Training Administration, Personnel and Recruitment Management inevitably generates and requires good practice in the management and control of many different sorts of documents. Course Approval Letters, Agendas, Memos, Contract Documents, Appointment Interview Letters and Application Forms are just a few. And of course the standard SDMS software whether it be SDMS V Staff Development or SDMS V HRPersonnel, provides many management document administration functions - mail merge, correspondence files maintaining records of letters, memos etc. sent to employees.
And now for users wishing to extend these to full document administration all SDMS software can be supplied with fully integrated INVU Document Management one of the UK's leading Management Information Systems.
Over the last 15 years PC based solutions for Accounting, Word Processing and Spreadsheets have become an every day part of an office environment. Add to this e-mail, the Internet and e-commerce and you have at your disposal a vast array of detailed information - or do you? Are you and your staff able to find let alone manage all the information that is needed to work efficiently and productively?
The one product that has not been universally available at a competitive price for the training and personnel office is a state of the art document management system that addresses all the practical issues of Document Control, Security and Administration.
Following extensive market research and product evaluation, SDMS LTD has chosen to offer this product fully integrated into SDMS Software for Human Resource Management and Development. It is supported by the best telephone support, Implementation Consultancy, Advice and End User Training. Where required Consultancy can be provided to tailor the system to your precise requirements and to extend its use from the training and personnel department to the enterprise as a whole.
Cost Benefits
- Research evidence has shown that it costs £25 to file a document and an unbelievable £85 when misfiled.
- Respondents to a survey commissioned by "Autonomy" claim that they created on average 22 electronic documents a day, but deleted only 9 in the same period. Over the course of a working year the average employee will add over 3000 files to the Computer Network.
- The average professional spends 4 weeks per year waiting or searching for misfiled documents.
The Features and Benefits of INVU with SDMS
INVU's information management software is robust and comprehensive, allowing users to manage all forms of documents, electronic files, e-mails, and faxes from the comfort of their own desk (no more treks to the filing room only to discover somebody else has the file in their car!). Moreover, because the product is fully scaleable, the network version enable everybody to share the same information (subject to password and privilege controls). INVU software focuses on the management of information in all its forms including the web, in order to promote efficiency and harness knowledge. Any organisation will benefit from consistent stringently reviewed and trained directly by INVU, to give the management of information.
Product Guide
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INVU Professional The Professional Series (100 & 200) is an easy-to-use, Information and document management system for a Multi-user and networked environment. Designed to bring sophisticated document management facilities to the small and medium sized enterprise, the Professional Series is a management program that sits above the operating system and application programs. The Professional Series provides a uniform environment for the creation, filing and retrieval of all forms of information and documents. It is compatible with Client/Server Networks using Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows NT4 and any application program running under these Operation Systems. For any Organisation where information is important, the INVU Professional Series brings instant benefits, namely:
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Matching the system INVU recognises that business enterprises vary widely in their organisational structure and that information systems must be capable of being shaped to suit the organisation and not vice versa. Configuring the Professional Series simply requires the setting up of a number of ‘categories of interest’ in which the major functions of document creation, filing and retrieval are performed. A Company that is organised departmentally could have categories such as Sales, Marketing, Finance, Administration and so on. Similarly a consultancy organised by client could have categories such as Client A, Client B, Client C, etc., or alternatively Project X, Project Y, Project Z. Categories for both functional groups and cross-functional projects can also co-exist simultaneously on the same system. The design of the Professional Series also takes into account the fact that any given set of users can have greatly differing job functions and levels of skill and experience. To cater for this, the organisation’s System Administrator has access to a number of configuration tools. These are designed to accomplish the best match between individual user requirements and system functionality. This is increasingly important in Series 200 on a network, whereby strict access and security controls are essential. Set up user profiles. This defines the set of functions that a particular user can access. A user profile can be set up to have access to any combination of functions from ‘View Only’ to ‘System Administrator’. |
SDMS with Integrated Document Management
| CREATION, FILING AND RETRIEVAL OF ALL FORMS OF INFORMATION AND DOCUMENTS | |
