Document control

If you’re in the business of selling a product or service and field a workforce of sales agents who represent that product or service, how would your business succeed if each sales rep was working from a different price list? Or if some were using outdated contracts or order forms?

It wouldn't, would it? Or it would take a lot of work to stay ahead of the game. Toss in other legal and compliance issues, and having too many versions of “final” documents because a headache nobody wants.

With an enterprise content management (ECM) solution that allows for document management and version/revision control, that worry can be a thing of the past. With thoughtful implementation, businesses big and small can centralize the management of changing business documents, and provide offline synchronization for remote users, ensuring that everyone accesses the most up-to-date version of the document.

Can you give me an example? 

Take, for example, Allina Medical Laboratories in Minneapolis, Minn. Without a standard for pushing out policies, lab staff often missed a new policy announcement or update to an older policy. With Hyland Software’s OnBase solution, policies are stored and monitored in a central repository. And Allina can now track which medical director signed a policy and when, while new employees are sure to receive the most recent versions of every policy they need to see.

Furthermore, if a policy needs revisions, Allina can route a draft for review by the appropriate decision maker. When the policy is final, the system sends it to a medical director for approval. After 11 months, the solution reminds the policy owner that it is up for yearly review. That way, the staff doesn't need to worry about remembering when each policy is up for review, nor do they have to wait for slow paper approvals. Policies are always updated on time and Allina stays in compliance.

This is crucial, as Allina must be ready for an audit by the College of American Pathologists or the American Association of Blood Banks.

The best part about being able to manage the creation, revision and distribution of critical business documents is just that – the ability to manage the creation, revision and distribution of critical business documents. No more headaches caused by clients or customers working from old versions. No worries that important notations are disappearing with the paper they were written on. And an unprecedented ability to ensure document consistency and keyword accuracy.