Project management tools come in all different shapes and sizes, and the costs do, too. This can make the process of finding the best value for money difficult to manage. Being the good samaritans we are, we’ve broken it all down to show you how much you can expect to pay.
When deciding on which project management tool to use, functionality should be the driving force of your decision-making. However, we all have differing budgets, and cost is important when selecting project management software. There isn’t a one-price-fits-all model, and each provider sets its own costs, which can make project management software pricing confusing.
To complicate matters further, each of the best project management solutions have their own terms for their plans. What one provider calls Pro, another may name Advanced, making it difficult to ascertain which is offering the best value for money.
For the everyday decision-makers and project managers at your business, the amount of options — and what they cost — may quickly become overwhelming.
Thankfully, we’ve spent time with enough project management tools to learn the market trends when it comes to pricing. By the end of this article, you should have a better understanding of what amount you should be spending on a project management solution — and where to spend your money.
The cost of project management software varies depending on the provider and the type of plan. Single-user plans cost $3.66 per month on average. Small businesses will pay $4.39 per month on average. For medium-sized businesses, the average cost for a plan is $16.88 per month per user. Enterprise plans allow you to negotiate costs with each service.
Companies offer project management packages that vary in cost and features. A basic plan will have less advanced tools, while paid options will come with tools such as Gantt charts and scrum boards as well as provide more security and support.
Though price and terminology tend to differ from one project management tool to another, pricing structure tends to follow the same pattern. While the leading project management software options are all great products, a company’s main objective is to make money.
With that in mind, companies tend to offer multiple plans and payment options. Many of the leading providers start with a free plan, offering basic task management tools to get you hooked on their project management solution, but too little for you to really feel its benefits.
As the number of features grows through their plans, so does the cost. This means those who need an all-singing, all-dancing solution designed for unlimited users end up paying the highest amount.
However, there are ways to drive costs down. For example, committing to annual plans is often cheaper per month than paying on a month-by-month basis.
Also, many providers will be open to negotiating costs depending on the number of users you intend to add to an account. Rather than charging a flat fee for a license, most solutions charge per user. The larger your company is in terms of employees, the more money you can expect to pay.
As we mentioned, it’s not in the interest of the companies behind project management tools to give up too many features at a low cost or free. They want to lure you in by adding a little more with each plan. While we recognize the objective is to make money, most of the leading providers do offer great value.
If you’re sitting with a zero budget, then you’re going to be looking for free plans. Don’t expect much. The number of users you can add to an account will be limited, meaning free plans are best suited for personal use or small teams.
With free plan features, you will be able to access basic task management features like a to-do list and a native calendar. Most project management solutions also offer a kanban board (read how to use a kanban board) or a small amount of storage space for file uploads.
With features, paid plans begin by targeting the serious professional. More advanced boards like Gantt charts (read how to use a Gantt chart) become available and storage space is increased.
Usually, users can expect to see an improvement in customer support, with fast response times and multiple ways to contact a solutions support team — phone, live chat and ticket-based service.
Professional users will begin to see some third-party software integrations, enabling them to use their favorite apps without leaving their selected project management solution. The most affordable paid accounts offer an increase in the possible number of users and the option to create multiple projects simultaneously.
From here, we start to get into premium and enterprise plans, the most expensive within the project management platform pricing structure. Beyond visualizing a project and developing roadmaps for their completion, more key features become available for time tracking, resource management and advanced reporting.
As with other plans, the more you pay, the more users you can add (often unlimited users) and the more storage space is allocated to each user. Several project management solutions also let you add external users, ideal for those working with clients who want you to keep them in the loop at all stages of the project.
Most top-tier plans also allow you to customize your projects, designating which users can access certain tasks and documents, as well as separating projects between teams.
Like we said, a basic plan for individuals tends to be free, and that’s the upside. The downside is if you need more features, you’re going to need to move to paid plans, which often implement a “minimum user” policy that is going to be more than one. This means you’re essentially paying for users who don’t exist.