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Another element of the profile is the level of access assigned to individual users. The level of access defines the class of document to which the user can gain access. Multiple levels of access ensure that users’ access can be restricted to the documents that are relevant to their job function. Alternatively in an organisation which practices an open information culture, all documents can be made available to all users. Set up categories of interest. As described earlier, the categories in which users operate the major system functions can be set up to map onto the organisation’s internal structure. Below each category, a further three sub-categories can be defined. These are in descending hierarchy, called Drawer, Folder and File. These default names can be easily changed by use of the system’s Label Editor. Creating documents INVU’s Professional Series supports all applications that run under Windows or NT. Technical documents, letters, spreadsheets, drawing or other types of document can be created and then managed in the series100/200 environment. But, a significant problem is the process of finding the required document after it has been created and filed. Most enterprises have developed ad hoc standards for document referencing and traceability – with varying degrees of success. IT Managers and System Administrators are all too familiar with the difficulty of imposing document standards on end users and the consequent problems of finding the right document in a timely manner. Series 100/200 addresses this problem by offering methodical and standardises categorising and labelling features and then ensuring the user is forced to consider these issues before the document is created. Also, these features are comprehensive and flexible enough to suit a wide range of organisational requirements. |
The user first selects the application required and specifies the level of access allowed. Then, up to six different labels can be attached to the document, one of which, the Document ID, is mandatory. All labels can be customised using the Label Editor. For greater partitioning of the top-level category, the user can specify a pre-defined category of Drawer, Folder or File. Finding documents Clearly, retrieving documents quickly and easily is an essential feature of document management. Using a wide range of search criteria, the Search function finds and displays documents resident in the Series 100/200 environment. Documents can be retrieved in four different ways: Primary Search: search arguments are entered into the Document ID and/or any of the other five labelling fields to find the document you require. Secondary search: offers more choices for the type of search argument that can be used, date, current job, hierarchy level (Drawer, Folder, File). Quick search: search across all document labels for a particular text string. This enables a document to be found quickly and also, all documents which share a common word or phrase can be easily found. Advanced search: offers all of the above search criteria plus the ability to use the Boolean arguments such as AND/OR. Having found the required document, the user can engage in a number of different actions. The document can be viewed, edited ( with full version control), emailed, faxed or exported to another environment. Using an electronic paperclip, documents from different categories can be attached in a virtual group for the purposes of filing, emailing or faxing. |
SDMS with Document Management System
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The in-tray The electronic in-tray of the Series 100 system is used much like its physical counterpart – a location where inbound documents arrive and are stored before they are viewed and filed. Documents in the in-tray can be categorised and labelled in just the same way as a newly created document. Documents can arrive as graphical images from previously scanned documents, inbound email and inbound faxes. A preview viewer is available in the in-tray to ensure clarity and integrity of the image or document prior to submission to the Series 100/200 system. Scanning document Although the paperless office has yet to arrive, the long-term storage of mass paper documents presents many businesses with intractable problems. In addition to solving problems of physical space and accessibility, electronic storage offers uniform indexing, filing and retrieval facilities across the entire range of document types. The Series 100/200 scanning features enable the conversion of any document into a highly compressed black & white or colour graphical image. The scanned document is stored, filed and retrieved in the same way as any other document. Documents can be scanned as batch or single sheets or as one multi-sheet document. Scanned documents appear in the system’s in-tray. Image editing, such as annotations are available in the scanning module. |
Internet/web pages Access to the internet from the desktop is becoming essential for many businesses. Series100/200 allows the user (with the required privileges) to invoke the system’s default web browser. Safe storage and management of web sites and pages are a feature of Series 100/200, the user building a research library from the web ( through Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Version 5.0). Importing documents In practice, most Series 100 installations will be made in corporate systems where existing documents will have been indexed and filed in some propriety way. Bringing such documents into the Series 100 environment can be accomplished in two ways. Single documents can be imported by dragging and dropping using Windows Explorer. Alternatively, batch importing enables documents to be imported in logical groups. Email and Fax Corporate email facilities can be used directly from the series 100/200 environment. In addition to the normal messaging capability, other documents can be attached to the message. Emails can be categorised and labelled in just the same way as other documents. Similarly, faxes can be sent and received directly from the desktop; as in email, other documents can be attached to faxes. |
