Document Management System

[Mercutio]

Has anyone ever used or had any experience with any sort of Document Management System? I've been asked to choose and implement such a system and other than knowing a couple names (e.g. EMC makes Documentum), I really don't know a whole lot about them.

I know they tend to be horribly expensive when they are not free, but I am being specifically told that free/OSS solutions will not be considered.

 

[ddrueding]

I've helped companies recover from a few of these. I haven't had any positive experiences with any of them.

 

[timwhit]

It's great when companies refuse to consider open source software. My current company will almost always consider an OSS alternative, this is a good thing.

We use Visual Source Safe for document management on Windows servers, it is pretty slow and annoying to use, but it serves its purpose. We are also using version 6.0c, so it might have improved drastically since 2001.

On the Unix side we use TortoiseCVS, it is better because it integrates into the Windows shell. (CVS is OSS, so I guess it is out).

Both of these products are more geared toward software developers, but I don't see any reason why either couldn't be used for regular document management.

 

[Will Rickards]

SourceSafe is horrible over internet or VPN connections.
It works fine on the LAN though.
Don't even think about suggesting that though Merc.

My experience with document management systems is only in dismissing their stupid dialogs in MS word when I'm working on client's machines. The law firms I work for use a few different ones. But I don't know their names or know which is good.

 

[Chewy509]

What's the primary requirements? eg versioning, archiving, Windows/Office integration, etc...

Like dd I've never had any good experience with any of the packages I've used, and admittedly the latest version of MS Sharepoint is pretty good as a basic system due to it's Windows/Office integration, or Subversion for more developer orientated system. They would be my first two picks, but admittedly they're the 2 I've had most exposure to.

It seems like discounting F/OSS is a little crazy, as every company I work for doesn't care about whether it's F/OSS or commercial, it's more a case of, does it work and is it readily supportable?

 

[Mercutio]

The customer is an architecture firm. Apparently, they had an IT guy come in to set up what they were calling a Backup system. The dude implemented a backup system. He set up tape drives and RAID5 arrays that are mirrored with dfs for redundancy.

Except, what the client wanted is the ability to inspect previous versions of project files and more importantly, to demonstrate to clients that all these different versions exist. Which is not really what a Backup System does.

Windows Server 2003 has Shadow Copy/Previous Versions client, but that's assuming everything makes it to their file servers, which it might not. And I don't think Previous Versions stuff gets transfered with dfs anyway.

They also need things like a central place to store project-related E-mail which they would prefer to keep as Word documents rather than, say .PST or .EML files. I'm not sure how I wave my magic wand and make that happen, either.

Oh, and they have no earthly clue how to organize or manage data in the first place. Their main file store had 1800 files in its root directory, aside from another 600 or so project file directories, an MP3 folder that's apparently being backed up and best of all, some dude's roaming profile.

Apparently they have an Application (AutoDesk something?) that forces them to use a particular directory naming scheme but just for their CAD stuff. I gather that syncing CAD stuff to the rest of a project is a big part of their needs.

They also have GIS data and lots of aerial photography stuff they need to track.

Sharepoint might work for some of that but I'm under the impression that Sharepoint is basically for MS Office Apps. I'm thinking it's not going to be so hot for CAD stuff. I've looked into some commercial DMS systems, but they're horribly expensive ($5000 up front and $2000 a year for maintenance?). They don't want free. They barely know how to work their PCs outside of CAD, so whatever it is can't be too complicated, which kind of rules out teaching them how to fish files out of an incremental backup or something.

 

[ddrueding]

Expensive and simple? Sounds like a fun project.

Step one would be getting everything onto a single file store. If people are saving to their desktops, nothing will save them.

Server 2003's shadow copy/previous versions might be the best way to go; considering AutoDesk needs direct file-level access, your tool needs to be able to operate at that level as well. I don't have much experience with shadow copy, but a lot of the DMS stuff I've messed with requires that you actively check-in/check-out stuff, and that makes it worthless.

The simplest solution I can think of is a massive data store, and teaching them to use "Save As..." with a date stamp at the end. Very crude, but everyone will understand how it works.

 

[Mercutio]

I don't think Shared Folders is foolproof enough, actually.

They want a single point to access all the data that's associated with a project, no matter where that data is located. OK, that sounds like dfs, except these people don't know how to manage their data in the first place, let alone dfs.

They're locked in to have a certain directory structure with some CAD application they have, which is part of the problem.

So... they need some kind of metadata/tagging system that's indexed with dates. Apparently they need to be able to do things like "Go back and see the state of the project 9 months ago." Shadow copies dies there since there's no way to ensure that backups that far back in time are available.

Same dude also wanted the ability to work on live AutoCAD stuff from remote sites while his in-house draftsmen were working on the same things and have some tool magically sort out the changes as they were being made by both of them.

Some days I think I need a magic wand and a bag of pixie dust.

 

[Pradeep]

I don't think Shared Folders is foolproof enough, actually.

They want a single point to access all the data that's associated with a project, no matter where that data is located. OK, that sounds like dfs, except these people don't know how to manage their data in the first place, let alone dfs.

They're locked in to have a certain directory structure with some CAD application they have, which is part of the problem.