With that in mind, we’re going to use this section to identify which project management software solutions give you the best tools, without asking for your money.
To do this, we’ve looked at 10 project management software providers in the free category. We won’t rank them all, but rather tell you about the free plans worth your attention.
Again, advanced features won’t be present on free plans. However, for single users without a budget, solid options are available.
ClickUp offers an excellent free version that covers a lot of the criteria one would want to see from a project management tool. The free plan allows you to create an unlimited number of tasks, use kanban boards and comes with sprint management tools for those using scrum management within the Agile methodology. To learn more, check out our full ClickUp review.
Another advantage of ClickUp Free compared to the likes of monday.com, Jira Software and even Asana is that you can add an unlimited number of users. Monday.com limits you to up to five users, Jira allows 10 and Asana is slightly more generous with 15.
For content creators and freelancers, Asana has a great free version as it allows you to create an unlimited number of projects and offers unlimited storage space. However file size is limited to 100MB. That’s fine for photographers, but not videographers.
There’s also a lovely calendar view and a list format of tasks to help you reach deadlines. If you’re interested in Asana, read our full Asana review.
If you do have a budget, and want a little more usability than the free options, there are some providers that target paid plans for single use, but not many. We rounded most of them up in our best project management tools for freelancers, and below, we’ll compare costs.
Among five of our favorite tools for single users, the average cost of a paid plan is $3.66 per month, or roughly $44 per year.
TickTick offers the best value, pricing its premium plan at $2.33 per month. With that, you’ll get access to calendars (you can integrate third-party calendars, too), to-do lists and some quirky features, like white noise for heightened concentration and a native pomodoro timer to help separate tasks into time slots of 25 minutes.
At the other end of the scale is Trello. Costing $5 per month, it’s the most expensive project management platform in our comparison of pricing for individual use.
Unlike TickTick, there’s no calendar view of tasks, nor are any of the quirky features available. What you can do is create as many kanban boards as you need, implement automations and integrate tools such as Slack and Google Drive (over 200 integrations in total).
With plans intended for small business use, we start to see some of the big players in the project management software space come into the fray. You’ll see more advanced tools for project tracking, giving you more flexibility in the way you approach project planning.
A common thread with many paid plans is users have the ability to create, share and collaborate on documents. Some providers allow you to integrate third-party tools like Google Workspace and Microsoft Office, while others offer their own native document management tool.
You can also expect an increase in the level of support you receive from providers. Anything from telephone support to 24/7 live chat is available, even on the more affordable paid plans.
The average cost for a small business plan is $8.90 per month per user.
Monthly costs are calculated for annual subscriptions. Users paying month-to-month will see higher costs. For small businesses, we analyzed eight services, including our choice for the top project management software, monday.com.
The table below is arranged in order of value.
TeamGantt drives up the average cost per month as its entry-level paid plan costs $19 per month. While it certainly leads the way for Gantt charts, if you don’t use them, you can skip it.
For $10 per month, monday.com offers timeline and Gantt chart views of tasks and projects. Users also gain access to over 200 templates, as well as 20GB of storage space and six months of activity history.
You need a minimum of three users, so the overall entry point cost is $30 per month — that’s cheaper than the Asana plan made for small business, which costs $10.99 per month. Read our monday.com review.
If your small business is process-driven, nTask — the best cheap project management tool — is an excellent choice. You’re going to see similar features in this zone, especially pertaining to views. However, there are some added features, including issue tracking, time tracking and meeting management diaries, at a cost of $8 per month. Read our nTask review.
For the medium-sized business looking to improve project management, there are several options. With plan structures at this point, you’re not necessarily going to see much difference in key features, but you will see an advancement in what you can do with them.
The first significant difference is providers will allow you to add more users — at an extra cost, of course. User limits tend to be revoked on what many providers call the “Business plan,” which will be the same price no matter how many users you add (something we’ll discuss later in the Enterprise section).
