Executive Summary

Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS), consist of a set of products and services that let users electronically store, locate, filter, retrieve, share, publish, and track document-based information throughout the document's life cycle. EDMSs can reduce costs, minimize errors, and improve the quality of products and services. EDMSs also help improve productivity, considering the average worker spends half of his or her day working with documents.

Electronic Document Management Systems can provide these benefits in any area where access and control of documents is required. One such area is a Computer Aided Drafting Environment. In this CADD environment, draftspeople and engineers spend the majority of their time working with, or examining technical drawings. Since a typical engineering project can contain hundreds of drawings, the ability to quickly find a required drawing can vastly improve productivity.

Our goal is to find an EDMS package which will satisfy the needs described by our unique makeup of hardware and situations in our CADD melange, of Unix workstations and DOS based PC's connected via a TCP/IP network.

Three packages, which satisfy and are available on both platforms, have been examined:

Formtek Limited, a division of Lockheed Martin, has been active in the EDMS world for several years with there TDM product, which provides graphic user interface client software for our required environments.

The Intergraph Corporation has provided drafting software for years and has several world wide installations of there older DM1 EDMS product. They have recently discontinued this product in favour of DM2. During this test we were able to examine a pre-release Beta of DM2.

Auto-trol Technologies Limited enters into the EDMS market via their new Centra 2000 system.

Our evaluation of these products will be based on the following, determining criteria:

Structure and Visualization of stored hierarchy

Creation of Documents

Tracking revision history of documents (Check-In / Check-Out)

Search Capability

System Security

Customizability

Interconnectivity

Functionality, maintainability, and ultimately usability of these criteria have been investigated by performing identical tasks on each system and comparing the results.

Through our research and comparative studies and experiments we have found that:

All systems tested are capable of performing the required EDMS needs of our unique environment.

Intergraph's DM2 product showed a great deal of vision and forward thinking, but at review time the system was not developed enough to be considered a viable implementation yet. Perhaps in a year's time, DM2 could be a major force in the EDMS world.

Formtek's TDM product has shown itself to be a competent performer. TDM huge installation base attests to this products utility. However, TDM is dated and will probably soon be discontinued. Thus a move to TDM may be in vain.

Auto-Trol Technology's Centra 2000 EDMS product has shown both vision and competent performance. Being an established product, Centra 2000 shows much of the stability of TDM, but being a young product, Centra has a longer expected lifespan. Additionally, major enhancements of Centra 2000 are being planned, this new release promises to include both Full Text Retrieval engine and an integrated form building tool, these enhancements would assume any advantages of DM2 or TDM over Centra.

Introduction

Today large organizations are faced with an increasingly growing blizzard of electronic and paper documents that clog the channels of communication and block the flow of work. The result is a hardening of these organizational arteries that can send productivity and quality plummeting!

To solve this problem, many companies have turned to Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS), a set of products and services that let users electronically store, locate, filter, retrieve, share, publish, and track document-based information throughout the document's life cycle. Done correctly, EDMSs reduce costs, minimize errors, and improve the quality of products and services. These are competitive advantages most organizations can ill-afford to ignore.

EDMSs also help improve productivity. Consider that the average worker spends half a day working with documents (Computerworld April 10,1995). By reducing the time it takes to create, find, and distribute documents among work groups or throughout the enterprise, EDMSs can significantly increase productivity, ensure quality, and help speed products and services to market.

While EDMS is a proven technology, it's still an emerging one. Information Systems staff members must be prepared to combine a jumbled and random assortment of product offerings from imaging/workflow, publishing systems, and database vendors to develop a complete document management system.

EDMS implementation can be by department, or work group or enterprise wide. Because nearly every organization has operational or resource documents it must track and manage to achieve its mission, the applications for EDMS technology are practically limitless.

Electronic Document Management Systems can provide benefits in any area where access and control of documents is required. One such area is a Computer Aided Drafting Environment. In this CADD environment, draftspeople and engineers spend the majority of their time working with, or examining technical drawings. Since a typical engineering project can contain hundreds of drawings, the ability to quickly find a required drawing can vastly improve productivity.

The CADD EDMS implement environment examined is a mixed platform system consisting of Unix workstations and DOS based PC's connected via a TCP/IP network. Thus any proposed EDMS product must be available for both UNIX and DOS, and must maintain functionality across both platforms. Since Oracle V7 database servers are the defacto standard, only EDMS products which leveraged this standard were considered.

During this comparison, three EDMS products were chosen which could provide the required capabilities.

