Document Management in SharePoint...A Document Management System (DMS) is the software that controls and organises documents throughout your organisation. The system will typically

A Business Agility Guide

Document Management in SharePoint

Business Agility is expert in the delivery of solutions built on Microsoft 365 and SharePoint.

We build solutions to both the common and the uncommon. This can be anything from:

• Intranets, Document Management Systems, workflow processes

• Migrating you to a new version of SharePoint

• Planning your information architecture around SharePoint

• Hosted SharePoint, SharePoint Online and Microsoft 365

• Building industry-specific solutions

Table of contents

• What is Document Management?......P4

• What is a BAD Document Management System?......................................................P5

• Best Practice for Document Management in SharePoint.................................................P7

• Conclusion ..............................................P10

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Within the context of technology, Document Management is exactly as it sounds – it is the storage, management, security and tracking of electronic ‘documents’. The reality is that a ‘document’ takes the guide of many different forms – it should be referred to as ‘content’ instead.

A Document Management System (DMS) is the software that controls and organises documents throughout your organisation. The system will typically incorporate document and content capture, workflow, document repositories and output systems.

Sometimes this software is simply a shared file network with some rudimentary security and permissions configured against it. Other times it can be a sophisticated, rule-based system specifically designed to manage documents and content.

What is Document Management?

Scary scenarioYou have to submit a report for the quarterly board meeting.

You know the information you need for the report resides in 3 documents …. located in the company’s shared file system.

You begin by looking in the likely places starting with the department folder you think its in – no luck.

No problem, you go straight to the search box…. You tap in the title you think the doc is called….. oh no… 400 matches……

You try to narrow it down with dates…… er, still 50+ matches….

The panic sets in… where are the documents?

The answer to this is more about what risks are your documents exposed to?

• Is security around sensitive information appropriate?• Can critical documents be ‘lost’?• Who has access to your content? • Who has permission to edit/delete?• Can the state of a document be ‘rolled back’ to an earlier version?• Are ALL documents managed centrally (i.e., nothing locally on Users’

machines)?• Is there a strong governance policy in place…and is it enforced?

With effective information management of a company’s Information Assets, all of these issues can be controlled in simple, logical ways.

The typical reasons clients approach us for Document Management are:

• Finding the content they need, in a timely manner• Improving collaboration and communication • Ensuring there is ‘one version of the truth’ (i.e. no more multiple version of the same doc flying around

on email!)• Increased time and cost saving• Improved accessibility (mobile-friendly DMS, anyone?)• Greater productivity

What is a BAD Document Management System?

Without standards and processes across the organisation, Users will not know where their files and documents are meant to be held. Without information management

tools people won’t stand a chance of actually finding those critical documents!

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Best Practice for Document Management in SharePointSharePoint is a great tool for the management, storage and tracking of your company documents. Having said that, you need to start off on the right foot to ensure you maximise your investment in the platform (and don’t end up hating it).

Best practice #1 – Have a plan; stick to the planKnow where you’re starting from and where you want to get to.

Company documents may be in varied areas around the organisation. They could be held locally, in shared file drives, on multiple existing DMS’s, older versions of SharePoint, etc. So, what’s the goal of the plan?

Your DMS objectives would typically include:

• Centralisation of content• Tracking of docs• Search for information• Access and role-based permissions• Archiving

Your plan needs to hit each of these objectives, and at the same time, not constrain or make things inefficient.

Best practice #2 – Identify BAD processes and ensure you do not replicate them in SharePointThis is sadly a very, very typical approach and one we see often. Many of our existing clients come to us with a “our content is a mess in SharePoint” message before we’re able to help them. Those problems typically arise

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because they have replicated a non-useable, unscalable system that only fostered mess and underpinned poor efficiency.

The approach here should be to disregard the existing system, take a step back and develop a Document Management Roadmap;

• Understand your vision and then explore HOW this can be achieved through a new platform• Understand WHAT features/functionality are needed• Understand HOW users would adapt to this

Best practice #3 – Imbue strong governanceThis is tied to the term ‘Information Architecture’.

Your Information Architecture determines how the information in your site (e.g. webpages, documents, lists, and data) is organised and presented. Information architecture is often recorded as a hierarchical list of content, search keywords, data types, and other concepts.

Ensuring you have rules set within your Information Architecture is the bedrock of good governance. And it is those rules (and policies, roles, processes, etc) that control how your business achieves its goals. In the understanding that every organisation has unique needs influencing its approach to governance, we know that larger organisations will require more stringent governance than smaller organisations. So, you should be mindful of not introducing heavy-handed rules against your document management processes.

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Good document management governance in SharePoint can:

• Streamline document management processes• Enable more secure systems • Fulfil compliant obligations • Help ensure the best return on your investment

Best practice #4 – Use role-based permissionsThis is technically part of governance (but so is everything!).

If you want to minimise your admin overhead from a permissions management perspective, you can have permissions set up in document libraries to adhere to using SharePoint groups. Doing this instead of granting users direct access to the library on an individual basis can save time.

You can add or remove users from the SharePoint group(s) with this type of security model. This then controls their admission levels to the library, depending on the allocated permission levels for the group on that particular library.

Permissions can be set up directly on the document library without the need for folders (if the library is to have unique permissions different to the site level permissions), otherwise the library’s permissions can get the defined permissions at the site level.

Top points to note:

• The ability to control who has access to specific content in document libraries using the SharePoint security model

• Keep your data and documents more secure from a GDPR/data protection perspective• Increase user productivity by eliminating unnecessary admin

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Best practice #5 – Embrace Metadata (not folders)Documents lost or (seemingly) hidden in poorly structured folders and libraries is a common problem and one that is hugely time consuming.

Metadata is a set of data that describes other data. In the context of SharePoint and Document Management, you can (and should!) use it to ‘tag’ your content.

With efficient metadata, you’ll be able to view the list of files in your document library in several ways. You’ll locate content faster and be able to produce accurate reports which you wouldn’t be able to do with old-fashioned folder structures.

Top points to note:

• Ease of content finding• Content is far better organised• Provide useful reporting of what in your document libraries• You can filter and group your data with metadata• Removes the chance of documents getting misplaced in convoluted folders

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We are experts in document management within SharePoint. We’ve helped countless clients over the years, and provided hundreds of document management solutions.

Knowing the platform that you have SHOULD do the job you need it to but doesn’t, can be terribly frustrating.

Anyone that tells you that SharePoint’s document management capabilities don’t scale then, frankly they don’t understand SharePoint. In fact, SharePoint electronically stores and organises all documents in ways that make sense for your workflow and access needs, and can be easily retrieved with its rich enterprise-search.

Distribution control enables sensitive information to be filtered down to the page level, but also allows for documents, types of documents, or project-specific documents to go to those who need to see them. With interactive version control you won’t have outdated information being used by one person just because the latest version isn’t in their files, and all revisions are automatically tracked.

Whether your content is held in a single repository or across thousands of disparate systems, Business Agility can help you interact and control it in the most efficient and scalable way.

Talk to us today about your Document Management needs – we might even surprise you by explaining how you can marry the far reaching collaboration ability of SharePoint with its superior DMS capabilities. All of this will result in a vastly reduced effort in the storing, accessing and working with your content.

Conclusion

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Contact us for support and [email protected]

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Business Agility Consulting LtdSpirella Building

Bridge RoadLetchworth Garden City SG6 4ET

01462 476 [email protected]