Document Control – Common Best Practices

We had an open-forum discussion on Document Control at the most recent Midwest Documentum User Group meeting. The discussion focused on feedback from various members of the group as well our experience over the years. We received positive feedback that the open discussion format, with multiple people participating, was insightful and are planning on using a similar format to discuss another topic at our next meeting.  Below is a list of topics covered with highlights from the discussion:

1. Document Properties – What are typical configurations  and when do people customize
2. Document Versioning – Rules around major and minor versions, when to delete
3. Document Lifecycle – Flexible lifecycle to handle published and draft versions
4. Security – Typical roles and responsibilities in Document Control
5. Search – Simplifying search – simple search  interface and consumer only viewing
6. Document Viewing – Various ways in which companies have applied “smart” document overlays
7. Change Request Package – CR data capture and relationship to change documents
8. Review – Assignment of reviewers and methods for capturing review information
9. Approval – Discussion on how to simplify approver selection and other common approval practices

The entire presentation is also available from the MWDUG website or feel free to contact me (btee@tsgrp.com) if you want more information on responses and comments received from the MWDUG participants .