On business plans, companies step up the level of security you can access. ClickUp allows Google Single Sign On (SSO), and monday.com lets users log in through a Google account. Trello also lets you limit user access and set permissions on what certains users can do inside your boards and projects.
Looking at the best options for medium-sized businesses, the average cost per user per month is $16.88. Wrike is at the top end, charging $24.80 per month per user, while Trello is the most economical, asking for only $10 per month per user.
Trello is rather limited at this point, though. Larger companies tend to want the most features possible in terms of project views. The best option in this tier is monday.com, which asks for $16 per month per user on its Pro plan, striking the perfect balance between cost and features.
Enterprise plans are the pinnacle of the project management pricing structure. Companies are prepared to roll out the red carpet for users, often promising the best customer support and all the tools the software has to offer.
The good news is your company can often negotiate the price per user. Simply come with more users and you have room to drive the price down. The frustrating news is companies seldom advertise their prices online — likely because of the opportunity to negotiate.
While we can’t provide definitive prices, we’ve had enough conversations with sales teams to know you can expect to pay $30-$40 dollars per user for an enterprise software tool.
These plans target larger organizations. They often come with a minimum user policy that can range between 15-25 users, so you can expect high monthly costs for your business.
Now that we have explored the different structures of pricing and features among project management software plans, you should have a better understanding of how much you can expect to pay and what features you will be able to access.
This article is best used as a guide, but to really dig deep into each service, we encourage you to read the reviews we have included throughout the article.
In terms of choosing a provider, first outline what tools your project managers need. For example, do they need basic task management tools or tools to fulfill more complex projects?
Then calculate a realistic budget in line with your company’s financial means. With the options referenced above, we’re certain you’ll find the right service to improve your project management.
How much do you pay for your project management tool? Which is your favorite service to use? Is there a service offering bargains we should know about? Let us know in the comments. Thanks for reading.
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ECM software — especially for a larger business — can be an expensive, heavily involved purchase, so it’s important to understand options before arriving at a decision.
To further add complexity, the enterprise content management marketplace continues to evolve to meet the ever-changing needs of competitive business operations. Selecting the best enterprise content management software vendor depends on business goals and objectives, organizational culture and standard operating procedures.
Here’s a snapshot of 10 important ECM platforms to consider while making a buying decision, selected based on the product’s reputation and vendor’s presence in the content services marketplace.
Alfresco provides a content services platform to manage business documents across the enterprise. Maintained as an open source project, it supports ECM, deployed either on premises or in the cloud running on AWS. Hyland acquired Alfresco in October 2020 and remains a separate platform with its product roadmap.
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Rather than delivering turnkey applications, Alfresco combines open source tools with support services. It provides technology partners with the building blocks for producing content-centric applications designed around the needs of individual organizations and targeting a broad range of industry verticals.
Alfresco produces open source modules that support essential ECM functions, including library services, document lifecycle management, file sharing, file sync and sharing with mobile devices and records management. Access controls define user and group permissions to manage document access.
Application developers can inspect and modify core functions. Alfresco produces simplified tools — templates and scripts — for citizen developers to help administrators and non-technical users create and maintain predefined workflows. As a result of its acquisition, Alfresco expects to leverage AI/ML capabilities and vertical industry expertise that Hyland develops and acquires.
Alfresco modules integrate with other web services through RESTful APIs. Alfresco has developed social media interfaces for linking to popular social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Regarding corporate governance, Alfresco provides the underlying modules for records management based on predefined industry standards, but it requires some assembly.
Box delivers cloud-native content services to organizations in many industries. Box Platform provides a cloud-native content hub for organizing, securing and sharing content across the extended enterprise.
Box provides seamless connectivity to Microsoft 365, email attachment support for Outlook and Gmail, and native support for personal productivity apps within Google Workspace — Docs, Sheets and Slides. Box also embeds editors and viewers for many other content types, including rich media files, medical images, AutoCAD files and other 3D renderings.
