Document Management Systems

V. Balasubramanian, Ph.D.
E-Papyrus, Inc.
[email protected]

November 3, 1999
Overview
 Introduction
 Definitions
 Benefits
 Types of Documents: Industries
 Applications
 DM Components
 DM Functionality
 DM Functionality for the Web
 Merrill Lynch Case Study
 Conclusions
 References
 Research and Job Opportunities
Introduction
 Eras of Systems:
 1960s and 1970s: Computational Systems (CS)
 1980s and 1990s: Database Management Systems (DBMS)
Image Management Systems (IMS)
 Late 1990s: Document Management Systems (DMS)
Knowledge Management Systems (KMS)
 First Decade of 21st Century: Multimedia Management Systems
(MMS)

 Estimated that 90% of an organization’s information is in

documents rather than structured databases (Sprague, 1995).
True today more than ever.
Introduction
 Limitations of RDBMS for document management
 Based on E-R data models
 Suitable for structured data
 Traditional business applications, decision support systems,
reporting tools
 No inherent support to manage electronic documents
 Introduction
•Documents are results of most business processes. They can be made of multiple
media.
•Once you have them, you need to manage them.
•Only if you have documents, you can have relationships (hypertext).
•If you have a process for creating, reviewing, approving documents, you need
workflow.
•When you’ve documents you need ways to retrieve them.

Hypertext Workflow

Document
Management

Information Multimedia
Retrieval

Convergence of enabling technologies

Definitions
 A document is an artifact resulting from the transformation of a
set of ideas by people following a set of processes.
 An electronic document has the following characteristics
(Sprague, 1995):
 holds information of multiple media: text, graphics, audio, video
 contains multiple structures: headers, footers, TOC, sections,
paragraphs, tables
 is dynamic: can be updated on the fly
 may depend on other documents
Definitions Technology
People enables change
in process

Input Process Output

Tech
nolo
gy Change
 Process: Decision making process, design process, etc.
 Input: Thoughts, ideas, issues, concerns
 Output: Documents (memos, news, design documents, white
papers, marketing literature, contracts, manuals)
 People: Executives, Designers, Lawyers, Scientists
Definitions
 Document Management (DM) (Sprague, 1995): creation, storage,
organization, transmission, retrieval, manipulation, update,
archival and retirement of documents based on organizational
needs.
Benefits
 Sprague (1995) states that document management systems
(DMS) enable:
 Generation of revenue producing products
 For publishing industry, documents are a direct source of revenue
 Organizational Communication
 Concepts, ideas, decisions are shared in the form of electronic
documents to increase efficiency and effectiveness
 Business Process Re-engineering
 Current business processes designed around paper documents;
electronic documents help to reduce cycle time
 Organizational Memory
 Both hard data and soft/tacit knowledge stored as documents providing
access to history, design/decision rationale, expertise, best practices, etc.
Benefits
 Reduce time to create, review, approve and publish mission critical
documents
 Increase accessibility to information; retrieval using business
characteristics and full-text searches
 Ensure currency
 Provide access and version control
 Enable enterprise-wide collaboration; reduce email
 Facilitate workflows (sequential and parallel)
 Maintain audit trail
 Increase re-use of components (produce multiple documents from
same components)
 Publish electronic & paper documents simultaneously
Types of Industries & Documents
Industry Segment Document Type
Automobile, Engineering drawings
Construction
Pharmaceutical New drug applications to FDA
Insurance Claims
Financial Product brochures, swaps and
derivatives
Consulting Contracts and agreements
Architecture, Blueprints and photographs
Engineering
Consumer Products, Marketing literature
Financial
Lawyers Legal briefs
Airlines* Manuals and handbooks
All Memos/White Papers

* It is said that Boeing ships three plane loads full of manuals for every plane
Applications
 Financial
 Product catalogs (marketing information): Org Comm
 Back-office: confirmation of trades, customized letters and promotions:
Revenue Generation
 Policies: Org Comm
 Pharmaceutical
 New drug applications submitted to FDA (approximately 600 volumes
of 200 pages each): Business Process Re-engineering
 Product labeling information:
 Standard operating procedures, laboratory manuals: Org Comm
 Organizational knowledge on drug development: Org Memory
 Regulatory guidelines: Org Memory
 Competitive intelligence
DM Components Document
Management

Authors =
Title
Description
Attribute
Creation Date
Version Number Management
Modified Date
…….

+
Content: Text Content
Graphics Management
Index Terms
 DM Components
Document Management Functions Applications
Organizational
Communication

Create/
Retain/ Capture Store/
Archive Organize
Org Assemble/ Attributes Control/
BPR
Memory
Publish/ and Access/
Print Content Version

Retrieve/ Transmit/
Synthesize Review/ Route
Annotate

Core Components Revenue

Generation
DM Functionality
 Capture/Create
 Scanning paper, importing electronic documents
 Capture meta-data or attributes: author, date, title, keywords,
document type, purpose, bus characteristics
 Check-in/Check-Out
 Locking mechanism to prevent overwriting
 Store/Organize
 Compound documents made of components of multiple media
types
 Structured as hierarchies: cabinets/folders
 Distributed storage of content and meta-data
DM Functionality
 Access/Version Control
 Provide access to members with various roles and privileges:
author (Read/Write/Delete), reviewer (Read/Annotate), approver
(Read, Change Status)
 Provide version management so that older versions can be accessed
for historical or legal reasons
 Retrieve/Synthesize
 Powerful retrieval mechanisms based on attributes, concepts, full-
text
 Stored queries that can be executed periodically
 Automatic change notifications
DM Functionality
 Transmit/Route
 Create workflows among stakeholders and monitor status
 Encrypt/decrypt sensitive information
 Review/Annotate
 Enable reviewers to read and annotate documents; merge
annotations
 Assemble/Publish/Print
 Assemble views by combining components based on audience
 WYSIWYG displays on screen in native format or printing
 Retain/Archive
 Set up rules to retain published and original content (and versions)
or to send it to long-term storage (optical disks)
DM Functionality for the Web
 Immature Web infrastructure for industrial-strength, document-
intensive applications
 Need to extend Web infrastructure using document
management functionality (Rein, et al., 1997)
 IETF Working Group (WEBDAV) defining standards to extend
HTTP for:
 name space management
 overwrite protection
 version management
 meta-data management
DM Functionality for the Web
Complementary Technologies

