Keith Hales, LBMC Technologies, LLC, spoke to the STC-ETC, October 13, at the Downtown Grill and Brewery, on "Popular Methods to Capture, Store, and Present Business Documentation" to reduce inefficiency and frustration.
"Typically," Keith said, "a document will be introduced into a system, which is where the document will reside and where other editors can access the document. From that point, editors and document users will access this document and edit it, with all editions time and date stamped by the user who made the changes. Some systems can track the changes specifically, while others only keep copies of the different versions. Most systems allow for external comments or notes to be attached to the editions, and edit/read/delete per user or user group rights are often integrated into the same system."
Through screen shots and examples, Keith demonstrated how teams can collaborate on documents while maintaining version control, change history, and author identity and how content management platforms help us store and access diverse types of information.
As examples, and not pitching either, Keith referenced Microsoft SharePoint® for content access and EMC's Documentum for content management as the most widely used. He noted that many products on the market serve both purposes.
As Keith said, change is a given and shifts occur weekly in response to opportunity in the marketplace. For example, Wingspan Technology has created DocWay, which integrates content management, indexing, search, and archiving software solutions for Documentum and SharePoint users in the life sciences, financial services, aerospace, and defense industries.
If you are already using content access or management tools, you have a basis for comparison; if you are trying to learn what's out there, the Web is rich with resource leads. A few clicks from Google brought me to this link: http://www.wikimatrix.org/
, which describes the wiki world, for example. I counted 120 product options (then saw the correct count in the right column—121 total), many of which are freeware.For a quick overview, if you missed Keith's presentation or want more familiarity, you can download free tutorials for various products, which is a great way to learn about capability. Here are a few sources, selected at random from a Google search:
For SharePoint
• http://www.softwaretrainingtutorials.com/ms-sharepoint.php.
• http://www.deitel.com/ResourceCenters/Software/SharePoint/Tutorials/tabid/2783/Default.aspx
• http://www.appdev.com/promo/freetrain.asp?PC=SE00093&T=d%5FSSPS
• http://www.fpweb.net/sharepoint-hosting/free-sharepoint-tutorials.asp
For Documentum
• http://linux.wareseeker.com/Programming/db-documentum-1.63.zip/326507
• http://info.emc.com/mk/get/15355_LAND_STD?reg_src=WEB&Source_ID=15355&CMP=KNC-Google
• http://wareseeker.com/free-documentum-tutorials/
Submitted by Mary Knepper