CASE STUDY FOR “Doc-Ware”

Overview

Doc-Ware is a secure, easy to use document management system THAT is designed for a variety of purposes including documents upload and storage, search and retrieval, and file sharing. It adapts to any business model by maximizing accessibility and functionality in repositories of all sizes, while increasing collaboration and communication between users. The software has a very user-friendly interface that is available in two (2) languages.

Objective

There were times when documents were stored on a Windows NT server under conventional ‘yellow folder’ structure, which over the years grew dramatically with very little logical structure. The top level folders contained many multiple levels of sub-folders that were inappropriately named. The folders had often become over-personalized with the names of people who had left as opposed to being for a particular function, making it unclear which documents were stored where. Multiple copies of the same document existed in multiple folders because there was no mechanism to cross-check items at more than one location. His resulted in a situation wherein it was impossible to tell which version was the latest. The documents were hardly ever weeded out or moved into an archive area. This meant that there were thousands of un-attributable ‘historic’ files mixed in with current working documents.

The lack of management and control over files and folders meant that users spent a great deal of valuable time searching for documents – and often finding and working on the wrong version. It was time consuming and frustrating for staff; something had to be done to improve the situation.


  • Roles and Permission management
  • Third party Document viewer integration with all file format support
  • Multi language support (English & Arabic)
  • Robust Document Management & Storage
  • Dynamic form or template creation

Approach

Webmyne Systems team implemented the Best Application Development approach with better project management technique with an engaging user experience.

The plan consisted of delivering an easy-to-use, less cumbersome, and simplified system to process humongous documents to serve the following business objectives:

  • Define a standardized process and a definite protocol to collaborate all the transactions between Plaintiff Counsels, Defendant Counsels, and Courts
  • Easy-to-fill Fact Sheets to address various legal proceedings
  • Enable Pay-as-you-go model per Fact Sheet per Submission
  • Eliminate conflicts or ambiguity in the entire process flow – providing an increased advantage wherein mass torts or multi-district litigations are involved

Business Benefits

  • Simplified Document management & Workflow management
  • Better user experience with latest designs
  • Authorization based document access
  • Reduced physical storage
  • Save time – Instant access to documents
  • Advantage over other businesses
  • Robust indexing of documentation
  • Improved customer service
  • Simple updating process
  • Higher levels of productivity
  • Green business practice

Challenges

  • The system should be able to deal universally with any document or file type – MS Office documents, Pictures, PDF files, text files, diagrams, including types we were not yet using.
  • All documents can be stored and retrieved with a ‘Unique ID’ which should, if possible, be embedded in the document’s properties (where that could be done) and form part of the file name and be visible on printed copies.
  • The system should be able to retrieve documents via filename, categorization, Unique document ID, current editor and original author.
  • The system should only make current version of the file available (with the possibility of going back to previous drafts if required).
  • Users must be able to enter brief ‘metadata’ information against each item to explain what the document was for and its context, and a brief statement of how it had been altered.
  • All documents can be created from a selection of pre-defined templates (allowing also for a ‘blank’ document) – and for any piece of software installed now – or in the future on the user’s computer.
  • Documents must be uniquely named – and the user warned if another document of the same name existed when it was created.
  • Any existing (old) document could be used as a basis for a new document without altering the original. Externally stored documents, which are not in the system, could be imported readily into the system as and when needed.
  • Only one user at a time can ‘check out’ a document – and other users would be prevented from working on it whilst it was allocated to someone in order to maintain strict version control.
  • Documents can be arranged in a pre-defined cycle if required e.g. DRAFT, FINAL, CONFIDENTIAL, PUBLISHED, ARCHIVE.
  • If appropriate to its context, a document could be ‘published’ to a public area (in this case an Intranet) with facility for other members of the Faculty to read via a standard web browser.
  • The system must allow for passing document on to and between multiple Authors for comment and updating, tracking the comments made in passing it to others, as well as the fact it was changed and by whom.
  • Safety and security of confidential items such as staffing information – which would prevent those unauthorised persons from even knowing the file even existed – and which would allow to them to work with it fully once they were authorised.
  • A detailed audit trail must show the history of the work done on a document – who did what to it and when – including who it was sent to outside the system, and when it was returned to it and by whom.
  • Unlike a conventional message system which attaches documents to emails in a personal email system like Outlook, the new system would centre on the document store and attach messages to the Document – so that all users can have a clear picture of its status and related correspondence.
  • The system must have a mechanism to send a document to someone external to the department and Document Management system for reference.
  • The system must be able to send a document to anyone on the internet by email, so that they can edit the document locally wherever they were, and then return it for re-insertion into the system. This would allow users to enforce version control even when a file was temporarily out of the system – which would clearly mark the document as ‘checked out’ to an external editor.
  • It would be possible to delete, move and rename documents (retaining an audit history of such activity) and to base one document on a pre-existing document in a way that would keep track of its origin.

Industry Segment

Product: Document Management

Customer Profile

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Technology and Tools

Operating System WINDOWS 10
Web Server IIS 7+
Database Server MS SQL SERVER 2017
Framework MVC 5 Framework
Scripting Language JAVASCRIPT, JQuery, JSON
Design Bootstrap / HTML 5 / CSS 3
Code Behind C#
Web Services Restful API
Data Binding Entity Framework, ADO .NET