Most prospective clients that talk to us about document management applications tell us that their current document management systems aren’t working. They often complain that document workflows aren’t enforced or optimized, contractors and partners are working outside of your systems. We hear that people are having trouble accessing current revisions and mistakes are made when you work from the incorrect revisions.

A side problem is that there isn’t a standard numbering system enforced and emails and spreadsheets which are produced internally by employees out of necessity and aren’t effective document management tools and there are huge hidden costs associated with those.

These folks have want to find an affordable document management system that makes sure teams are working from the right revisions, standardizes numbering, and pulls everybody into one system. The answer is an application that will get your team, suppliers, and clients working in one system to enforce and automate and optimize document workflow.

The right system has a few defining characteristics. First, a cloud-based application means you can have on demand access 24/7. You’ll have online access to quick and robust search tools so that you can find your documents quickly. Employees searching will have role-based permissions so that the right people are getting the right documents without sacrificing security. Further you want to have supplier document management meaning that your suppliers can upload the documents for their PO directly to the point, document control, and we’ll enforce the standard numbering and due dates.

Second, is to have a system that supports an optimized workflow for your industry (Oil & Gas, Capital Construction, IT, Legal, Pharmaceutical, etc.). The right tools are optimized for your industry out of the box with the appropriate review, approval, and release workflows allowing document controllers to keep the documents moving. The workflow is automated, the application has built in tasks and task management so that everybody’s data’s in one place and is recordable. Further, look for a system that allows engineers, commercial, legal, etc. to actually do markups, reviews, and approvals inside of the application so everything says organized, archived, and reportable.

The third thing that fixes your problem is easy access to the latest revision. Everybody can work from the correct document for revision through easy-to-navigate online permission based access that you set up, and also you’ll have an archived complete revision history.

The fourth defining characteristic is enforced standard numbering. You should be able to define the levels and lists or numbering that work for you. You can enforce a numbering system and eliminate disorganization and numbering system headaches. You can track other numbering systems, that means that your client, your suppliers may have different numbering systems, you can accommodate that within the software. Further you should be able to accommodate your clients by using their client numbering system while assimilating that with your own.

The fifth characteristic is having reports on clean data with accurate reporting.

You’re going to enforce revision control so that the revision workflow is done in the proper way, and it is the wisest use of your IT resources. ProjecTools doesn’t require expensive IT staff, servers, or maintenance and we’ll get not this a little bit later. ProjecTools was made for the EPC, Oil & Gas, Pharmaceutical, Legal, and Mining industries. We account for all the players beginning to end in one application in each of the industries mentioned. The system is an out-of-the-box project management tool that is built by project professionals for project professionals, we understand document management. It is the industry standard for each of our industries.