remains to solve the problems of managing critical corporate information.

Traditional EDMS providers are now reconsidering their views on their place in the market. Some companies began to release solutions for vertical markets, others continue to develop the core of their systems and offer other software developers to embed it in their products, while others are engaged in the development of middleware that integrates various applications (accounting systems, various MRP / ERP systems, CAD- systems, etc.). A number of well-known EDMS vendors may return back to vertical niche markets. Other vendors will expand the functionality of their systems by extending it to the Internet.

Leading EDMS developers offer universal solutions for large enterprises to manage all their corporate information

EDMS vendors are moving out of their vertical niches and are trying to offer a common solution for managing corporate content. They are moving from delivering office solutions (still profitable enough for them) to implementing a complete enterprise solution (from handling incoming email to intranet / extranet content and the Internet). Industry analysts note that the impressive imagination project of creating a "fully collaborative" enterprise (all employees of which use the capabilities of the EDMS) still remains only at the level of a beautiful idea. Western Europe is now closest to its implementation.

Increasing the intensity of software developers' activities to create and promote joint solutions

An example of this is the release back in 2000 of a joint solution for managing content in B2B solutions based on Documentum 4i eBusiness Edition software and ATG Dynamo software (developed by Art Technology Group).

Joint development of industry standards

This is a steady trend in the development of the industry. It is worth noting, in particular, the work on the creation of an open data synchronization protocol SyncML, in which such companies as IBM, Lotus Development, Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Psion and Starfish Software take part.

Development of the ECM concept

This is a new trend in the development of the entire industry (it became especially noticeable in 2002). At the same time, ECM becomes an enterprise-level rather than a department-level technology. Portals will become the most preferred way to reach users (deliver information to them) when implementing ECM technologies.

Russian EDMS market

general review

The need of Russian enterprises and organizations to optimize their workflow remains high and continues to grow. In recent years, dozens of companies have appeared in Russia that develop and supply EDMS, both foreign and of their own design. The first large-scale EDMS implementations (albeit, for the most part, pilot ones) already exist in Russia. We can assume that the foundations of the Russian market for document management software have been formed. According to IDC, the volume of the Russian EDMS market (domestically developed EDMS together with foreign EDMS) in 1999 amounted to about $ 2 million. According to analysts, since 1999 the annual growth rate of the Russian EDMS market is at least 30%. There is also an opinion that since 1998 there has been an almost twofold annual increase in the volume of the Russian EDMS market. The prospects of the Russian EDMS market are improved by the adoption of the law on electronic digital signature, which creates a legal basis for the distribution of EDMS in intercorporate interaction. There is an opinion of a number of industry analysts that the potential volume of the Russian EDMS market is hundreds of millions of dollars (with the successful development of the Russian economy).

It should be noted that the currently observed small size of the Russian EDMS market is associated not least with the relative insignificance of the share of electronic document circulation in the total document circulation of Russian enterprises and organizations (which can afford to purchase EDMS costing from several tens to several hundred thousand dollars). In the overwhelming majority of cases, paperwork dominates at Russian enterprises. This circumstance is explained not only by traditions and a certain conservatism, but also by the difficult financial and technical condition of most Russian enterprises and organizations. It should be said that there are a number of well-known foreign systems on the Russian market (Documentum, DOCS Open / Fusion, Staffware, Panagon, DocuLive, Lotus Notes, etc.). Among domestic software, the most famous in Russia are the following software systems and their suppliers: BOSS-Referent (IT Co.); Codex: Document flow (Kodeks Consortium); Grand Dock (Granite), Euphrates (Cognitive Technologies); Case (EOS); LanDocs (Lanit); Cron (Ankei); OfficeMedia (InterTrust); Effect Office (Garant International); N.System (Center for Computer Technologies), LS Flow (Lotsiya-Soft), Optima (Optima Workflow), ESCADO (InterprokomLan), 1C: Document flow and 1C: Archive (1C), Circular and VisualDOC (CenterInvest Soft), Document-2000 (TelcomService), Irida (IBS), RS-Document (R-Style Software Lab) and others.

It should be noted that some domestic EDMS are created in the Lotus Domino / Notes environment (for various objective and subjective reasons, which has become quite widespread in Russia): BOSS-Referent (IT Co.), the Cinderella product family and DIS-Assistant (Moscow Development Institute) , CompanyMedia and OfficemMedia (InterTrust), N. System (Center for Computer Technologies), Office work (KSK), etc.

According to the IDC classification, most domestic EDMS belongs to the class of systems focused on business processes (often with workflow controls). In various sources it is noted that in most domestic EDMS the following functions are implemented:

Document processing / storage;
Workflow management (transfer of documents between performers);
Control over the execution of documents;
Document search by attributes and full-text search;
Working with related documents;
Regulation of access rights;
Writing off documents;
Integration with external email systems, etc.

The main advantage of domestic EDMS is a certain account of the Russian specifics and traditions of working with documents (originally incorporated into their business logic).

The main development trends of the Russian EDMS market

Entering the domestic EDMS market of multidisciplinary IT companies

Among hundreds of Russian IT companies that firmly occupy their place in the domestic IT market, a number of large diversified companies take the EDMS market seriously and diversify their activities, offering their own solutions in the field of document flow automation. Here we can mention such companies as IBS, Aquarius (its subsidiary Aquarius Consulting), R-Style, Lanit and others (not to mention IT).

Joint work on EDMS standardization

A number of Russian companies (NTC IRM, InterTrust, EOS) are working together in the field of standardization of EDMS interaction protocols. In April 2002, they created a dedicated, permanent "Protocol Standardization Working Group" for this purpose.

Growing interest in the Russian market of foreign EDS developers and suppliers

This interest is manifested in the entry of foreign EDMS vendors into the Russian market through partner companies. An example is the Canadian firm Hummingbird, acting through its partner, the Russian company HBS, to promote the DOCS Open / Fusion system, Fulcrum knowledge management system, Genio data integration tool and Hummingbird EIP portal. The FileNet company also decided to enter the Russian market (in particular, with the help of the Galaktika company, which became a partner of FileNet in promoting the Panagon EDMS on the Russian market).

Development of integrated solutions

The presence of several dozen EDMS on the Russian market forces developers to create tools for their integration. An example of this is the release by IT Co. in March 2002 of an XML gateway in its BOSS-Referent EDMS, which will allow combining EDMS built on different platforms and using different data formats into a single information space.

