For those who want an enterprise-class document management system, but don’t want to deploy and manage the software… a new solution was announced today by ColumbiaSoft and its partner The Cram Group. Document Locator is now available via The Cram Group’s ProjectXnet managed hosting service.

Managed hosting for the document management system is available in two ways:

• SaaS Subscription
  Allows you to use Document Locator as a web-based service on a per seat, monthly subscription basis – ideal for short term or temporary projects.

• Licensed Hosting
  Allows you to purchase and own the Document Locator software licenses in the same manner as a client/server deployment; however, the software is deployed remotely and provided as a web-based solution.

For Architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) firms, there is particular benefit given ProjectXnet’s extensive capability to provide several other leading applications for the industry on-demand. ColumbiaSoft and The Cram Group will exhibit together at next week’s Design-Build conference in Las Vegas to introduce the offering to engineers, construction managers and owners.

You can read more about today’s release about on-demand document management.

We’ll be at DBIA’s Design-Build conference next week in Las Vegas from Nov. 3 to 5, and we are happy to announce that The Cram Group, a well-respected hosting and solutions provider, will be joining us in our exhibit booth there. The Cram Group is particularly well-respected among the AEC industry for their focus on providing a full range of hosting and business solutions for engineering and construction companies. This makes them a great fit for our engineering and construction document management, as well as valued ColumbiaSoft partner… more news to come on that tomorrow.

If you are in town for the conference, or just passing through for other reasons, stop by our booth at #712 at Mandalay Bay.

Everyone is being bombarded with news regarding the housing melt-down and the associated ‘credit crisis’ affecting Wall Street.  The question facing many businesses across the country is: “How will a worsening economy impact our business?”  The exact answer to that question requires a crystal ball and keen understanding of economics.  Having said that, there are things you can to focus on regardless of the future economic predictions that will affect your bottom line.

There are countless areas of your business that can be streamlined by leveraging a quality document management tool.  Too often companies fail to investigate their internal operational efficiencies until there is a driving factor that negatively impacts revenue.  Take the time to examine your document flows throughout your organization.  More than likely you will find processes that could benefit from document management which will save you time and money.

For example, imagine a solution that can reduce operating costs while increasing your capacity to provide value to your customers.  Listed below is a small sampling of solutions built upon Document Locator’s framework that provide high return on investments for customers.

1. Customer Service Representatives – Provide instant access to records allowing customer service representatives to quickly answer questions and forward documents to people requesting information.  This is done by bringing electronic documents and paper documents into an indexed, searchable document repository.  Scanning paper documents also frees up office space, improves disaster recovery options, and reduces time associated with filing and re-filing paperwork.
2. Digital Signatures for Document Approvers – Use the digital signature technology included in Adobe Acrobat as part of an electronic workflow approval process for efficient, verifiable document approval processes. This enables employees to easily and securely approve documents from their office, or remotely via web access.
3. Unified Storage for Project Team Members – Provide your project teams with a central location to access invoices, drawings, email communications, contracts, and more.  This eliminates searching for documents distributed across email servers, accounting software packages, project management software, shared file servers, and more.

In an economic downturn, financial and human resources get stretched.  Simply throwing more resources at a problem is not realistic.  Rather, this is the time to invest in productivity tools that allow your organization to accomplish more with your existing resources.

The good news is that most of the businesses I work with are ‘cautiously optimistic’ about the future.  However, their opinions might be skewed from the wider market only because these are ColumbiaSoft customers that are already invested in document management technology… so it could be said that they already have the competitive advantage of an implemented document management system allowing their employees to spend more time working on core competencies that drive revenue.  By operating a lean, efficient organization, companies can be well-positioned to thrive in times of prosperity and economic turmoil where others struggle.

Have you built a large skyscraper, power plant, or piece of transportation infrastructure lately? Where I just returned from was a gathering of professionals who do just that, and more. And, as they are quick to mention… building big things requires a big amount of “paperwork” and work processes. From the moment an idea is born to the day its doors open for business… everyone from architects, to owners, to vendors, to engineers, to contractors, to project managers, and a multitude of others are busy creating, sharing, exchanging, reviewing and approving all sorts of documents, drawings and communications. The obvious needs abound, from version control software to plain old document searching.

At the recent CMAA conference (short for Construction Management Association of America), we along with Kodak talked about how some effective tools can improve document control and collaboration in construction. Kodak showed how easy it is to capture paper in the process, and we demonstrated how words and data can be digitized from the pulpy medium and put to good use organizing and automating procedures like notifications and approvals.

But the great value to realize is one that has relevance even beyond construction and engineering… A centralized system that extends document control and workflow across the company or division can have tremendous benefits in improving collaboration throughout the organization. While many line-of-business applications do have the capability to store documents (a singular capability that falls far short of ‘real’ document management), an enterprise document management system extends collaboration, notifications, approvals, and more across disciplines. Everyone is using and benefiting from the same system.

Document management is a term that pre-dates the digital era. There was time… long, long ago, when the term was more relevant to filing cabinets, routing file folders, off-site document warehouses, and other relics of a paper-driven world. Ask someone today what they think of when they hear the word “document management” and it almost always brings to mind the modern electronic version. Despite this, paper is (and always will be) a part of our world.

Kodak is a company that does a more than admirable job (we know because we certified on their scanners) helping companies with paperless process conversions. This is why today Kodak and ColumbiaSoft announced that we will provide an end-to-end solution for document management (from paper to paperless). You can read the entire News Release.

Just a footnote: We’ll be at the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA) conference this weekend in San Francisco together with Kodak to talk about it more.

Time and time again, we are approached by prospective customers who want nothing more than to escape the shackles of their existing system and find a better document management system.  They’re frustrated with their legacy system’s functionality, interface design, and the “customer-no-service”. Having experienced the drawbacks of their existing systems, they are easily attracted to one with a user-oriented design, broad range of solutions, and that is backed by the helpfulness of everyone in the organization, most notably the support department.

Unfortunately making the transition to a new document management system is not always a straightforward process.  Many document management or document imaging systems on the market today are engineered to support bulk import of documents while completely ignoring support for exporting files and supporting data.

There are a number of reasons why companies need the capability to convert from a document management system – aside from simply being dissatisfied with the application.  Several of these other examples that have impacted our customers (some converting to Document Locator, others away from) include company mergers, document turnover at the end of a project, permanent archival to other media formats, selling a business line, and more.

Having flexibility in the document management system to allow for bulk export is important. For prospects and customers with issues converting from their proprietary legacy systems, this warning comes too late.  However for anyone in the document management market researching solutions, I have some telltale warning signs to watch for that could lead to difficulties down the road:

• Storing documents with file extensions that differ from their source application
• Backend database requirements outside of the mainstream relational database products such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, and MySQL
• Stores data in a flat-file database “like” system
• Proprietary compression or encryption techniques are used
• Product does not offer an API (Application Programming Interface) or SDK (Software Developer Toolkit)
• Built-in viewer technology that displays the images using non-standard file formats
• Bulk export tools are not built into the base product

Awareness of these warning signs upfront can safeguard that your data will not be held captive in a document management system.  We have worked with some not-so-lucky customers whose only option for converting from their legacy document management system is to manually print each document (to paper or PDF) and then to re-key in the index information.  Other customers have provided us with samples of their encrypted files or their database that no one remembers the password to asking that our professional services team run decryption cracker technologies in hopes they can free their data.  Please do not let this happen to you.