Architected for securing large-scale operations, Box Platform supports multiple approaches to cloud content management, content sharing and team collaboration. In addition to library services and hierarchical access controls of a centralized ECM repository, the platform features an embedded enterprise search engine and extensive metadata management tools for semi- and fully automatic content tagging. Unique among cloud service providers, Box Platform can securely distribute individual files across an extended enterprise as well as to anyone on the internet.
Box Platform supports APIs that can easily connect to external AI and machine learning (ML) engines to interpret and categorize content in different business contexts. Box can track relationships between content and users, analyze patterns, make inferences and personalize delivery.
Box features an integrated workflow product — Box Relay — that automates and standardizes document workflows within the repository. It supports business process automation by incorporating related third-party web services integrated through RESTful APIs.
Box offers cloud-powered capabilities for content security and governance. Through Box Shield, the platform supports multiple security, privacy, compliance and data protection standards. Box relies increasingly on AI to monitor content flows within the repository and detect threats. It has added a malware deep scan capability to combat ransomware and continually enhances its content security capabilities to address new vulnerabilities. The company provides seamless e-signature workflows through Box Sign. And it maintains Box Platform in multiple data centers around the world, enabling its customers to comply with data sovereignty mandates by specifying the geographical locations for storing content.
Hyland OnBase manages documents and other types of content associated with formal business operations. It provides a central repository tailored to specific vertical industries: healthcare, financial services, insurance, government, retail, manufacturing and higher education.
OnBase focuses on document capture, imaging and archiving capabilities. It features in-depth integration with a broad range of enterprise applications, including the latest versions of Microsoft Office and Outlook, SAP and AutoCAD.
Specifically, OnBase links documents maintained within the repository to the transactions in other enterprise applications, such as ERP, accounting and HR systems. It supports back-office processing, case management and managing the content from transactional systems. With content maintained in a shared repository, OnBase provides the foundations for Hyland Robotic Process Automation (RPA), the company’s ability to accurately automate high-volume redundant tasks such as reconciling documents for insurance claims processing.
OnBase continues to expand transaction-level linking capabilities into many aspects of corporate governance. In partnership with Iron Mountain, its Governance Rules as a Service capabilities maintain the document retention rules based on actual mandates. OnBase’s dashboard enables corporate governance managers to easily translate document retention mandates into working rules and configurable policies.
IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation bundles multiple ECM products with the company’s cloud capabilities to develop enterprise applications for large organizations. With experience in the ECM marketplace dating from the 1980s, IBM delivers interrelated ECM products to manage unstructured business information while protecting customers’ investments in legacy systems.
Cloud Pak incorporates the following purpose-built repositories:
Cloud Pak leverages the content managed within these repositories to deliver high-value business applications such as straight-through processing and automated document approvals. Moreover, Cloud Pak can add intelligence to these applications by utilizing AI/ML services, based on IBM Watson, for content classification, data extraction and image recognition.
IManage provides ECM to law firms, accounting firms and other professional services organizations. The company’s ECM offering, iManage Work, combines document and email management capabilities to deliver the repository of record for all content flowing through individual firms. This product is deployed either on premises or through hosted servers running remotely and features native Windows applications. The company rolled out a native SaaS version of its product running on Microsoft Azure in 2021.
Lawyers, accountants, consultants and support staff can securely share their work products and client correspondence. IManage Work maintains the filing plans, folder hierarchies and controlled vocabularies for tagging messages, documents and other types of content within the repository.
IManage Work delivers granular access controls and can establish auditable firewalls within a firm to channel content flows. It can assemble messages and documents into formal collections for records management and archival preservation. IManage Work embeds an AI engine within its repository to recommend or automatically tag content and provide insights into relationships among files.
IManage Work automates document-driven business processes within a firm. It provides the workflow for new business intakes. It integrates with various line-of-business applications such as expense tracking, matter management and professional time reporting. IManage Work provides multiple tools to manage content security policies, ensure compliance to governance mandates and detect threats to content stored within the repository.