Cooperation and joint promotion of integrated solutions

It is interesting that some Russian companies offer their EDMS in the form of OEM versions preinstalled on the computers of their partner's assembly. An example of this is the cooperation of the Russian companies IT Co. and Inel-Data, which offer their customers an integrated solution, which is an OEM version of the BOSS-Referent EDMS pre-installed on the Excimer PC.

Examples of using EDMS in the world

EDMS in healthcare

Based in Danville, Geisinger Health System provides healthcare to 2 million people in 31 Pennsylvania counties, from rural first aid to complex diagnostic and treatment procedures at Geisinger Medical Center.

Geisinger Health System has implemented an EDMS TOWER IDM(instead of Document Imaging System) developed by the company TOWER Technology, which is integrated with the Ambulatory System, which is deployed at the Geisinger Health System network of clinics in Western, Central and Northeastern Pennsylvania. Geisinger's associated services have received stable and reliable access to financial, medical, insurance and reporting documents. Prior to the implementation of the TOWER software, up to 2 million document images and 12,000 COLD reports were processed and stored annually in the system operated by Geisinger. After the implementation of the TOWER software, it is planned to increase the workload of the system to 4 million images (already in the first year). Provided documentary support for the work of more than 7,000 Geisinger employees, almost 24,000 annual hospitalizations and 1.4 million patient visits to doctors.

In addition, Geisinger Health System has implemented software TOWER Document Portal, through which physicians gained Web-based access to data on many thousands of patients. As the system is expanded to the Web, traditional paper documents are combined with Web information. And this enables Geisinger to unify the procedures for storing and using information.

EDMS in pharmaceuticals

Novartis is a large pharmaceutical company formed in 1996 as a result of the merger of the world famous Swiss firms Sandoz and Ciba. One of the main areas of activity of Novartis is scientific research on the creation of new drugs (annually, Novartis invests in this area more than 2.9 billion Swiss francs).

After the merger, Novartis faced a problem - the need to combine information resources and knowledge of two previously independent companies and manage them effectively. It should be noted that for any pharmaceutical company, the issue of document management for created drugs requires special attention. For Novartis, the price of the issue was even higher, since the management of Novartis reasonably feared that after the merger, large information resources might be lost (or excessively duplicated) (especially in the absence of interaction between geographically remote project teams that had not previously collaborated with each other). ).

Prior to the merger, Sandoz staff stored research documents on paper, on PCs, corporate network servers, and VMS applications. Many Sandoz employees were unable to effectively operate the VMS due to the complexity of its user interface. Therefore, in order to gain access to the information of another scientist or research group, these employees were forced to contact its authors by phone, send requests by e-mail or request this data by fax. Often, project documentation was duplicated. In addition, when employees left the company for any reason, the information (knowledge) they created became difficult to understand (or even lost).

The situation is similar at Ciba. Its employees also used both paper and electronic documents stored on local PCs. When it became necessary to describe a new medicine, it was necessary to spend whole days in search of relevant information (or create it anew). Thus, the overall time for a new drug to enter the market was significantly increased, which reduced its competitiveness.

Therefore, Novartis wanted to find the means to combine and manage the information resources of two previously independent companies. In addition to a repository of knowledge, Novartis needed an EDMS, with the help of which the top management of the company could view information about the research being carried out and make decisions about the amount of their funding. In addition, the EDMS should be easy to use for company employees.

Novartis chose EDMS as a means of solving its problems Documentum(which she began to use back in 1994 as a prototype of the EDMS). By organizing a common corporate repository - Docbase- (for all research and project documents) Documentum EDMS provided access to corporate research information for Novartis units around the world. After the merger of the two companies, all documents related to Ciba and Sandoz were transferred to the Docbase repository. Currently, Docbase contains many tens of thousands of documents. By the end of 1998, the number of Documentum users at Novartis had reached 1,000.

When a new medicine is ready to be described, then all the information necessary for this from the developers has already been cataloged and stored in Docbase (it only needs to be transferred to the general subscription system). All research reports are also submitted in a standard way through Docbase (which greatly facilitates access to them). When revision of research documents is required, all previous versions of documents can be reviewed to avoid duplication of work.

Novartis has benefited significantly from the implementation of Documentum EDMS. First, the very possibility of duplication of reports is eliminated and the costs of document distribution and information management associated with the development of annual research programs are reduced. Secondly, the savings were also obtained due to the exclusion of the legacy VMS-system from operation, which required considerable expenses for its maintenance (considering also that its capabilities were constantly used by a relatively small number of company employees). Yet the greatest benefit to Novartis comes from the overall productivity gains for the company's R&D staff and R&D program managers, who have instant access to the information they need.

Novartis management has estimated the full return on investment in Documentum EDMS at three years.

EDMS in the field of issuing loans

GMAC Commercial Mortgage (GMACCM) provides secured commercial loans and is one of the largest in its field of operations in the United States (60 offices, serviced over 47,000 loans). The moment came when GMACCM decided to implement the EDMS, since the processing of a large volume of documents, both in paper and electronic form, significantly complicated their control.

To solve its problems of document management, GMACCM installed an EDMS OnBase company development Hyland software which manages all corporate information (MS Word documents and their images, Excel spreadsheets, e-mail messages, PDF files and more than 1,800 types of AS / 400 reports). In addition to providing the company with global Web access to the data warehouse network in OnBase, GMACCM has created their own data access layer (with a custom interface) for some of its special departments. About 2000 employees of the company have access to the system all over the world (they are authenticated in the Windows NT environment).

Currently, the company processes about 100,000 documents daily (more than 20 work streams). At the same time, about 3600 types of documents (90% of received documents) are scanned and processed on the day they are received and registered. Software is used to scan them, clean document images, read barcodes, character recognition and indexing. Ascent Capture company development Kofax... Electronic signature technology is used at each stage of document approval ApproveIt from the company Silanis... Already in August 2001, more than 2.3 million electronic documents (more than 16 million pages) were managed using the OnBase EDMS.

EDMS in the field of utilities

Alliant Energy, headquartered in Madison, Virginia, provides utilities and services to over 1 million customers in the Midwest. To effectively manage the information required to carry out core business operations, Alliant Energy acquired EDMS Documentum, on the basis of which a common corporate repository was created.

With Documentum EDMS, Alliant Energy has centralized the management of information and critical business documents. Prior to Documentum, Alliant Energy was unable to index online search. In many cases, its employees were forced to search for paper copies of documents. To propagate changes to documents, Alliant Energy has implemented a custom workflow (developed in Visual Basic) through which you can inspect, label, and route inbound and outbound documents. The scanned documents are output to plotters for approval. Approved documents are stored in the Documentum database and then distributed electronically.

