09 Oct, 2007
How good is SharePoint as Document Management System?
Posted by: Toni Frankola In: SharePoint 
One of the most
important features of SharePoint 2007 is document management. I decided to
review SharePoint in terms of features that a document management solution should
have. Definition on DMS can be found here (I just adapted this definition with
few things mentioned in April 2007 edition of Directions on Microsoft).
| Feature | SharePoint Score |
| Metadata | 
Very strong, especially when used with Office 2003/2007 documents. |
| Integration | 
Integration is present, but only with Microsoft tools. Needs improvement. |
| Capture | 
There is no built-in functionality to capture paper documents. |
| Indexing |
Very strong. Indexing for non MS formats (like PDF) and other content sources |
| Storage |
SharePoint and SQL Server 2005 act as very stabile storage platform. Document |
| Retrieval | 
Search and filtering technologies have been improved in new version but |
| Security |
Item level security is available, but product lacks abilities to set |
| Workflow |  Workflow capabilities have been improved, but managing complex workflows cannot be done without 3rd party products. |
| Collaboration | Strong for users using Internet Explorer. It still needs to be improved for Firefox users. |
| Versioning |  Strong. It misses some advanced versioning rules. |