Microsoft 365 bundles Office personal productivity tools with SharePoint to provide an extensible ECM platform for managing documents, webpages and other content types across an extended enterprise. SharePoint is Microsoft’s primary ECM repository within its overall cloud-powered infrastructure.
Organizations configure and deploy SharePoint to solve a wide range of document management, content management and collaboration problems. Leveraging Microsoft Azure for native cloud delivery, SharePoint also supports on-premises and hybrid hosting infrastructures.
As an integral part of Microsoft 365, SharePoint integrates seamlessly with related tools from Microsoft for ad hoc information sharing, including Microsoft Office apps for personal productivity, Teams for workgroup collaboration and OneDrive for file sync and share. Utilizing an underlying repository, SharePoint manages content produced by these tools, adding library services, metadata management, records management and enterprise search capabilities.
Microsoft is continually enhancing its ecosystem’s content understanding, processing and content compliance capabilities. SharePoint Syntex delivers AI and ML technologies within SharePoint for automatic tagging, semantic inferencing and image recognition.
SharePoint provides the foundations for business process management. It manages unstructured business documents, such as scanned invoices, bills of lading and material safety data sheets, for BPM, ERP and CRM applications.
Microsoft supports content security and governance increasingly oriented around zero-trust technologies and operational principles. As part of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, SharePoint facilitates compliance by automatically adding sensitivity labels to content and other advanced ECM capabilities.
Nuxeo optimizes its ECM platform for both text-oriented and digital assets. The Nuxeo Content Services platform manages the flow of product-related content, such as images, schematics, datasheets and 3D renderings of physical objects, through digital supply chains. Companies — particularly those in consumer-packaged goods, retail and media/entertainment industries — can use the platform to digitize key parts of their product design processes.
The Nuxeo platform stores many different types of content in a scalable enterprise repository, running on premises or in the cloud. It integrates with Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite for personal productivity and content lifecycle management. Beyond ad hoc information sharing, the platform enhances teamwork through low-code capabilities for rapid application development. Citizen developers and other non-technical users can tailor processes around work-related tasks and develop collaborative environments that overcome manual handoffs and information stovepipes.
Nuxeo adds content intelligence to business activities within an enterprise. The Nuxeo Content Services platform supports flexible metadata management capabilities, enabling easy access to and speedy search through large content collections categorized by multiple taxonomies. Nuxeo Insight, which embeds AI capabilities within the platform, provides services to train ML algorithms to recognize specific elements and attributes of their products. Nuxeo can also utilize publicly available AI/ML services from cloud providers.
Nuxeo relies on Insight to automatically categorize content, recognize images and automate content-centric processes within the repository. It features pre-built connectors to Salesforce and provides RESTful APIs for application developers to integrate the repository to common business applications.
Hyland acquired Nuxeo in April 2021 and expects to maintain the existing platform while leveraging Nuxeo services with other services within its product portfolio to deliver value-added vertical applications.
OpenText Documentum is an ECM platform for managing business documents within large enterprises. The platform maintains high-value, mission-critical collections, such as engineering design documents or new drug applications. It provides a shared repository to store and manage different types of documents securely, deployed either on premises or through cloud-ready services that support various cloud-based infrastructures
Documentum includes content analytics capabilities to extract metadata and classify content automatically. It offers federated search capabilities to retrieve documents from multiple repositories and records management capabilities for long-term retention. It relies on separate e-rooms for collaborative document sharing.
Documentum includes specialized tools for document capture and classification and for generating high-volume personalized documents, such as insurance policies. It supports secure file sync and sharing for synchronizing files on mobile devices. It provides proprietary and open source APIs to integrate the content stored within the repository with external enterprise applications.
Documentum supports a fully featured BPM platform that uses content within the repository. Documentum xCP automates high-volume, information-intensive processes such as case management activities within the financial services industry.