Alliant Energy's future plans for Documentum include managing contracts, correspondence, various job descriptions and any other documents requiring regular revisions.

EDMS in the field of patenting

Seattle-based Seed Intellectual Property Law Group is patenting. One of the reasons it introduced new technologies such as collaboration and document imaging was the need to reduce the cost of photocopying and sending faxes. It should be said that previously, to reduce its dependence on paper documents, Seed Law Group has already invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in a content management system. iManage WorkSite for Legal company development iManage... Nevertheless, for security reasons (and for a number of other reasons), large corporate clients of Seed Law Group still prefer to send some documents (for example, patents and trademarks) in paper form. To improve the efficiency of the processing of these documents, Seed decided to make their digital scanned images ubiquitous web-based (using iManage software). For this, digital copiers were used. Canon ImageRunner together with scanning technology eCopy including a small format touch panel that connects directly to the ImageRunner copier. Using this panel, it is possible to preview and replace poorly scanned digital images, as well as manage (via the menu) copying, working with e-mail and / or exporting document images to the back-end repository (Lotus Domino.Doc, PC Docs or iManage ). After scanning, digital images of documents become Web-accessible for all users of the iManage EDMS (lawyers of the company, its clients, etc.). Documents in iManage are indexed and searched by client name and case number.

Content management using iManage has ensured the security of electronic interaction for corporate users (for viewing documents - often after receiving e-mail with a link to the document - users enter the EDMS using a password), reduced the number of problems associated with document version control and sending / receiving e-mail. When received, documents are scanned on ImageRunner devices equipped with eCopy technology. After scanning, paper originals of documents are sent to special storage facilities, and digital images of documents are immediately available (via a Web browser) to all corporate users with appropriate access rights.

With two scanned digital copiers, Seed Law Group now processes between 500 and 800 documents daily, some of which are as large as 300 pages. In the future, it is also planned to integrate the iManage EDMS with corporate records management software. It should also be noted that the introduction of eCopy technology has provided Seed with a convenient and inexpensive alternative to electronic billing. Seed already had a solution for generating printed invoices according to customer specifications. Duplicating this solution with an electronic billing system with the same degree of customization would be quite expensive and time-consuming. Instead, Seed scans all printed invoices and saves them as PDF files, transmitting (upon request) electronic invoices via email to their customers.

EDMS in the field of design

BOC Gases, based in Murray Hill, NY, designs and builds natural gas processing plants in 60 countries. In 1997, the management of BOC Gases decided to standardize their work. The company managed to reduce the cost of construction due to the use of the so-called "fabrication packages"("packages of documents required for construction"). Each such "package" contains hundreds of pieces of content, including 2-D and 3-D CAD files, photographs, sets of standard operating procedures, financial and marketing documents, presentations, etc. To manage the complex process of assembling such a "package" for For each new plant, its routing and approval, BOC has implemented Documentum EDMS. While most of the information needed to design and build factories existed in electronic form before Documentum was introduced, it was scattered across multiple locations and stored on multiple platforms. The adoption of Documentum throughout the company has standardized operations, improved workflow and document revision management, and improved information reuse in new plant design.

A Web-based version of Documentum was introduced from the outset. In the spring of 2000, it was upgraded to the Documentum 4i EDMS running under MS Windows NT. In 2000, over 90,000 documents (about 30 GB) were stored in the repository (Oracle DB).

As a result of the implementation of the Documentum EDMS, BOC reduced its labor costs for the development of a medium-sized project by about 50% (from 4140 hours to 2033 hours). The standardization of design and construction work has reduced BOC's plant construction costs by an average of 20%.

Application examples of OMS systems

Pilot Travel Centers operates 235 travel centers and 70 warehouses of various goods. Pilot Travel Centers needed to respond more quickly to pricing and warehouse needs. At the same time, Pilot Travel Centers had to generate from 250 to 350 reports monthly from the ERP system installed on it. Lawson which has been integrated with specialized vertical applications. Pilot Travel Centers needed a solution that would make it easier to generate reports using the Internet to deliver information.

Software was implemented to generate reports ViewDirect company development Mobius Management Systems... Pilot Travel Centers now generates two large reports using ViewDirect software, automatically separates specific sections of those reports (based on user pre-defined access conditions), and sends e-mail messages to users with hyperlinks to the report sections they need. By eliminating the high volume of reporting, sorting, printing and delivering hardcopy reports (distribution), Pilot Travel Centers saves significant financial and time resources (estimated to save up to $ 200,000 over 3 years). Standard Web browsers are used to access the reports.

Professional Service Industries of Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois provides geoengineering and construction project verification. Since the company has more than 140 offices in the USA and Canada, the leadership of Professional Service Industries (PSI) considered it too wasteful and time-consuming for the company to almost manually generate various reports every week (based on information from its ERP system), as well as print and distribute them in all their offices. To solve this problem, PSI implemented software Monarch / ES Report Portal company development Datawatch... Hundreds of employees and dozens of regional managers of the company got access to reports from various locations (offices, construction trailers, home PCs, hotels, etc.) through standard Web-navigators. Monarch / ES Report Portal software also provided access to archived user files, analytics, and accounting information stored in a legacy Texas Instruments application. In addition, Monarch / ES Report Portal software provides access to information about working hours, allowing company managers to analyze the time spent on a specific project by engineers and subcontractors with different work experience (you can also trace the dynamics of the work itself). Users have access to data in Excel or Seagate Crystal Reports (without increasing the load on the ERP system).

Professional Service Industries can now generate provisional invoices that can be reviewed and corrected before being sent by mail to their customers. Conveniently, data is transferred to the Monarch / ES Report Portal system from the ERP system every night, providing users with up-to-date information. The Return on Investment (ROI) of Professional Service Industries is estimated at $ 800,000 (due to lower project management costs, elimination of the cost of shipping paper reports, etc.).

Newport News Shipbuilding is the largest privately owned shipbuilding company in the United States for the US Department of Defense. When the SAP R / 3 ERP system was introduced in 1998 in the company, it was discovered that it was necessary to improve the technology for generating and distributing corporate reports. In fact, it was necessary to create a corporate environment for generating and distributing reports. In addition, a number of other problems arose. First, some necessary information was still in legacy systems. Employees of the company, who have worked in it for a long time, are accustomed to accessing this information, but new employees preferred to work only with the SAP R / 3 system. In addition, it was found that the reporting tools in SAP R / 3 did not meet all the needs of the company.

That is why, in 1999, Newport News Shipbuilding began implementing the output management and reporting software from the company. Cypress(Rochester Hills, Michigan), through which Newport News sought to eliminate manual printing and distribution of reports. If in November 1999, 2000 employees from different divisions of the company worked with the Cypress system, then by October 2001 their number had reached 3700.