Formtek Limited, a division of Lockheed Martin, has been active in the EDMS world for several years with there TDM product. TDM provides graphic user interface client software in both Unix/Xwindows and Microsoft Windows to access their EDMS server.

Auto-trol Technologies Limited entry into the EDMS market is provided by their Centra 2000 system.

All of the above systems provide both Xwindows and Microsoft Windows clients to a central EDMS database server, the ability to operate under Microsoft's Windows NT operating system was considered a benefit of each of these products.

Additionally, each system is available in many configurations, depending upon an organization's budget and needs. This comparison was limited to the basic product package, all three system's basic package costs approximately $800,000 (Canadian).

Thanks is extended to Formtek (Palo Alto office), Auto-trol Canada (Calgary Office) and Intergraph Ltd. (Calgary Office) for supplying demo software, HP/Sun servers and trained personnel.

Structure/Visualization of stored hierarchy

Although an EDMS system is fundamentally a database system, the data documents stored within must be easily identifiable by the user. The ability to represent the documents in a structured fashion, which is customizable depending upon an organizations needs and practices, is a key element.

The Centra 2000 EDMS product represents the hierarchy as a folder branch structure. This representation is familiar to anyone who has used Microsoft Window's File Manager. This transference of an established metaphor was well received. One is able to easy navigate through the colour coded structure levels via simple point and click on the branch folder. The branch representation is a built in feature of Centra, but the depth and information associated which each level of the hierarchy is completely defined by the implementing organization.

Formtek's TDM product also a folder metaphor to represent the hierarchy. The TDM metaphor is reminiscent of a Macintosh or OS/2 desktop, where a series of folders is present and these folders contain the documents. These folders can be moved and placed by the user, but retain little linking information. (i.e. each folder is independent, not obviously part of a branch structure)

Intergraphs's DM2 does not use a hierarchy visualization technique, the documents in this EDMS system are simply presented as a of documents, any hierarchy information is contained within the stored metadata about that document. The search engines are used to separate the documents by structure. This technique is similar to a card file.

Creation of Documents

In a CADD environment, each drawing to be stored within the system is a assigned a unique drawing number, the system must be able to enforce this uniqueness. Additionally, when a new document is created, the attributes stored with this document as metadata must be populated, the automatic population of these attributes and validation of the attributes is important. Human error can play a large factor in misfiling of documents, by minimizing the human input (i.e. automatically populating attributes) and validating any user input this misfiling can be limited.

Though each of the three suppliers used a different approach to creation of a document within the EDMS environment, all three provided some capabilities to automate attribute data input and validate user input. A common method of user input validation is the use of pick lists, whenever possible, the three products allow the user to simply select a value, rather then type it in. For example, document type is an attribute common to all three implementations, since there are a limited number of types (i.e. Text file, CAD file etc.) it behooves the system to list these.

During these evaluation, the creation of a new document within Intergraph's DM2 system was found to be cumbersome and somewhat confusing. First the user had to create an index card. (The index card stores the attribute metadata about that document in the EDMS database.) The actual document itself then had to be created, because of this, database records could not be created for documents which do not have an electronic file form. This is a major limitation, since the ability to search for physical (i.e. paper) documents vastly aids an organizations productivity. Once the electronic version of the document was created, this file must be registered with the system. This registering links the previously created index card to this file. Finally, the document must be checked into the system.

A major problem can occur during this process. Since the document is not actually controlled by the system until it has been checked in, another user may create a document which usurps any uniqueness constraints of the attributes. The user would then have to create a new index card and attempt to check-in this document again. A more efficient method would automatically register the index card information in the system, thereby reserving any unique values (i.e. drawing number) and indicating to other users that a document is being created.

Intergraph's DM2 product handles data validation well. DM2's internal workings follow a rule-based system methodology. These internal rules are applicable as required to attributes. Additionally, these rules are customizable, thus an individual organization's implementation of this EDMS product can follow whatever validation techniques and requirements the organization requires. Note that customizing the internal rules is an added cost service from Intergraph.

Formtek's TDM product was also found to be cumbersome when creating new documents, though more streamlined then DM2. A serious deficiency of TDM was found during the creation process. When a new document item is created, this item is created ENTIRELY at the client end, this by-passes ALL system security provided by the server. Similar to DM2, items created would not be know to the server until all data regarding the item was entered. Another major flaw was found, that if a mistake was entered on input, the document item would be created regardless.

TDM displayed limited validation, and could not be customized to include new rules or organization specific requirements.

