An online document management system can be very useful to a business that has a lot of paperwork, forms, and files. However, without proper organization and prioritization, your company will not utilize the full potential. Here is a look at how you can better organize and prioritize using an online document management system:
1. Set conventions.
Training staff on things like naming conventions, document types, distribution, setting permissions, tracking, and the like will help keep files better organized from the get-go.
2. Set securities and permissions.
One of the beauties of an online document management system is found in the ease of document sharing. You can share unlimited documents with employees, distributed work forces, and customers from any computer that is web-enabled, but with that comes some risk. To better organize and prioritize, start by clarifying your securities and setting up permissions. This can be done by giving different individuals various levels of permissions, creating segments for departments, or for staff versus customers, etc. No matter how you do it, just be sure to get that set up. You can add permissions to specific documents, to specific folders, or both.
3. Set tracking and document version control.
You can more efficiently manage documents and be more productive with your time by setting up a system for document editing, tracking, and version control. This will allow multiple users to co-edit documents and can help to easily track versions of your documents, who has opened it, worked on it, changed it, etc. Set up options such as overwrite protection, commenting, and document locking.
4. Document storage.
Many offices have lots of files, papers, and forms that are needed, but rarely accessed or used. Setting up online document storage, that allows any sized document to be securely stored in a central repository helps to make an office more efficient. It will mean that those rarely used files are easy to access when they are needed, available for anyone in the office with permissions, and out of the way when they are not needed.
5. Set up online data backup.
One of the benefits of managing documents online is having your documents stored in a secure, offsite data center. This not only helps protect documents, adds security to them, and gives you access even when not in the office, but by setting up automatic backups, you never have to worry about losing what you need.
Online document management saves time, money, and frustration, allowing convenient access no matter where you are (as long as your computer is web-enabled), great sharing, security, and safe storage.