Through a single interface, company employees have access to all generated corporate reports, regardless of their source. The system automatically generates thousands of reports (one time only) and delivers them to users on schedule using Cypress software. In the course of its work, Cypress software captures a stream of printed reports and allows you to determine the recipient of each specific report and the method of its delivery to the user (remote printer or fax, job queue, e-mail, etc.). Newport News saves up to $ 500,000 annually by implementing Cypress software (by eliminating printing and distribution costs). Newport News Shipbuilding is currently migrating to MS Windows NT and Cypress Web, a web document delivery module that provides a personalized portal page for users (accessed through the MS Internet Explorer web navigator). The entire implementation project is expected to be completed by July 2002.

Hill "s Pet Nutrition (Topeka, Kansas), a major American company with more than 250 distribution centers, has built its business to deliver a variety of pet supplies to veterinary points across the country. Naturally, an important role in the success of Hill's business model." s Pet Nutrition is about on-time delivery and no vehicle downtime. To notify distribution centers about loading orders, the company uses document output management software developed by the company. HP / Dazel, which has a standard interface with ERP systems (if the enterprise does not use an ERP system, then documents are sent by e-mail or fax). According to HP / Dazel, about 30% of business failures in enterprises and organizations occur precisely because of problems with the delivery of documents. These failures almost always result in wasted time and money.

This software prevents the failure of a printer (printing a loading order) at any of Hill's Pet Nutrition's 250 distribution centers to go unnoticed by a central office about to send a truck to that center the next day for an order. would be unnoticed, then the order would not have been prepared on time, and the flight would have been empty (with corresponding losses for the company). The software from HP / Dazel implements the function of sending a confirmation to the central office about the actual printout of the order on the network printer of the distribution center. If there is a problem with the center, the order is sent to the fax of the center.

In turn, the e.ComPresent Web Portal software developed by the company Optio Software allows customers and business partners to manage the document delivery process (including delivering documents in electronic form). The client determines not only the recipient's email address, but also the delivery format, as well as the authentication rules. Information from the ERP system follows through the Web Portal software. Once the destination is identified, the information is routed as instructed by the sender. Optio Software also offers an OMS Optio, which greatly facilitates the work with documents. For example, it can generate inventory records that will be understandable even to users unfamiliar with item codes or account numbers (Optio software supplements these lists with item descriptions extracted from other applications and produces a fully understandable document). Situations often arise when a company - a wholesale supplier - needs to modify some standard output documents in a certain way (for example, invoices, accompanying documents, etc.) at the request of customers-buyers who want to draw up these documents in the way that suits them (and how they used to). This is a common situation faced by consumer goods companies supplying their products to a large number of retail customers. For example, a retailer may insist that the accompanying (shipping) sticker be styled the way it wants. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the supplier's ERP system does not provide such an opportunity. In this case, the functions of combining and forming all the necessary information on the delivery sticker (based on data extracted from the ERP system and other applications) are taken over by the OMS system (in particular, Optio).

Systems like the e.ComPresent Web Portal provide new capabilities for building Web-based custom applications based on client self-service. Web delivery has already proven its worth in reducing printing and postage costs. Instead of emailing hundreds of offices with a multi-page report, users can view the report via the Internet / intranet. Some output control systems also allow you to define specific pages or sections required by the user. In addition, since users usually do not need to view the entire report, using the software Cypress Web you can send information page by page in a compressed form. A similar technique can be used for distributed e-mail reporting. Instead of the report itself, the addressee receives a notification that it is ready for viewing. By clicking on the HTML link, he initiates a session with the software Cypress Docuvault and looks at the report.

The information that the user wants to include in the report can be obtained not only from the ERP system. Before displaying the report, users can request from the OMS system (including via the Internet) any indexed information stored in the common repository. If users need to regularly prepare reports, they can form requests in such a way that the requested information will be automatically collected, stored and delivered to the user's PC (this function of OMS systems is often called "batch processing"). The company NEN Life Science Products, which supplies chemicals to drug manufacturers, using this function (in particular, in the Optio OMS system) monitors the repository and looks for the so-called trigger-points that lead to the generation of certain queries (for example, on the radiation safety of the supplied chemical). Such a request is generated if the total radioactivity of the supplied chemical exceeds a certain threshold value. Likewise, the Optio software can be used by insurance companies collecting statistics on the diseases of their potential clients.

Integration of EDMS with other applications

Speaking about the practical application of EDMS, one cannot but consider in more detail the problem of their integration with other corporate applications. Solving this problem is very important for a modern enterprise, especially if it uses several corporate applications at the same time. Currently, EDMS is most often integrated with the following types of applications: ERP systems, office applications and front-end applications (for example, CRM).

As for ERP systems, one of their weak points is some redundancy of documents generated in the main modules of the ERP system (in addition to the insufficiently developed capabilities for flexible reporting, noted above). Deployment of a centralized repository (based on the EDMS), which provides each module of the ERP system with the documents it needs, helps to reduce the operating costs of the enterprise and accelerates the return on investment. That is, the integration of the EDMS and the ERP system provides a higher value of the IRR indicator than can be obtained with the autonomous use of these systems. To ensure such integration, a number of EDMS developers (for example, FileNet, IBM, Hyland, Identitech, etc.) enter into partnerships with the developers of leading ERP systems (SAP R / 3, PeopleSoft and Oracle).

When integrating the EDMS with office applications, users are offered the opportunity to access library services directly from common office applications (for example, MS Word, MS Excel and MS PowerPoint). In addition, in almost all common EDMS there is an opportunity to work through the Web-navigator MS Internet Explorer.

Integration with front-office applications is also fairly common. As an example, Documentum and IBM can be mentioned here, which offer integration with Siebel's CRM system.

Industry analysts note that some of the architectural approaches implemented in a number of modern EDMS simplify integration. For example, EDMS based on Java or COM object models provide the best solution for integrating with enterprise applications on various platforms. In addition, J2EE-compliant ERMS can be deployed on J2EE application servers (such as BEA WebLogic or IBM WebSphere), making it easy to integrate ERMS with e-business applications deployed in an application server environment. An object-oriented approach facilitates the use of EAI servers (such as those from Tibco, Vitria, and webMethods) that minimize point-to-point integration when communicating with many separate applications. Support for industry standards (such as XML) can also facilitate content sharing and data exchange between enterprise applications, both internally and externally.