Auto-Trol's Centra 2000 was found to be safe and flexible in the creation of new documents. A key feature of this was the fact that an index card for a document can be created without requiring an electronic file. This feature allows user to reserve document items, and allows cataloging of non-electronic documents with this management system.

Additionally, creation of documents occurs in constant communication with the server thereby maintaining system security. Although Centra 2000 is not a rule-based system like DM2, rule-like properties can be applied. Every attribute about a document can have four possible Performs. Centra 2000 defines a perform as an applet which is executed to perform a task on an attribute or set of attributes. The performs can occur before and attribute is displayed to the user, when a user clicks on an attribute, before the attribute is committed to the database and after this commitment.

These performs can be customized by each organization, using the Centra 2000 API (see below) to provide excellent validation, and the ability to perform other functions besides validation. For example, a Perform could be created to automatically attribute fields based upon predefined criteria. Since these performs are individual applets, they need not even access the Centra 2000 database. For example, a perform could be used to automatically send e-mail upon creation of an item.

Check-In / Check-Out

In an EDMS system, one of the key tasks performed by the system in the tracking of revision history of documents stored in the system. To achieve this revision history, documents are stored in vaulted form. To get a document from the vault to alter, one must check that document out of the vault. Similarly, to record the new revisions to the document, the altered document must be checked back into the vault.

Therefore, the check-in and check-out process must be simple and quick. Being, a key ingredient to EDMS all three systems handle the basic check-in and check-out process efficiently. In all cases, users simply select the document they wish to check-out and select the check-out menu option.

A useful capability for an EDMS system is the ability to preview a document before actually checking the document out of the vault.

Intergraph's DM2 system, and Auto-Trol's Centra 2000 system both provide relatively easy methods of previewing the document. (This preview is only available for documents stored in electronic form in the vaults.) These two systems provide a picture or preview button which will instruct the EDMS server to transmit a copy of the document to the local workstation. Additionally, a local viewer in then launched to display the document. These viewers must be configured in the system to instruct the local station of which viewer to launch. For example, to view ASCII text files a viewer must be configured either on the server or on the workstation for this file type.

Formtek's TDM system, provides an excellent alternative to the previewing problem. The TDM system has built in a thumb-nail creator, this tool produces a low-resolution thumb-nail picture of each document stored in the system, when preview is selected, this thumb-nail photo is displayed via a built in thumb-nail viewer on the client workstation. This capability allows the user to view several thumb-nail documents at one time to select which is the correct one. Additionally, this low-resolution image can be transmitted to the client in minimal time, rather then transferring the entire file. Another important aspect of this is minimal system support, a viewer need not be configured on every client.

When working in a CADD environment, often revisions are needed to be done on several component drawings at the same time, rather then one drawing at a time. Thus the ability to check-in and check-out multiple documents at once is a useful feature. Since Centra 2000 uses a graphical interface to the EDMS the user simply has to highlight the required files at click the check-out or check-in button and all items highlighted are process. Formtek and Intergraph follow a similar approach, though there interfaces are not as polished.

Similarly, often documents reference one another therefore a useful feature during check-in or check-out is the ability to also check-in or out these referenced files at the same time. Both Centra 2000 and DM2 provide the ability to define group items with each document in the EDMS server. A group item is basically a list of documents which are considered "linked" to the parent document. During check-in and check-out, DM2 and Centra 2000, both allow user the option to check-out the documents, additionally, Centra allows the user to receive copies of the "linked" document for reference purposes. Unfortunately, Formtek does not offered the same type of linking capability and therefore the user must manually check-out or copy any required reference documents manually.

Human beings are not error resistant, even the best EDMS cannot prevent a user from accidentally checking-out the wrong document, or changing their minds. Thus all three products offer the user the ability to cancel a check-out. TDM's cancel feature was excellent, even prompting the user to confirm the cancel. Centra 2000's cancel also functioned well, but did not erase the file upon cancellation. During the test of the beta version of DM2, the cancel feature did not function.

Search Capability

An important part of an EDMS system's power is the searching and filtering capabilities it provides the user, the more flexible and powerful the searching the faster a user will find the required document.

During the testing, Auto-trol's Centra 2000 product was found to have superb searching capabilities, Formtek's TDM and Intergraph's DM2 products also showed very good searching capabilities.

The Centra 2000 EDMS product provides multiple ways to search for a document or a set of documents which are powerful and easy to use. These searches include keywords search, pattern match search, and natural language search. Unlike Intergraph's DM2 or Formtek's TDM, Centra 2000 does not currently have a Full Text Retrieval engine.