Document Management Web Technologies

Manage large amounts of material Deliver multiple media
Provide consistent and predictable Provide user interface and navigation
structure
Enable hyper-linking
Ensure currency
Facilitate non-technical authors with Facilitate non-technical authors with
templates WYSIWYG tools
Support roles, responsibilities and
access control
Enable workflow
Publish multiple views
Enable version control
Provide document locking
Enable recording of attributes Enable attribute searching using meta-tags
Stable, well-defined functionality Continuously evolving
Merrill Lynch Case Study*
 Objectives
 Manage and deliver large amounts of product and services
marketing material in multiple media via the Intranet/Internet.
 Provide a consistent structure and user interface.
 Enable linking of related material.
 Ensure information is up-to-date.
 Facilitate non-technical authors in creating content.
 Support well-defined roles, responsibilities, and access control for
various stakeholders in various departments.
 Enable workflow between authors, product managers, content
administrators, editors, attorneys, and system administrators.

*Hypertext ‘97 Proceedings and Communications of the ACM, July 1998

ML Case Study (Objectives)
 Objectives (Continued...)
 Enable assembling and publishing of different views of marketing
information for different audiences: financial consultants, clients,
and the public.
 Provide version control to support regulatory requirements.
 Provide a locking or concurrency control mechanism to prevent
two or more people from simultaneously updating the same
content.
 Enable searching and retrieval of content using predefined business
characteristics of products and services.
 ML Case Study (User Interface)
Top Frame
Global
Navigation
Bar Locator
Bar
Title

Topics Linked
to Components
within Body Description
Component

Related
Documents

Client
Suitability
Buttons Component

Left Frame
Body Frame
ML Case Study (Publishing)
Component Product Attributes
Attributes Components FC View
Description Client Segment
FC Description
Client Suitability Next Generation
Client ML Pacific Fund
Public is….. Client Benefits
Financial Goal
Performance Education
FC Benefits
Client Suitability
FC Next Generation
Client Clients….. Client View

Description
FC Client Benefits Assembly Client Suitability
Client Client Benefits
Performance

FC Performance Public View

Client
Description

FC Benefits
FC
ML Case Study (Architecture)
Graphics/Interface
Components/Templates

Technical Team
Production
Web
Create/
Administer

Publish
for Release

Document
Management Link Full-text
System Checker indexer

Publish
for Preview/Review
Create/
Update Edit Comment

Notify Notify
Staging
Authors Editors Legal Web
Components View

Integrated hypermedia and document management functionality

New Drug Applications (NDA)
 Pharmaceutical companies spend an average of $350 million over 10
years to manufacture drugs and conduct clinical trials.
 No assurance product will make it to the market; even if it does, only 7
years to recover costs and make profits.
 Information about drug, safety, efficacy, risk-benefit ratio, adverse
events, etc., reported in NDA to FDA.
 About 600 volumes of 200 pages each. Heavily paper-oriented.
 On the average FDA takes 18 months to a year to review a NDA.
 Reducing cycle time by producing documents in electronic form that
can be reviewed both internally and externally saves about $1 million a
day.
 Big push by FDA to go completely electronic in the next few years.
 More importance to electronic document management and publishing.
Issues
 DMS not good at relationship management; cannot easily
manage links between documents.
 Template management not easy.
 True joint authoring and merging components or documentsis
not possible.
 Different vendors specialize in different parts of the market
making system integration a challenging task.
 Web-based document management systems are emerging only
now.
Conclusions
 DMS will:
 become the primary living repositories for organizational
information/intellectual assets
 enable linking of related information (hypertext)
 provide workflow facilities for various stakeholders
 increase accessibility to information through meta-data and full-
text retrieval and agents
 enable handling of multimedia
Conclusions
 Evolution of information management systems

Knowledge
Management
Systems

Filesystems DBMS DMS Org Learning

Hierarchical/ Systems
Networked Org Memory
Relational Systems
Object-Oriented
References
 Balasubramanian, V., and Bashian, A. (1998). Document Management and Web
Technologies: Alice Marries the Mad Hatter, Communications of the ACM, July
1998.
 Balasubramanian, V., Bashian, A., and Porcher, D. (1997). A Large-Scale
Hypermedia Application using Document Management and Web Technologies,
Proceedings of Hypertext ‘97, ACM Press.
 Rein, G. L., McCue, D. L., and Slein, J. A. (1997). A Case for Document
Management Functions on the Web, Communications of the ACM, September
1997.
 Documentum: http://www.documentum.com
 Opentext/Livelink: http://www.opentext.com
 Saros/Mezzanine: http://www.saros.com
 PC DOCS: http://www.pcdocs.com
Research and Job Opportunities
 Reviewing and implementing WEBDAV recommendations to
extend Web infrastructure
 Template management: propagation of changes to documents
instantiated out of templates
 Indexing and retrieval based on concepts, synonyms
 Increasing number of jobs in pharmaceutical and financial
sectors
 Managing Web content using DMS
 UI, Server-side programming, Web-DMS gateways
 Link management