It should be noted that most of the EDMS in their development are moving towards open standards. For example, FileNet is committed to providing a Java-based API in its Panagon EDMS. IManage is also Java-focused to enable it to run its EDMS on multiple platforms. XML support is natively built into the Open Text application. OTG has implemented a COM-oriented API in its software and has recently begun work on providing XML capabilities in its software. Identitech also intends to implement a Java-based API and XML capabilities in its software in the future. The OIT development software was originally written in C, but it has the ability to integrate via XML. Most other EDMS have API-interfaces of the C language, which can also be used for integration with corporate applications, but object-oriented approaches are still less resource-intensive.

Integration of EDMS with ERP systems

According to analysts, at present, more than 80% of information assets of enterprises and organizations are stored in the form of unstructured documents that are inaccessible to modern ERP systems (i.e., most ERP systems cover only about 20% of all aspects of an enterprise's activities with their functionality). The EDMS is now best at handling unstructured information.

Integration of ERP systems with EDMS provides support for business processes of the entire enterprise - through the operational management of documents, images, workflows, corporate reports, etc. With the help of EDMS, all the necessary information and data - invoices, customer requests (documents , faxes and e-mail messages), drawings, etc. In this case, the EDMS acts as a kind of hub, providing users with access to the necessary information. A great advantage of integrating EDMS with ERP systems is the provision of an opportunity for users to work in the environment of their familiar applications.

Currently, a number of foreign EDMS are already integrated through the API with the most common foreign ERP systems (including SAP, PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, Baan, etc.). At the same time, some developers of ERP systems offer their own interface for integration (for example, SAP AG - a standard interface SAP ArchiveLink, providing access to the SAP R / 3 repositories) and even certify the EDMS for integrability with their systems.

There are various approaches to the implementation and joint use of EDMS and ERP systems. While some enterprises integrate electronic document management technologies after the implementation of ERP-systems, many others deploy ERP-systems, already using various EDMS. However, when an enterprise decides to implement an ERP system, these legacy document management applications remain (usually at the department level). For example, this is exactly what the company did. Sherwin-Williams from the city of Cleveland, engaged in the production of paints. Software was left in Sherwin-Williams Hyland onbase, the capabilities of which were used to manage the generation of corporate reports in the newly installed ERP system SAP R / 3(replacing the legacy data processing system). Thus, Sherwin-Williams retained the advantage of using one EDMS to access all documents (without the need for additional training of its employees to work with SAP R / 3).

Almost the same situation is observed in the company Kyocera Industrial Ceramics from Vancouver. Before the implementation of SAP R / 3, this company also actively used OnBase software (in particular, the accounting department used OnBase to scan incoming invoices and save them on the corporate server). After the implementation of SAP R / 3 (the goal of which was to automate the production and back-office processes of the company), the accounting department expanded its capabilities by adding functions for managing corporate reports. At the same time, a separate server was allocated for the OnBase software. Outgoing checks for payments are now executed in the SAP R / 3 accounting application, written to a file that is uploaded to OnBase. When processed in OnBase, the facsimile image of the original receipt can be re-generated for printing or sending by e-mail.

Company Sharp Electronics replaced legacy systems in all of its offices with SAP R / 3 ERP system. During this project, Sharp Electronics was reengineering lease / leasing operations to improve the efficiency of billing procedures. Sharp billing processes have been redesigned so that all signed documents are linked to ERP records for automated customer invoicing and dealer payment tracking. To do this, Sharp employees created a special system (with the help of Accenture, IBM and Kofax Image Products). An automated procedure has been developed that processes incoming financial documents based on signed contracts. When placing an order, instructions and a barcode document generated in SAP R / 3... Once the document is signed by the customer, it is sent back to Sharp by fax or email. These documents (faxed and scanned) are managed by Kofax Ascent Capture software, which reads document barcodes and verifies them against information stored in a database. Document images and indexed data are then sent using Ascent software through a content management system IBM Common Store in the data warehouse at SAP R / 3, where they are batch processed. In many cases, documents are accessed in SAP R / 3 in less than 3 seconds. Sharp has invested heavily in its ERP system, and the IBM Common Store software is a relatively inexpensive add-on to save the investment.

Christian non-profit organization Focus on the family(headquartered in Colorado Springs) produces radio programs, publishes books, magazines, videos and films of relevant content (with a total of about 2.5 million subscribers), and also actively interacts with various government organizations. To improve the efficiency of its activities, Focus on the Family has implemented content management and group work technologies simultaneously with the ERP system. J.D. Edwards oneworld... The OneWorld ERP system is used to subscribe and fulfill orders, track subscribers and donations received, log events, and generate back-office accounting reports and manage various business functions. In turn, the share of content management software Acorde(company development Optika) has to control incoming paper correspondence, e-mail and telephone traffic.

For Focus on the Family, the primary problem is not financial savings (although it is also important), but the most efficient use of its human resources (especially employees on "hot" telephone lines), who have to cope with a large volume of incoming calls and inquiries. It should be noted, however, that people who call or write to Focus on the Family do not always order a subscription or a book. Very often they are simply looking for help, advice or ordinary human sympathy for their problems.

In this example, the combination of content management and call routing capabilities has led to significant improvements in the efficiency of Focus on the Family staff. When processing an incoming call, Acorde software reads the phone number and searches for all information related to it (perhaps this is not the first call from this phone number) in a database also managed by Acorde. If such information is available, it is instantly displayed on the PC monitor of the Focus on the Family employee handling this call. Thus, Acorde software frees Focus on the Family employees from the need to search for documents for a long time when solving the issue of a person who called a Christian organization. In addition, when using Acorde software, it takes about 30 seconds on average to process one phone call. Considering that Focus on the Family has up to 5,000 calls every day, this translates into significant time savings for its employees.

Below we will briefly consider general information about the integrability of some foreign EDMS with common ERP systems.

Datamax Technologies

SED VisiFlow(company development Datamax Technologies) is a distributed solution that scales from small workgroups to large enterprises. It is integrated with most foreign ERP systems and is certified for the SAP ArchiveLink interface. It integrates the following functions: work flow management, document management, COLD-ERM, CTI and report form recognition.

When integrated with an ERP system using VisiFlow, all types of documents are managed both outside and inside the ERP system. A relational database (repository) is being deployed, the processing of information in which goes in parallel with the ERP system. Documents can be searched and viewed from an ERP client using special programs (from Datamax). It is also possible to search and view information outside the ERP system through Windows and Web interfaces. Full-text indexing and search are supported.

FileNet

Company FileNet also integrated its EDMS Panagon with leading ERP systems and has developed special solutions for integration. These solutions include software Panagon Document Warehouse for SAP R / 3 and web-based Panagon for J.D. Edwards oneworld.

