Taking a look at the role of document management in business
Document management is used for database-driven management of electronic documents. Traditional document management systems are understood to have originated from the need to provide administrative functions for the fast growing file stocks. For this purpose, it handles
* Compound Document Management,
* Electronic Filing and
* Dynamic storage system to manage the life cycle of documents from the electronic archiving.
Essential characteristics pertain to visualized structures of order, check-in/check-out, versioning, and database-driven metadata management as well as index-based document search. Thus offering more searchable fields of information, as it provides a file system. In the file system, the user can search only the file name, file extension, if necessary, size or date modified.
Under document management fields such as customer number, order number, supervisor, etc are available. A major application of document management involves merging electronic files with related information from various sources. If this is done dynamically this is called the ‘virtual file’ (generated at run time).
Different system categories and their interaction include:
* Document management ,
* Office Communication,
* Document Imaging,
* Scan
* Computer Output to Laser Disk (COLD),
* Workflow
* Groupware and
* Electronic archiving.
Various document management methods are heavily dependent on one another, the use of a single component is generally not practical without access to other components. All categories are managed using the database, and an independent of conventional hierarchical file management systems.
The use of databases allows for the handling of large amounts of information and direct access to individual documents and document groups. The electronic filing is the environment attributed to document management.