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. |
16 Responses
Hi if you said that there’s no biult-in functionality to capture papers why you rate it 5?And in versioning ahy you said 4.5?
I pasted wrong image for Capture. 🙁
Versioning is great but sometimes is a bit hard to configure it in complex implementations: you cannot store minor versions for previous major versions, you cannot limit versions by document size etc.
Just out of interest, where it doesn’t mean that 5 stars, what would you like to see in the product?
For example, integration – because you can navigate to online document libraries via the Windows File system, any applicaiton in Windows can access this and save to these libraries. Were you referring to have further integration with metadata in other applications?
Very good overview for Document Management though, just interested in how you thought through these ratings.
Good overview, but yeah how did you came to this conclusion, it would be a good idea if we could know what we would want more in SharePoint’s Document Management features.
Hassan
Is this for WSSv3 or MOSS 2k7?
@Jeremy & Hasan: I will post additional post with “missing features”
@SBC: This is for MOSS 2007. But since MOSS is built on WSS; I would say that grades for Metadata, Storage, Security, Workflow, Collaboration and Versioning are same for MOSS and WSS.
Storage at 3 is a bit strict on the marking side…
I think it should be rated around 4 and 4.5….
http://rehmangul.wordpress.com
By ‘integration – MS Tools only’ do you mean that there’s still no ability to add comments to PDFs that are on a document library?
@MaryHS: You can, but only MS tools will allow you to use 100% potential of SharePoint like tagging documents from your client, working with documents stored to SharePoint directly etc.
When working with other files like PDFs all basic functionalities will work, but you advanced will not.
Retrieval? Security?
What about Navigation and Ease of setting Security.
You need a third party tool like WISDOM DMF to make navigating and retrieving easy or to WISDOM DMF Professional to make setting document level permissions a snap and working with PDF files a breeze.
http://www.macroview.com.au/WisdomProducts.htm
i prefer hyperoffice
Some good articles and info on Capture and Scanning with Sharepoint at http://www.scanguru.com
The lack of front end capture for Sharepoint is true but Fujitsu scanners have Scan to Sharepoint functionality out of the box.
Guys thought I should share a few resources with you which involves work that we have had our hands on lately. There are two entries on our blog:
From March 2009
http://thesharepointpeople.blogspot.com/2009/03/real-life-document-management-on.html
From September 2008
http://thesharepointpeople.blogspot.com/2008/09/document-management-on-sharepoint.html
Also, this Microsoft Case Study might be interesting for some of you: http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=4000003953
Let me know if you want some more info. You can email me on gabriel_at_clearpeople.com
Gabriel
In my company for more than half year we developed with WSS very ambitious product and the more skeptic I was, the more we go straight with it. So all I can say at least is the beautiful result available at http://www.myitechnology.com. I think it worth all sometimes difficult process.
And how good is SharePoint Document Management System? According to this product, user’s feedback is quite good, so for us SharePoint functionality is completely enough and applicable to our goals.
Great post ! Now a days document management system is very essential for big as well as SME’s also. Every organization has data and document which requires good handling and management. Using the latest Document Management System and office automation is very helpful and advantageous. It removes the unnecessary spaces and keeps the document safe and secure.