Panagon Document Warehouse software is a stand-alone software product that runs in conjunction with an ERP system. Panagon Document Warehouse software for SAP R / 3 provides access to any document from any desktop PC in the organization. It implements the functions of capturing, indexing, archiving and managing all R / 3 objects, including documents generated in SAP R / 3, as well as various types of images (including received by fax and scanned).

Panagon Document Warehouse users can connect to SAP R / 3 business flows to distribute documents within this ERP system. The system provides a unified interface for managing external and internal documents (generated within the ERP system) for both client-server and Web-based R / 3 users. A number of functions (check-in / check-out, editing and distribution of documents throughout the enterprise) are available for users of MS Office, Lotus Notes and other business applications.

The system does not store information in the ERP system database. Document repositories are accessible through a managed relational database (Oracle or MS SQL Server) maintained by the Panagon Document Warehouse. As a result, users can flexibly manage documents and objects outside the ERP system. The data in the ERP system can be linked by links to the corresponding documents. The Panagon Document Warehouse also supports full-text indexing and document search.

Easy Software

Integration with ERP systems is the main business of the company Easy Software... SED Easy Archive its development is integrated through the certified SAP ArchiveLink interface, as well as through the API (with ERP systems Baan, Sage, J.D. Edwards and Navision). In addition, Easy Archive is integrated with Lotus Notes and Staffware software.

When integrated with SAP R / 3, Easy Archive EDMS allows you to search for data and documents in any of the modules of this ERP system (including Materials Management, Sales and Distribution and Production and Planning). Easy Archive provides full data and document capture, archiving, document management and group work over the Internet. Easy Archive also makes it possible to access documents from mobile devices via the WAP protocol.

Documents and data (both outside and inside the ERP system) are available through the ERP system client program. The repository is a full-text database from the Verity company. External documents (scanned, received by fax, in electronic form) are automatically indexed and correlated with specific transactions within the ERP system (which eliminates the need for manual indexing). EDMS Easy Archive can be integrated with SAP Business Workflow(to assign documents to their recipients).

Hyland software

In EDMS OnBase production of the company Hyland software features of image management, COLD-ERM, workflow management and Web access have been implemented. It can be integrated with most ERP systems through their APIs. In addition, Hyland recently released software OnBase Archive Server for SAP R / 3, integrated with this ERP system through the SAP ArchiveLink interface and designed to provide archive and search functions in SAP R / 3 (by using the capabilities of the OnBase EDMS).

Using the Archive Server software, documents generated within SAP R / 3 (print lists, outbound documents, archived data, etc.) can be managed via the OnBase EDMS in the same way as scanned documents, desktop application files and e-mail files. OnBase provides the ability to work with all types of documents within the ERP system. All data and documents are available through a single interface to both external applications and applications in the ERP system.

Based on the OnBase EDMS, complete workflow management in the ERP system can be implemented. It can also be used as a search engine for front-end applications. OnBase is used to deploy a repository that supports MS SQL Server, Oracle and Sybase SQL Anywhere. The repository is integrated with the ERP system through the OnBase API, and users can access the distribution, storage and retrieval of information both inside and outside the ERP system. As a client interface, OnBase tools or a client program in the ERP system are used. Full-text indexing and document search are also supported.

IBM

Company IBM offers a solution Content Manager CommonStore, designed to manage electronic documents in SAP R / 3 and allows you to archive, distribute, and manage data. IBM Content Manager CommonStore for SAP is certified for the latest version of the SAP ArchiveLink interface. CommonStore streamlines the size of the SAP R / 3 database, speeds up access to business documents, improves business processes, and automates routine tasks and document distribution. Business documents coming from SAP R / 3 and other business applications (invoices, orders, delivery notes, letters, faxes, spreadsheets, email, etc.) can be linked, indexed and saved in shared electronic folders for ensuring that all users of the enterprise can access them. The ability to save data from other applications has also been implemented.

CommonStore archives data using Tivoli Storage Manager software. There is also the option of saving images and documents directly to IBM Content Manager. Once a document is archived using the CommonStore, it can be found at any time via SAP R / 3 or Content Manager CommonStore. The stored information is also available through Lotus Notes, Internet / intranet navigators, or any other business application integrated with IBM Content Manager.

The repository (IBM Content Manager, Content Manager OnDemand, or Tivoli Storage Manager) runs in parallel with the ERP system. On the client side, documents are searched through SAP R / 3 GUIs, IBM Content Manager, or Content Manager OnDemand. The system supports full-text search.

Ixos Software

The leading supplier of technologies for archiving data and documents for SAP R / 3 is the company Ixos Software... In particular, it should be noted that the SAP ArchiveLink interface (the interface between the ERP R / 3 system and third-party document and data repositories) was developed jointly by Ixos and SAP AG. ON Ixos Archive was created specifically to enhance the functionality of R / 3. Instead of integrating the two systems via an API (as has been done for a number of EDMS), SAP ArchiveLink supports fast integration between R / 3 and Ixos Archive. As a result, the Ixos Archive EDMS does not require a special viewer, additional coding of the workflow and document management system, or additional programming.

Ixos Archive software provides enterprise-level document management solutions for standard client programs, servers and intranets. It automates the processing of images and documents, their archiving, search, distribution, delivery and reuse. In turn, using software Ixos-Mobile / 3 implemented remote access to documents in SAP R / 3.

Ixos Archive has the ability to work with paper documents, electronic files, standard R / 3 reports, externally generated objects, and R / 3 objects. Documents are routed using the R / 3 Business Workflow software, viewed through its viewer, and managed directly from R / 3. Through Ixos Archive, you can also control the archiving of data and the conversion of R / 3 objects for Web presentations.

Ixos also offers various application engines that can be integrated into both groupware (Lotus, MS Exchange) and other integrated EDMS. Documents are available and managed through the SAP R / 3 client interface. It is also possible to synchronize specific subsets of data from the ERP system with an external document processing application.

The Ixos Archive EDMS itself does not support full-text document search, but this function can be implemented through integration with Verity software.

Integration of EDMS with CRM applications

Customer relationship management (CRM) systems also occupy a prominent place in the modern business applications market. In particular, CRM applications are offered by companies such as Siebel Systems, Clarify, Vantive, IBM, Janna Systems, etc. Even ERP systems developers (for example, Oracle, SAP, Peoplesoft and Baan) release (or plan to release) CRM applications as an add-on over their systems.