A Full Text Retrieval engine is a component of the system which actually extracts textual information from the documents in the system. During the extraction, obvious unnecessary words are ignored (i.e. and, the etc.). The automatically extracted words and phrases are stored with the metadata about a given document. This allows searching and filtering of documents based on the actual information contained within the document, in addition to any EDMS metadata stored. Formtek uses the Excaliber/Falcrum FTR engine while Intergraph uses an FTR engine from Meta-Phase technologies. These FTR engines are able to extract data, not only from text files (i.e. word processor documents) but also from graphic files. (i.e. AutoCAD or Microstation CAD files)Thus Centra 2000's searching is limited to the information contained within the metadata about a document, and this metadata must be kept current, or by customized automated methods.

When searching for a document or group of documents, often large complex queries are created by the user. Centra 2000 allows the user to save their personal queries for later use. System support personnel may also create search queries and distribute these searches to the end users. The search option in Formtek's TDM does not allow the user to save queries, neither does Intergraph's DM2.

Formtek's TDM product and Intergraph's DM2 system provide keyword and pattern matching searches which can access the FTR engine, therefore these searches can access more information during the search, though the searches are not as flexible as Centra's.

System Security

In an EDMS system, user's from throughout an organization will be storing documents in the system, thus there must be a method of ensuring unauthorized access to documents.

There are three main levels of document security required for an effective EDMS system. First, there must be user level security on the documents. This means a user must be able to create a private document if necessary, that is the document is stored in the EDMS system, but only that user has access to the document. Secondly, there must be document level security, this is similar to user level security, but the document is accessible by members of a specific user role group or groups. For example, accounting documents must be accessible by all accountants in an organization, but not by other employees, the other employee's can see that the documents are there, but cannot copy or check-out these documents. Finally, there must be folder level security, that is entire branches of the EDMS tree structure must be able to be protected so that only specific user's or user role's can access that branch. With the above accounting example, the accounting branch could be seen by other users, but the users could not enter that branch, nor see any documents contained within that branch.

In all aspects of security, Intergraph's DM2 product was lacking, security in DM2 would required that rule-based customization be done at installation time, this is an extra-cost service provided by Intergraph. Similarly, security in Formtek's TDM product is supplied by their High Security module. This module is an extra-cost item available from Formtek. Auto-trol's Centra 2000 provides all required security in the basic product package. Another feature Centra 2000 provides in it's basic package is the ability to hide attributes from certain user roles. Recall that for every document in the EDMS system, metadata is retained in the system regarding that document, by providing hideable attributes, Centra allows one documents to retain secure data from several departments. For example, an engineering specification document may also contain accounting attributes such as cost which reside with that document's metadata but is invisible to the engineering role.

Customizability

How documents are stored and are used will be different from organization to organization, thus a good EDMS system must be flexible enough and customizable enough to suite a organization's needs.

One factor in customizability is the ability to alter the look of the EDMS system, this includes both individual user preferences and system wide representation of attributes and forms.

Another important factor in customizability is the ability to interact with the EDMS system via application programs. This allows an organization to program specific applications for the EDMS system and integrate the EDMS system with other database systems.

As mentioned below, Formtek's TDM provides an excellent form build tool, this tool allows an organization to change the ordering and look of virtually any form used within TDM. Additionally, this tool can be used to create new forms are needed.

Both Centra 2000 and DM2 provide some form capability, these are currently limited to simply reordering the order in which metadata attributes are displayed. Centra 2000 provides no form building tool to create new forms. Though Centra 2000 does come with an extensive applications programmer interface (API) toolkit. This API kit allows great flexibility since it allows organizations to create custom programs. TDM does not provide an API, and DM2 does not currently have a published API, but Intergraph has promised to release one as an extra-cost option to DM2.

Interconnectivity

Since an EDMS system can contain documents from numerous departments, the ability to integrate the EDMS to interface with other systems, such as accounting databases, is useful.

A key feature is the ability to integrate into an organization's e-mail system; since documents being created or changed often trigger a series of events, it would be efficient to have the EDMS system also provide e-mail capability. All three examined EDMS products contained built in mail services but none connected directly to any other e-mail package.

