Long-Term Document Storage (EDMS)

Document Management has evolved over the last 20 years. The days of endless corridors of banker boxes are over thanks to the advancement of EDMS (Electronic Document Management Systems). There are a wide range of EDMS software packages out there for company and project Document Management with SharePoint, Google Docs, ProjectWise and eBuilder being some of the more notable platforms. Choosing the right software to manage documents is an important decision at a company or on a project-level and it should be made after first considering a few key factors:

1. What kind of computers/operating systems does the business/project staff use predominantly?
2. What other kinds of software do staff use most frequently?
3. Do owners or project stakeholders feel more comfortable with web-based applications or installed apps?
4. How long will the retention period of documents need to be?

The answers to these questions should be a guide to the upfront decision-making process as it relates to Document Management. These are not the only factors that need to be taken into account, but they are an excellent starting point.

One of the most important aspects of effective Document Management (and most commonly overlooked) is the ability for people (who may not have knowledge or insight on how documents were first cataloged) to be able to find what they are looking for, potentially years later. Organized and well-titled folder and file name structures are paramount to achieving this goal. The people who are responsible for cataloging documents for a company or on a project should always have this in the back of their mind when entering a document in a storage database.

PE Services has staff that have honed this craft for countless years on a wide variety of different construction projects, the company itself and industry as a whole. For more information on this area of expertise, please visit our website and feel free to get in touch with us.