Naturally, the EDMS developers did not ignore this promising market segment. According to the prevailing opinion on the market, the EDMS should act as a special integration layer that allows multiple data warehouses and back-end applications to be connected with the same business processes with which the front-office CRM application interacts. EDMS must support a wide variety of data formats and communication standards that can be used in CRM applications. It does not matter to the user how he interacts with the seller: by registering on the site, by sending an e-mail message using the automated telephone system, by sending a fax or written request, or by talking to the seller's representative at the call center.

Different methods are used to integrate EDMS and CRM applications. Widespread using component models(COM, CORBA and JavaBeans). This is how Staffware, Identitech and Plexus, for example, operate. Another approach is creating templated applications that can be used in a variety of scenarios. This is the case with FileNet and Lucent (www.mosaix.com), which offer templated applications that can be reused across a variety of systems, from CRM to ERP.

EDMS used in conjunction with CRM applications must also provide reliable processing of large amounts of information and scalability in e-commerce applications. A number of companies (Keyfile, Plexus, Staffware, IBM and Oracle) have implemented this requirement through applying middleware components(Application Web servers, TP monitors, and message queue sequencing services). For example, Keyfile (www.keyfile.com) has integrated its EDMS with MS Commerce Server software. Plexus and Staffware have integrated their products with BEA Systems' Tuxedo and WebLogic transaction platforms. Oracle has integrated its workflow module with its own Advanced Queues messaging services. IBM has integrated its MQSeries Workflow solution into its MQSeries middleware.

In the near future, it is expected that EDMS will be more integrated with CRM applications. Many EDMS developers generally believe that the CRM market is the main opportunity for their development. Therefore, they either "open" their systems to third parties, or form partnerships with CRM vendors. For example, FileNet and Siebel Systems have signed an agreement under which FileNet Panagon VisualWorkFlo software manages the workflow between various Siebel Systems modules (production, call center, and customer service). Staffware also has agreements with many CRM vendors (including Siebel and Vantive) to integrate Staffware functionality into these CRM applications.

Features of the choice and implementation of EDMS

The main features of the choice of EDMS

According to industry analysts, EDMS becomes necessary when the total volume of documents processed annually in an enterprise or organization reaches 4000-5000. It should be said that the introduction of the EDMS is not a panacea for all the problems of the enterprise. The main purpose of its implementation is to increase the efficiency of the workflow of an enterprise or organization, and, therefore, to some extent, and the efficiency of their work as a whole. There is also an opinion that the main purpose of the EDMS implementation is to create an effective environment for the management and functioning of an enterprise or organization.

Before choosing an EDMS, it is imperative to formulate a list of tasks that should help solve its implementation. In addition, you need to develop a detailed organizational plan for its implementation. The delivery and implementation of the EDMS should be carried out by an external firm, which bears full legal responsibility to the enterprise for the success of the implementation project. The choice of a supplier and an EDMS implementer must be approached very scrupulously, since after signing a contract, paying any funds and starting to implement EDMS with this company, it will not be easy to terminate relations if the company does not fully satisfy the quality of its work. In fact, if you choose the wrong contractor, money, time and nerves will be wasted. Of course, when choosing an EDMS, it is necessary to carefully study all the offers on the market, and be sure to hold a tender. It is also very important to consider whether the EDMS provider has experience of successful implementations and how it corresponds to the specifics of the enterprise or organization. At the same time, when choosing an EDMS, it is necessary to take into account a number of the following important points:

A fairly wide variety of EDMS (both domestic and foreign development) presented on the Russian market;
The reliability of the EDMS supplier company and the terms of delivery, implementation and maintenance it offers (in the few years of the existence of the domestic IT market, there have already been cases when well-known and outwardly successful companies or left the market - an example is the departure in the spring of 2002 from the domestic business market. NikosSoft software - or the termination of the development and modernization of its software, which means, in fact, leaving the market - an example is the termination of the development of BOSS-Corporation software by IT Co. in the spring of 2002);
The possibility of finalizing the EDMS within a reasonable time frame (with acceptable price conditions) for the specifics of the enterprise.

In general, when choosing a supplier and an EDMS implementer, the following requirements should be taken into account:

The seriousness of the company (the presence of a well-known name on the market, its permanent office, the desire to maintain and strengthen its market image through the successful implementation of the next project for the implementation of EDMS, etc.);
The size of the company, the availability of sufficient resources to complete the implementation project within the agreed time frame;
The presence of a sufficiently large and stable team of developers and implementers of EDMS in the company;
The company's experience in the development and implementation of EDMS in similar enterprises and organizations (it is best if there is an opportunity to see the implemented EDMS in operation and communicate with their users);
Does the developer company have programming technology and standards, how they are formalized (legalized) and supported;
Does the implementing company have an implementation technology, and how it is documented.

At the same time, the EDMS chosen for implementation must meet the following general requirements:

The system architecture is based on business processes(workflows) in the course of which documents are created and moved;
The EDMS must have the specifics of the Russian document flow and office work are taken into account(vertical organization of workflow, compliance with Russian GOSTs, etc.);
The EDMS should have implemented collaboration capabilities(group scheduling, information sharing, message boards, forums, etc.);
Must be functions of operational control of execution of documents and works have been implemented(transfer of work between performers in accordance with a certain technology, monitoring the state of the process being performed, identifying deviations of the process from its normative course, predicting the impact of these deviations on the likely completion date of the entire process as a whole, etc.);
Simplicity and flexibility in installation, configuration and operation;
Using common platforms for organizing group work with documents;
Availability of funds for organizing confidential document flow with protection of information from unauthorized access;
Compatibility with certified information security tools;
Possibility of simultaneous use of electronic and paper documents;
The ability to integrate with common platforms;
Good scalability;
Availability of automated collection and analysis of statistical data on the movement of documents;
The EDMS is based on an open client-server architecture;
The ability to integrate with other applications (CAD systems, MRP / ERP systems, financial and management accounting systems, e-mail systems, etc.);
Availability of the EDMS database for other applications;
Modularity of the EDMS and the ability to build up its basic capabilities using built-in tools;
The possibility of distributed processing of documents, "transparent" for all users of the EDMS;
Availability of modules for scanning documents in the EDMS (or the ability to integrate with professional image management systems);
Ability to work via the Internet / intranet;
Ability to work with mobile (remote) users and user groups;
Support for the Russian language, including on-screen messages and tips, sorting data and searching for information by various words and expressions;
Affordability in terms of delivery, implementation and maintenance.

