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Before you start shopping for a document & content management (EDMS / ECM) solution, learn about some other common terms you might come across.
- Document capture. Capture refers to the process of getting documents into your document management system. This is accomplished in a number of ways, including scanning, importing, emailing, capturing faxes directly and entering data into electronic forms.
- Document imaging. Document imaging is the process of converting paper files to digital files. Often, this is done through scanning processes, which convert those paper documents to PDF, JPG, TIF or other image types.
- Document type. Document types are an overarching type that you’ve set up, such as “invoices,” “customer emails,” or even “sales” or “customer service.”
- Indexing. Organises documents in a document management system by allowing you to apply any identifying data, like vendor or customer name, date, amount and category, or assign broader terms, such as “invoices,” “letters,” “sales” or “customer service.” Index terms define what the document is about. Companies should set up rules for indexing so all employees use the same processes; you can also automate indexing with Intelligent Indexing software which uses machine learning to instantly identify the most valuable information on a document and convert it into highly structured, usable data
- Version control. Version control is the process of recording changes to documents. If someone makes a change to documents in your system, version control enables you to access previous versions of documents and see when changes were made and by whom.
- Electronic signature. An electronic signature is captured digitally and appended to a document. In some cases, it’s a digital version of a handwritten signature that is signed on a touchscreen with a stylus or a finger. In other cases, there’s an encrypted key that only the designated signatory has access to that ensures that the signature is authentic.
- Digital repository. This is where the documents and data are housed, typically in the cloud so they can be accessed by employees and others with appropriate credentials from anywhere.
- Metadata. Metadata in ECM software refers to index fields used to identify data or documents. That might include information such as categories, dates, company names, file type and size. The term also applies to system data such as store date, stored by, last time accessed and file format.
- Structured content. Structured content is data that is well-defined and structured in a way to be used by certain software. A database is a common example of structured content.
- Unstructured content. Unstructured content is data that isn’t in a well-defined format and may not be as easy to integrate into various business software. Common examples of unstructured content include emails or PDFs. Usually, software is used to structure content in order to make it more useful to business processes. This is where document management solutions come in.
- Transactional content. This type of content is usually created outside of your business and related to a specific process or transaction. Contracts and vendor invoices are two examples of transactional content. Typically, these documents must be easy to access and work with during the transaction and archived for record-keeping after the fact.
- Archive. When used as a verb, archive refers to the act of moving documents and data that aren’t needed on a daily basis to a different digital location or status. This typically removes them from the “active” area where people are working, which makes it easier to pull more current documents quickly. However, in a digital world, archived documents and data can still be accessed with one click when needed.