Similarly, the ability for the EDMS product to automatically extract required data from other systems to population attributes in the EDMS record for a document is useful to minimize redundant human data entry and minimize the accompanying human error. Since Auto-trol's Centra 2000 product provides the purchaser with an applications program interface, an organization can customize it to extract an populate the system with other programmatically accessible systems. Centra 2000 does not come with any pre-built integrate in the base product. Both Intergraph's DM2 and Formtek's TDM product can also be programmatically interfaced, but because these companies do not provide a published programmer interface, any such customizations would be added-cost items done by the supplier.

Other Features

Electronic Document Management Systems are a relatively new software product, unlike word processors and spreadsheets which are almost all identical in features, EDMS products have varying features.

Centra 2000 has some useful features which are not present in either Formtek's TDM or Intergraph's DM2. One feature which stands apart is the Hot Spotting feature. Centra 2000 is based upon a branch hierarchy structure, but each branch can also be considered an item, thus an electronic file can be associated with the branch. If this associated file is a GIF, the Hot Spotting feature can be used. Area within the picture can be mapped to be links to other branches or items. For example, a compressor station branch could display a picture of the compressor station, and by clicking on the hot spot the user could be taken to the items relating to a given area (i.e. electrical system drawings) of this station. This feature is useful in allowing the casual user easy access.

Formtek's TDM has an excellent form building tool. Often organizations will want to customize how information is presented to their users, TDM's form builder allows very easy customization of this. This form builder, which is included in the basic` package, features a drag-and-drop interface to move fields about. Every form used in TDM is stored in the database, thus to change a form, no compiling or distribution is required, once the form has been changed in the database, all the users will instantly see the new form.

Being a Beta version of DM2, our test showed few tangible features, but Intergraph has mentioned and shown vision in developing hyperlinking and form building tools, the full release of DM2 should have some interesting features.

Other Important Requirements

When deciding upon an EDMS system to implement, an organization must examine more then merely the technical capabilities of the system. Any organization has it's own unique risk management requirements.

Since EDMS systems contain documents which can have legal repercussions for an organization, care must be taken in the implementation of the system to retain legal viability of these documents. The ISO 9000 standard exists as an industry benchmark for computer systems on the admissibility of information from these systems into legal proceedings. Auto-trol's Centra 2000, has passed all requirements and is ISO 9000 compliant. At the time of this comparison, Formtek's TDM product was undergoing ISO 9000 examination. Intergraph's DM2 product is not currently ISO 9000 compliant.

Any EDMS system installed in an organization is a major commitment and is intended to remain in user for several years, thus a bond is formed between then EDMS supplier and the purchaser. Before entering into such a bond, the ability of the supplier to meet this bond must be examined. Reference checks were examined from each of the three companies. Auto-trol's references were the usual answers, no surprises or negative comments were received, though the company is in poor financial shape. Formtek's large client base provided many reference available, those checked reported a good relationship with Formtek and would select Formtek again. Surprisingly, Intergraph's own reference checks were overwhelmingly negative. Previous user's of Intergraph's DM1 system stated strongly that they would not be interested in dealing with Intergraph or the DM2 product.

Even if the EDMS supplier provides good references, the EDMS product itself may not survive the required time. Formtek's TDM system is a mature product and has been in the EDMS marketplace for a number of years. It is considered, by the Gartner Group, to be past the fifty percent point in its life-cycle therefore no new major enhancements are expected in this system. The Gartner Group also reported that Intergraph's DM2 product shows vision but will not be mature enough for a minimum of twelve months, they also characterize the older DM1 product as a "disaster." Finally, the Gartner Group stated that Centra 2000 was an excellent product.

Conclusions

All three of the reviewed Electronic Document Management Systems were shown to be capable of performing the required EDMS tasks.

Intergraph's DM2 product showed a great deal of vision and forward thinking, but at review time the system was not developed enough to be considered a viable implementation yet. In a year's time, DM2 could be a major force in the EDMS world.

Formtek's TDM product has shown itself to be a competent performer. TDM huge installation base attests to this products utility. TDM has aged gracefully, but for a company implementing EDMS for the long term future, TDM is dated and will probably soon be discontinued. Thus any organization using TDM should prepare to switch EDMS systems soon.

Auto-Trol Technology's Centra 2000 EDMS product has shown both vision and competent performance. Being an established product, Centra 2000 shows much of the stability of TDM, but being a young product, Centra has a longer expected lifespan. Additionally, major enhancements of Centra 2000 are being planned, this new release promises to include both Full Text Retrieval engine and an integrated form building tool, these enhancements would usurp any advantages of DM2 or TDM over Centra.

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Geff Beck beckg@cpsc.ucalgary.ca
Michael Fischer fischer@cpsc.ucalgary.ca