So... they need some kind of metadata/tagging system that's indexed with dates. Apparently they need to be able to do things like "Go back and see the state of the project 9 months ago." Shadow copies dies there since there's no way to ensure that backups that far back in time are available.

Same dude also wanted the ability to work on live AutoCAD stuff from remote sites while his in-house draftsmen were working on the same things and have some tool magically sort out the changes as they were being made by both of them.

Some days I think I need a magic wand and a bag of pixie dust.

Sounds like you need something like this: http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/products/overview.jsp?pcid=1018&pvid=1601_1

http://eval.symantec.com/mktginfo/e...backup_exec_system_recovery_05_2006.en-us.pdf

You may need the beefier server version. No idea how much it costs. We use Veritas/Symantec NetBackup at work, very flexible.

 

[Pradeep]

Hmm, Server version is $599. If they don't want free, pay up.

 

[LiamC]

To get what you want, you could use CVS (Concurrent versioning system) and Tortoise.

The downside is that users have to physically check in and check out stuff. You aren't going to get that ability any other way. The upside is that with Tortoise (which integrates with the Explorer shell), a check out becomes:

Right-click shared folder (central repository) and use Check-out. The files are copied to an administered folder on the users workstation (which should suit AutoCAD).
Do what you like to file.
Right-click and check in.

A user doesn't have to know where things are stored. Files are stored in a folder structure defined during setup, so back up becomes simplified—they aren't stored all over the place.

Conflicts. If two users modify the same file in the same place, then a conflict is generated and it is up to whoever checked it in last to decide whether to blat the other persons work, blat their own or combine the two. If the two users modified the same document and changed different parts, then both changes are incorporated. As far as I know, this only applicable to text/text based documents. I don't know what would happen to binary files. CVS only stores the changes, so your file store doesn't go supernova if there are lots of changes.

CVS is cross-platform. May be worth looking at.

 

[Handruin]

I might get some flack for expressing my own opinion about this, but we use a tool at my work from Documentum named eRoom and it's crap. Everyone (and I mean more than just a few people), dislike it. When people talk about putting files in eRoom...we call it hell (some frown or cringe when we hear the name), because it's like hell trying to find those files ever again. They also offer forums...garbage. They offer databases...not very useful. I've never installed their product, but I suspect it requires a hefty server and database engine such as SQL server or oracle (which increases the cost and maintainability). In order to get full use of the tool, you must install the eRoom software. This will track when you open documents and if you make changes and save, it prompts you to add revision information. It will track versions within eRoom and you can get e-mails to notify you of changes.

Documentum was an acquired company for EMC (we don't make them, we just bought them) and if you really want to know more, call them and ask for a presentation/customer demo. They offer other software pieces, but eRoom is what we were given for CMS. We basically had to use it to store all our documents and now we use a wiki to point to the documents in eRoom so that we can actually find them. Their other tools may not be as bad, so I don't want to ruin their entire image based on one single product.

 

[time]

Good grief, CVS and VSS aren't Document Management Systems! Only Handruin has mentioned a real DMS (and apparently a dog of a one at that).

To advise on this, you need a pretty good understanding of the Autocad universe, which is a hell of a lot more complex than many people here seem to realize.

Last time I looked, the per seat licensing costs for AutoCad-aware DMS were prohibitive for many firms, so they just muddle along and hope they don't get called on it.

 

[Mercutio]

I'm under the impression that the impetus for their interest is a legal threat from a client.

But they still don't want to spend money and won't accept a free software solution like knowledgetree.

I'm obviously going to have to find out more about how their systems are set up before I can do anything. I've not particularly dealt with CAD systems and the wrinkle they add to any of this.

Handy, I've worked place where some folk had to use Documentum. I didn't know what it was but I never heard anyone else say anything good about it, either.

Actually, that seems to be a trend for all the comments about actual DMS systems that folks have made here.

 

[LiamC]

Good grief, CVS and VSS aren't Document Management Systems! Only Handruin has mentioned a real DMS (and apparently a dog of a one at that).

To advise on this, you need a pretty good understanding of the Autocad universe, which is a hell of a lot more complex than many people here seem to realize.

Last time I looked, the per seat licensing costs for AutoCad-aware DMS were prohibitive for many firms, so they just muddle along and hope they don't get called on it.

Erm, you are aware of what the terms "could" and "may" mean right?

My reading of the requirements were that it involved more than AutoCAD, but had to be cheap, easy to use, administer and backup etc. etc.

It was a left field suggestion no doubt, but I think you presume too much about the level of knowledge of others...

 

[Handruin]

I don't think it was a bad suggestion. I may have mentioned subversion over CVS. Regardless they both do roughly the same thing. eRoom is a more simplistic version of CVS. It does provide similar functionality. Though, I'm not quite sure what happens on multiple checkouts of the same doc. I don't think it provides any form of merge like CVS/subversion would.

 

[Clocker]

Probably isn't what you need but we use TeamCenter....

http://www.ugs.com/products/teamcenter/

 

[timwhit]

How big of a firm is this? Multiple offices?

I talked to my friend who is an architect in Chicago and his office uses no kind of DMS. They just save stuff haphazardly to a shared drive. They don't even use any naming conventions. The office he is in is about 40-50 people, but the entire company is around 2000 people.