Document Revision / Management System

spikeymike · 12-11-2006, 12:13 PM

Hello Group!

We're in the planning stage of migrating our infrastructure from Windows to Linux.

As part of this move, I've been auditing the departments, documenting the various tasks they perform.

I've noticed that the office workers use several document 'templates' and have them stored in multiple locations on the network servers. They all seem to know what is where, but from my point of view, it is a mess! Since I am a programmer, I have a source code control system in place using CVS on Linux. I'm thinking that they need something like this for their documents.

I'd like to implement a Document Management System without causing too much disruption in their work flow.

I've researched a few packages: OpenDocMan and Paper Harbor.

My question to the group is: What would you recommend to use for a basic Document Management System on Linux? The desktop portion should be cross-platform.

Thanks!

-Mike

hob · 12-11-2006, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spikeymike

I've noticed that the office workers use several document 'templates' and have them stored in multiple locations on the network servers. They all seem to know what is where, but from my point of view, it is a mess! Since I am a programmer, I have a source code control system in place using CVS on Linux. I'm thinking that they need something like this for their documents.

I'd like to implement a Document Management System without causing too much disruption in their work flow.

Bear in mind that a version control or document management system is a potentially a big step up in complexity, and it may be a step that the users don't want to take.

In my previous job we saw the same issue, and resolved it by creating a network share for document templates, with folders for particular types of document, and then configured the office suite to use that by default when you chose "New". Users could provide additional templates, but otherwise didn't need to think about it.

I've love to implement a VCS in my current job, but I would have to explain/sell the concept to both management and the people who would actually have to use it ( and "already know where things are"

), and then do training, support and maintenance on an ongoing basis, so it would not really be a good investment in time.

spikeymike · 12-12-2006, 02:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hob

Bear in mind that a version control or document management system is a potentially a big step up in complexity, and it may be a step that the users don't want to take.

In my previous job we saw the same issue, and resolved it by creating a network share for document templates, with folders for particular types of document, and then configured the office suite to use that by default when you chose "New". Users could provide additional templates, but otherwise didn't need to think about it.

I've love to implement a VCS in my current job, but I would have to explain/sell the concept to both management and the people who would actually have to use it ( and "already know where things are"

), and then do training, support and maintenance on an ongoing basis, so it would not really be a good investment in time.

Hi Group! FWIW - My office workers were already doing what was mentioned above. They couldn't keep things straight anymore with the numerous revisions. In the end, convincing them to use a DMS was simple - I just told them that it would take the guess-work out of which documents were the latest revision, while making older versions available too!

We're evaluating OpenDocMan right now and I don't think we'll bother looking at anything else. It seems to fit the bill just fine!

Regards,

-Mike