Document Management Reference documents of all types are essential to most businesses, but keeping them updated is more difficult than it should be. Often procedures, rules, guidelines and policies are created and distributed to address a need, such as the documentation of new legislation, new practices or to document a new way of working. But later when the documentation needs updating and the document owners have moved on, the time, enthusiasm and access to change the documents is reduced.
Approaches To Document Management In the last few years new ways to address document management problems have been tried. Groups experimented with making a radical change from the old way where a document owner existed and only a few selected people could update the document to a very open approach where anyone who wanted to correct or improve a document could do so. On the internet, this new approach is know as a "Wiki" and is now an important way to maintain communal documents. Perhaps the best known Wiki is Wikipedia the encyclopedia which is now one of the main general reference tools used on the internet. Wikipedia can be updated by anyone who wishes to do so and this bold approach has meant it grew very rapidly into an extremely large repository of knowledge which is constantly updated.
Using A New ApproachAlthough the Wiki concept was first used in a non-commercial context, companies are starting to use a modified version of the Wiki to help maintain their own documents. The corporate approach is to allow documents to be edited on the corporate intranet or website using a browser - avoiding the problem previous systems had of requiring maintainers to install specialised software to access a document repository. The maintainers are now a much larger group of people, although most companies have stopped short of allowing anyone in the company to update any document. Such unqualified editing could lead to legal or regulatory problems and in most cases updates must still be made by a well-defined group of people and updates must be leave an audit trail.
This where the services from eMerlin Places can help. An eMerlin Wiki Place is a secure but user-friendly way to maintain documentation. Based on innovative "IBM Quickr" technology, access can be controlled and audited to each library. Not only can a browser be used to access the "Place" but so can Microsoft Office applications like Word and Excel. Saving a document can be as easy as using "File - Save" in Word.
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eMerlin Demo SiteTake a look at our demo site where a fictitious company is using an eMerlin Wiki Place to maintain the documentation for its new Electric Coolbox product.
Getting StartedTo get up and running with an eMerlin Place of your own, you can sign up by clicking on the New Account link at the top of this page to record your details securely. You can use our on-line services as a company or an individual.
If you want to have a Place on a computer within your own company, we can help with that too. Just get in touch (there is a "Contact Us" link at the top of the page) and let us know your requirements.
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