How Can Electronic Document Management Solutions Safeguard Your Company’s Data
Andrew Virender | December 18, 2011Budget cuts, and more budget cuts; we’ve all experienced them. One method of dealing with budget cuts is to transition to virtual employees working from home offices. Do virtual employees put your company at risk? Are your business files and documents secure with your remote staff? How do you protect these assets? Here are six things to consider when implementing a document management system to secure your organization’s information.
Look for a solution with access via the web. By using a software-as-a-service document storage application, you can save money by paying a low monthly subscription and allow your virtual workers easy access from anywhere they can connect to the Internet. The secure web access and storage allows you to maintain vital documents with the company, rather than on a worker’s laptop, and also allows you to easily turn off access for employees when necessary.
Strong authentication and encrypted information is the key! Stick to the systems that require secure log in access, and that encrypts information when traveling across the web. Because everyone forgets to always log out of applications when finished working, be sure to implement a system that logs users out automatically after a designated amount of time.
Just because your workers are sitting in their home offices, doesn’t mean you lose all control, or really any at all! Many document management systems allow those authorized to set up restricted access for each user. This prevents remote employees from roaming around in information they really don’t need to see.
Monitor document edits and changes by individuals. This not only keeps you informed of what is going on in your business, but also is useful for audit compliance. Never worry about last minute audits or discovery; always know the history and changes related to your documents.
When you move to a virtual environment, you can lose some of the ability for your staff to work effectively together. Interaction with other staff members fosters collaboration on projects. With an online document management system, you can still foster that collaboration by enabling your staff to upload, comment on, and modify documents. Best of all, with the right document management solution, you can enable version control so no one overwrites or accidentally destroys other people’s work.
Automate a virtual workflow. Some document management solutions allow you to easily create and automate a workflow from within the application. The documents are pushed to the appropriate employee’s task list as soon as they are uploaded in the system and are ready for review. An additional benefit is the ability to stop sending documents using e-mail. Instead, the application will send notifications reminding the employee(s) that a document is ready for review. The documents are maintained and secure in one location giving the company complete control of their mission critical information.
So budget cuts and remote workers do not have to equate to loss of productivity or risk to your business. With the right document management system you can even improve your worker productivity and eliminate many of your information risks. This is true even if your workers are not remote.
Make the 1st step towards enhancing your organization’s effectiveness with web based document management. Learn the basic steps needed to implement a successful document management system.


