OpenText Extended ECM Platform, the company’s flagship ECM offering, manages business documents and other types of unstructured content through a shared repository. It features enterprise-grade document management capabilities, including library services, multilayer security, access controls, content navigation and workflow.
OpenText Extended ECM provides multiple tools to enhance workgroup productivity. Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat and other personal productivity applications connect directly to the repository. Other tools support content capture and optical character recognition indexing from scanned and electronic documents and secure file sync and share with content stored on mobile devices. The repository supports content sharing for ad hoc collaboration.
The platform features extensive metadata management capabilities to support enterprise search and records management. Users can tag content manually, semiautomatically or automatically based on predefined terms. OpenText Magellan, the company’s content intelligence engine, can also infer details about content.
OpenText supports ad hoc process management through connected workspaces that integrate with external enterprise applications. Open Text continues to release pre-built business scenarios that simplify and accelerate integrations with Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, and SAP. Templates and scripts aggregate content, data, people, and tasks to support common business functions, such as sales opportunity tracking. OpenText also provides development tools that integrate with the core repository through RESTful APIs for more complex projects.
Finally, OpenText Extended ECM ensures content governance through a systematic approach to records management. It applies record classifications and disposition tags to collections of files stored within the repository, which are mapped to retention schedules and removed at the end of their lifecycles.
Oracle delivers tools and platforms to produce content-centric applications for large organizations. It relies on multiple ECM platforms to orchestrate content flows that support line-of-business operations and marketing activities.
Oracle maintains several purpose-built repositories for managing structured, semistructured, and unstructured data. These platforms — including Oracle WebCenter Content and Oracle Content Management (OCM) – feature core ECM capabilities such as access controls, library services and content lifecycle management.
Microsoft Office apps can connect directly, enabling seamless content flows that enhance personal productivity. Oracle manages images, videos and other types of rich media as digital assets. OCM includes tools and applications to edit content on the fly and deliver content to multiple endpoints, including chatbots. OCM has integrated video editing and production capabilities, transforming enterprise video into just another content type within a seamless user experience.
OCM relies on sophisticated metadata management capabilities to provide insights for content delivery, including chatbots and voice-enabled experiences. Depending on content types, this platform supports automatic tagging, auto-classification and image recognition capabilities using multiple AI and ML technologies.
Oracle provides extensive process automation tools to support editorial content workflows, case management and business process management applications. The company provides prepackaged adapters to integrate with related enterprise applications, including PeopleSoft, Siebel and JD Edwards.
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by Elizabeth Gonzalez | Updated Aug. 5, 2022 – First published on May 18, 2022
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I was recently reminded how much our tools shape our habits when I exited a Word file without saving my updates.
I blew straight past the “Are you sure?” message and clicked without thinking because I’d grown so accustomed to working in Google Docs, which saves everything for me and even lets me review and restore prior versions.
In a business with multiple applications generating content and different teams sharing and changing them, mistakes are inevitable. In businesses such as construction, those errors can be downright dangerous. But in any small business, lack of a document control program can damage productivity, quality, and efficiency.
That’s why every business needs document control processes for critical documents.
A document control system is a process for approving documents, updating them as needed, tracking changes, ensuring version control, managing access, and archiving obsolete documents.
Document control management is especially important for businesses that rely on documents that change frequently and industries where precision and accuracy are paramount such as architecture, construction, manufacturing, and engineering.
It’s also a standard of quality management systems (QMS) under International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001.
Organizations with complex documentation may want to employ a document control specialist to manage their programs.
Document management (DM) and document control are both records management systems for an organization’s documents throughout their life cycles, from receipt or generation to disposal.
However, document control is a much narrower field focused on managing changing versions of critical documents to ensure accurate, up-to-date information at all access points.
A quality document control system is built on document management best practices to help your business work better and smarter, and there are several benefits.
Documents often live in multiple applications and locations. Document control organizes and tracks your documents for easy access by employees who need them. It also manages content through workflows and systems to reduce redundancy. This saves employees time looking for documents and checking their validity.
