• A change in the document’s folder
• A change in the document’s metadata (such as an Approval Status value)
• A change in the document’s version
• A date or time based change

As documents change from one Lifecycle State to another, a variety of actions can be automatically performed such as:

• Change a documents metadata (such as an Approval Status value).
• Modify the documents security settings.
• Copy or Move the document from its current location to another.
• Delete or Archive the document.
• Email notifications to a variety of users or user groups.

Each Approval Route is series of steps where one step leads to one or many other steps.  Each step contains a title, instructions, a deadline and a list of users who are expected to perform the tasks outlined by that step.  When an Approval Route “lands” on a particular step, the assigned users at that step are notified by tradition email that they have work to do.  A web link drives them ImageSite where they will see one or many active tasks in their ImageSite Inbox.

When the user clicks on a current task, they are immediately presented with a flowchart view, showing them where their action is relative to the overall business process.   The workflow route contains a complete history of the linked documents and comments entered by every participant in the workflow with a date and timestamp of when users made comments or advanced the workflow from one step to another.

In real life, users want software to simplify their jobs; not software that creates extra work.  The don’t want to enter field after field of index data (metadata) when uploading documents.  As a result, if metadata is difficult to define, users simply don’t define it; instead, they upload documents without metadata. 

Many document management vendors don’t talk about Metadata much less demonstrate how it is entered  because it’s not easy to do with their products.  Instead, they show simple demo systems where the metadata is already assigned (after hours of prep work by the demo team).

If users upload documents without metadata you end up with a document management system with lots of documents but no ability to search!

How does ImageSite handle this problem?

ImageSite assigns the metadata to documents automatically. Users don’t need to; they upload documents quickly and get back to their real work. How dow we do this?

ImageSite “propagates” Metadata from a parent folder to its children and from folders to documents. We configure your folder structure and define assignment metatata rules once. ImageSite does the rest; as users drag’n'drop documents into folders they are automatically assigned their correct metatdata.

Sounds simple enough huh? It wasn’t simple to develop, it took a lot of software design expertise, but it is extremely powerful, easy to use, and is just another reason why ImageSite is the best document management system around!

Click the Advantages link on the left for more reasons why ImageSite is best.

ImageSite, from eQuorum Corporation, is a simple to use, but extremely powerful and flexible document management system (DMS) that may be installed inside your company for total control.

In upcoming articles, we’ll post information to assist in understanding the value of DMS, DMS selection considerations, and how eQuorum’s DMS (ImageSite) compares to other systems.