Does your Company have Documentum?

Mike Nielsen 

Are you lost in the mess of documents that get passed around your company, never knowing what the latest version is and which one you should work on without worrying if someone else has already made the same editions that you are making? Perhaps you have heard of collaboration software solutions such as Documentum to help your company manage its documents that are passed around. Documentum is a very good solution to this problem but is it the only one? In this article you will be presented with some basic information about the differences in collaboration software from Documentum and NextPage.

What is collaboration software?

Collaboration software allows business professionals to work directly with other business professionals by allowing them to work together to create business documents, presentations, and budgets. Most collaboration software is centralized. This allows business professionals to work on the same documents at the same time from different locations. Some centralized collaboration software solutions include Groove Network, Microsoft SharePoint, Documentum, and Filenet.

Why use Documentum?

There are a few advantages to using centralized collaboration software such as Documentum. The main advantage being that they work very well for team collaboration. Documentum’s software keeps all files, projects, and data in one centralized location that everyone who is working on the project can access. This allows them to review and update the same document that everyone else has used, which essentially keeps everyone working on the same page.

Are there any drawbacks to Documentum?

While the collaboration software solution provided by Documentum is very useful and beneficial, there are a few drawbacks to using it. The main disadvantage being that Documentum’s software requires the use of an IT infrastructure. Another potential drawback is that it requires an extensive amount of installation time. This can be a major inconvenience to those business professionals who are always busy and on the go.

Other collaboration software options out there also require everyone you work with to have the same software in order to share information. All of these drawbacks to centralized collaboration software can be very expensive and inconvenient.

What else will work for my company?

NextPage provides an alternative solution to the centralized collaboration software. NextPage 1.5 Collaboration Software tracks documents with Digital Thread technology. Say, for instance, that you are working on your company’s budget. You want to make sure that your facts and figures are correct so you send your spreadsheet to several of your co-workers for review. They look over the spreadsheet and make the necessary changes. They then return their spreadsheet version to you, and with NextPage 1.5, you simply merge the document versions together into one. NextPage 1.5 lets you see all of this visually via a graphical version history. With the graphical version history, you would always know where the various versions of your spreadsheet are stored, what changes have been made, who has reviewed your spreadsheet, when the revisions were made, and how the revisions fit together. NextPage makes it easy to see where the document has been and what revisions have been made, eliminating the confusion of who did what and when it was done.

What advantages does NextPage have?

The major advantages to using NextPage’s collaboration software include the following:

• Do NOT need a centralized server
• Do NOT need an IT infrastructure
• Installation can be done in a matter of minutes
• Will work with associates who are NOT NextPage subscribers
• Solves document management problems where they originate

If your company is getting lost in the mess of documents then you can benefit greatly by implementing a collaboration software solution. Solutions from Documentum or NextPage will enhance your overall organization and productivity. In this article I have got the ball rolling for you. All you need to do now is to see what solution will best fit your company. So get out there and get your company documents organized!