When it comes to document management software the European Commissions perspective is important.
For years following the worldwide housing market bubble burst of 2008, the economies of many European countries were tepid at best. Even outside of Greece, whose debt crisis probably marked the lowest of the lows for the European economy, most of Europe’s countries have been slow to recover from this worldwide recession.
When it comes to document management software the European Commissions perspective is important, as they are moving toward a stronger digital system of information management.
Now, though, with signs of an economic upswing in sight—both in the United States and Europe—businesses and organizations alike will be looking for new ways to hasten growth and position themselves to profit from the recovery. Document management software the European Commissions perspective assumes file management is a demand.
By helping organizations take their offices paperless and introduce new capabilities for organization, efficiency, and automation, document management software can help spur this economic development forward.
Document Management Software the European Commissions Perspective in Europe
In the United States, different organizations mandate a range of different regulation and compliance requirements for organizations and their document management policies. From the SEC to HIPAA, these regulations can mandate everything from document retention policies to the use of audit trails.
In Europe, similarly minded legal and implementation considerations have been in the works for electronic file management for over a decade now. These policies, written and maintained by the European Commission, collectively take the name of “e-Domec.”
An acronym, e-Domec stands for the “electronic archiving and document management policy of the European Commission”. According to the European Commission website, e-Domec is meant “to ensure the consistency of document management in all Commission departments.” The description for e-Domec goes on to say that the “standard and uniform rules serve to make sure that the Commission is able, at any time, to provide information on the matters for which it is accountable.”
In other words, these policies only apply to European Union government dealings. However, e-Domec—as probably the first and oldest regulatory policy for document management and file consistency in Europe—could prove to be a template for other policies in the future.
As different countries or regulatory bodies for various industries seek to establish compliance requirements for electronic document management, e-Domec will likely be a popular springboard.
More on e-Domec
The trend of organizations going paperless and adopting DMS technology has picked up a considerable amount of steam in recent years. However, according to the European Commission website, the e-Domec policy has actually been in the works since January 2002.
This policy initiates requirements and regulations for all “electronic archiving and document management” within the various departments of the European Commission.
As you might expect, e-Domec includes rules pertaining to various parts of the record archiving process. This slideshow, for instance, discusses the policy’s rules regarding the “life cycles” of different files, the importance of strict document retention processes, and more.
As the slideshow notes, every different file type has to follow specific document retention rules in regards to duration of retention, file location, and storage conditions.
Current files are stored on premises and kept easily accessible at all times; semi-current files are also kept on premises “because of their administrative or legal value,” but are not used on a day-to-day basis; and files older than 5 years can either be destroyed or sent to the European Commission’s Historical Archives.
Document Management Software the European Commissions Perspective on eFileCabinet
The above e-Domec rules regarding document retention are more or less the same as any other document retention policies enforced by any other regulating body. Of course, dates, time limits, and file storage locations can vary, but the differences are typically minor and don’t fundamentally change the rules that need to be followed.
Similarly, all document management and record archiving regulatory policies differ slightly, but not fundamentally. As a result, the tools or systems that could help a European Commission department comply with the e-Domec rules could be the same as the systems used in the United States to comply with rules from the SEC or HIPAA.
This prospect is exciting for eFileCabinet because it means that we could soon expand our reach to serve organizations—government-related or not—throughout European countries.
eFileCabinet is well equipped to meet many of the rules laid forth in e-Domec. For example, our software would be invaluable in helping a business or European Commission department adopt the rules for document retention as set out above.
The eFileCabinet document management software makes it easy to set dates for certain files or folders to be moved to a new location, archived, or deleted from the database entirely.
This automation of the document retention life cycle saves administrative workers hours of having to go through files and delete or move them manually—thereby improving overall organizational efficiency. And since European businesses will be seeking to become more efficient in order to take better advantage of the recovering economy, document management software is a tool that could only hasten the speed of that recovery.
Although the American market for document management software is still preeminent, Europe is a geographic fast-follower in the space as it it also is beginning to function as a storehouse for much of the world’s unstructured content.
To learn more about how eFileCabinet can benefit your business, please speak with one of our business efficiency experts or fill out the form on this page.