Document control ensures your employees are all working from the same documents and standards, which can prevent massive headaches.
For example, say you change your vacation policy and update your handbook. Your recruiter isn’t alerted to the change and has two new hires sign the prior handbook. You now have to decide whether to honor the prior terms or ask them to sign the updated handbook. Either way, you’re off to a rocky start.
Version control is the very heart of a document control system. Document control manages access, tracks revisions, prevents changes by unauthorized staff, and orders versions to ensure that all employees are always working with the latest information.
This is critical to managing quality. In a retail business, that might prevent a customer from ordering an item that’s no longer available. In construction, it might prevent a team from working from an out-of-date drawing set.
Most businesses work with sensitive data, from employee records to credit card information to proprietary company data. Document control establishes security protocols to protect private information from unauthorized access.
This can include everything from external attacks on your servers to employees sending sensitive documents through email.
Your business must be able to produce certain documents on demand, whether you’re answering a complaint or responding to an audit. You also need to meet document retention standards of authorities such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
A document control system ensures you meet regulatory requirements.
M-Files organizes your content and automates workflows for easy document management. Image source: Author
Follow these six steps to create a document control system for your business.
The first step is to identify all the documents your system will contain. Depending on your company size, you might need to delegate this step to team leaders.
Document control is a more rigorous process than document management, and it may not be required for all your company documents. Focus on documents that change frequently, contain critical information, or have legal significance.
Create workflows covering the life cycle of each document, from initial release through use points and disposal. Who uses this document, where does it live? Is it evergreen, or will it require periodic updates? How long will you retain it? Will it be archived or destroyed?
Next, consider the document’s creation and oversight. Who has the authority to approve and release it? For instance, price sheets might require sign-off by the sales manager before being released.
Also document any quality standards that apply to your content. For example, when creating a standard operating procedure (SOP), must it be tested before release? Do some documents require executive or legal review?
Naming and classifying documents systematically is critical to efficient document storage and retrieval.
For example, say you keep quarterly sales reports on a shared drive for all staff. Having a consistent naming convention, such as “Q1 2020 Performance – Staff,” with only the quarter and year changing over time, makes it much easier for employees to find the documents.
Document management systems such as M-Files or Microsoft SharePoint enable you to classify documents, retrieve them using metadata, and automate document workflows.
Some DM solutions will tag and organize files for you. Be consistent with metadata just as you are with file naming for efficient document management and effective control.
Microsoft SharePoint features data loss protection tools to help you protect sensitive data and meet regulatory requirements. Image source: Author
Another purpose of documentation control is to prescribe guidelines for document review and revision. This can be done during periodic audits or as changes occur.
Generally, it’s best to have the staff member or team that released a document oversee and approve future revisions.
Keep a checklist or spreadsheet of all revisions, including the document name, responsible staff members, review dates, and descriptions of any changes.
You can prevent users from changing documents by saving final versions in a read-only format or controlling user permissions.
Your document control system should be built with security in mind. This includes controlling access to physical files, shared drives, and applications to protect sensitive data. It also includes system security and automatic documents backup.
Document control further requires ensuring access and legibility of documents at each point of use. For some documents, this may require maintaining copies of paper and electronic documents. For example, workers on a shop floor or a job site may need physical copies of documents stored electronically elsewhere.
Obsolete documents should be archived or destroyed on schedule. This may include physically separating obsolete paper documents or moving documents to inactive folders.
Once again, a consistent file naming system and metatags can help users identify obsolete files. Consider a naming convention that puts “obsolete” or “archive” ahead of the usual file name so its status is unmistakable.
Sensitive files may require shredding, while archived records may require long-term paper documents storage.
Putting together a sustainable document control system yields more than control over your documents. It gives you power over the information and workflows that drive your business. You’ll see the returns in greater quality, efficiency, and security for your business long into the future.
Elizabeth Gonzalez is a legal and regulatory expert writing for The Ascent and The Motley Fool.
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