Enterprise Content Management: A Hidden Weapon for Sensitive Document Control
Daily, your business creates and handles hundreds of documents. These documents describe the process, and product details, and provide instructions to customers, as well as other employees.
Numerous documents — regardless of their context — come in and out of your organization every day and one thing remains constant: different people inside and outside your organization need access to them.
How do you control what is done with these documents?
A conflicting and unorganized approach to handling sensitive documents and protecting confidential information can put your business at risk.
What not to do when approaching enterprise content management?
At the beginning of any software project, do not allow technology to set policies in your organization.
In terms of ECM technology, make sure that the way sensitive document control is most important to your business. Establish document control principles and practices before implementing the ECM system.
Actions and policies inform the development, distribution, approval, modification, storage, security, and destruction of documents in your organization. Technology should be an additional layer in these processes once it is established throughout your business.
Where to start with sensitive document control policies?
So, how do you get started creating and managing your business documents?
To help you get started, below is a set of questions to ask about your documents and how your organization handles them:
. How are new documents handled after they are drafted?
.How do employees create new documents? Who adopts or establishes this need?
· Who needs access to these documents, and where are they located in the business?
· What standard types of documentation are currently running around your business?
· How do you limit the number of versions or copies of a document? How do you know which version is a canonical document?
· What evidence is available for document approval?
· How do you know what changes have been made to the document?
· How do you restrict the use of documents — from access to copying to printing to email?
Where the ECM document enters the life cycle?
After establishing policies and procedures for managing the documentation of your business, it is worth looking at some ECM features that increase the level of control of your document:
Access rights: Establishing permission levels for specific groups of users makes access to documents more difficult for authorized people.
Audit Trails and Reporting: Document transparency is important for control. Who got access to which document at what time? In terms of compliance, being able to quickly create a report that lists all users who have accessed the document and the changes that have been made is extremely powerful.
Archiving and Clearing: Instead of worrying about when to dispose of documents, establish the rules of document retention at the outset and avoid the risk of keeping your organization’s expired documents for too long.
Disaster Recovery: Backing up documents enhances security and storage by ensuring that your organization’s information is off-site and secure.
Digital Signature: Provides two-factor identification for counterfeiting, which also ensures that no changes have been made to a document since it was signed electronically.