The main features of the implementation of the EDMS

In turn, when introducing an EDMS, one has to face the following main problems, on the solution of which the success of the entire implementation project depends:

in most cases, the need for a large-scale reorganization of the enterprise;
weak formalization of business processes and lack of corporate standards;
The EDMS must be implemented and used throughout the enterprise (wherever information is created, corrected and stored), otherwise the success from its implementation will be minimal (if at all);
the presence of a certain resistance to the implementation of the EDMS from the employees of the enterprise ( "resistance to change"), often caused by the unwillingness of any "transparency" of their activities;
lack of the required level of training among employees of the enterprise (including managers of the lower, middle and upper levels) to work with the EDMS.

The implementation of the EDMS should be carried out gradually, starting with the most important link in the workflow (well described and understandable), the automation of which will quickly get a positive effect. In the process of introducing the EDMS, it is necessary to ensure the ability to work with both new and old technology, so as not to interfere with the daily activities of the enterprise. A very important role is played by the real support of the enterprise management of the implementation project (the so-called "first person factor"). In the absence of such support (for example, even in the organization of obtaining all the necessary information during the survey of the enterprise), at best, the system will be implemented only in certain divisions of the enterprise (one can hardly expect any noticeable return on investment from this).

The problem of "resistance to change" can be solved by gradually and systematically introducing elements of electronic document management, starting with the simplest (for example, training employees to work with e-mail and intranet-network, organizing an electronic archive, etc.) and carrying out the necessary explanatory work. During the implementation of the EDMS, it is imperative to organize trainings for employees of the enterprise, as well as consultations for its management on organizing the transition to the electronic form of office work.

The large-scale implementation of the EDMS must necessarily be preceded by a pilot project, during which the main problems that may be encountered directly during implementation are clarified. The main task of the pilot project is to determine whether or not there is (or is expected) a tangible effect from the implementation of the ERMS. If the pilot project (the so-called "pilot") is successful, the final decision on the implementation of the EDMS is made, a real implementation project is developed along with a full implementation plan. Typically, the cost of a pilot project reaches 10% of the cost of a real project.

As a rule, the implementation of an EDMS at an enterprise includes the following main stages:

Thorough analysis of the business processes of the enterprise, the state of the equipment and technologies used;
Development of an information and functional model of an enterprise, reengineering of its business processes;
Analysis of the possible configuration of hardware and software required for the implementation of the EDMS.
Implementation of a pilot project;
Approval of the results of the pilot project and development of a plan for the implementation of the EDMS;
Selection and delivery of hardware and software necessary for the implementation of the EDMS;
Delivery and installation of EDMS;
Adaptation and customization of the EDMS;
Transfer and conversion of data from legacy systems;
Training system administrators and users to work with EDMS;
Preparation of a test case, test program and methodology, full testing of the EDMS;
Development of design, software, technical and user documentation.
Completion of the implementation of the EDMS, putting it into commercial operation;
SED support.

conclusions

The future belongs to the EDMS, in which the ESM concept is most fully implemented. At the same time, according to analysts, solutions that are closest to the ECM concept are now offered by Documentum and FileNet.
In the next few years, there will be favorable prospects for the further development of the content management systems market. According to a 1999 Forrester Research study, 38% of Fortune 500 companies said purchasing a content management system was critical to their business. According to the Meta Group, the market for content management systems will increase to $ 10 billion by 2004 (with an annual growth rate of 20%).
At the same time, according to Ovum analysts, technologies for managing paper documents will be in demand on the market for many years to come.
Applications will continue to develop that integrate the ability to generate reports and search for information in corporate databases with the publication of documents and graphics on the Internet.
Opportunities for progressive development will be retained only by the largest and most far-sighted EDMS developers in the market. Companies that will not be able to adapt to the new market conditions will face stagnation or will be forced out of the market altogether.

What does the Russian expert community think about the development of the domestic ECM / EDMS market? What are the main results of the past year and what can be expected in the coming year?

Document processing / storage;
Workflow management (transfer of documents between performers);
Control over the execution of documents;
Document search by attributes and full-text search;
Working with related documents;
Regulation of access rights;
Writing off documents;
Integration with external email systems, etc.

The main advantage of domestic EDMS is a certain account of the Russian specifics and traditions of working with documents (originally incorporated into their business logic).

Since the development of EDMS in Russia is generally going in the direction of expanding the functionality described by the ECM concept, it would be logical to look at this process from the perspective of the ECM classification. The majority of Russian customers began their acquaintance with the world of ECM technologies with office automation, the range of tasks of which can be attributed to the category of Records Management. But now the market is growing largely due to the areas of Document Management and Business Process Management (BPM). Customers set tasks in a complex manner, operate on larger-scale concepts than incoming / outgoing documents. An increase in the range of processed documents requires a sharp increase in the use of in-line scanning and document recognition methods, the use of technologies such as bar-coding.

All this, for example, can be clearly seen from the fact that organizations are showing a growing interest in the financial archive. Accounts, invoices, payment documents lie outside the boundaries of classical office work, but solving this problem will allow achieving positive results not only for the accounting department, but also for the supply department, financial, legal departments, and management.

There are other examples: automation of project workflow, contract management, reconciliation of invoices for payment, claims management, automation of personnel processes. Many now understand that an enterprise ECM system can be used to manage the results of intellectual activity and manage activities. There was also an increase in the interest of customers in the automation of non-standard or organization-specific business processes. For example, for banks, this is customer profile management. A long-term trend can be called the interest in the automation of non-document-oriented operations, for example, calls to the support service, business requests, etc. In 2012, there was an increase in interest in ECM solutions from large customers: if previously companies belonging to medium-sized businesses prevailed , then now representatives of large business are realizing the need for automation.

At the same time, not all experts share the opinion that the transition to electronic document management, even within organizations, has already been completed, at least in general terms. Dmitry Shushkin, Director of Corporate Projects at ABBYY Russia, says that the process of transition to paperless workflow is proceeding confidently, but still not at all as fast as one would like and one would expect: “Gradually, organizations will be where it is possible , automate your activities using electronic documents. However, in the next five years, the volume of paperwork in Russia is unlikely to decrease. Business continues to grow, the number of companies (including small and medium-sized ones) is increasing and, as a result, the volume of paper documents they produce is growing. ”

In 2013, ECM systems continue to go beyond office work. New tasks are posed, the functionality of existing systems will be expanded due to new modules. The setting of new tasks leads to an expansion of the range of users of ECM systems. Moreover, the number of users can include partners and clients of the company. Legally significant electronic document flow between companies is gaining momentum. Along with standard documents such as invoices, waybills, acts, companies will actively exchange arbitrary legally significant electronic documents - letters, contracts, etc.