An Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) is a digital solution designed to manage, store, and track electronic documents and images of paper-based information. EDMS services streamline document handling processes, ensuring efficient organization, retrieval, and sharing of documents.
These systems, often referred to as EDMS software, enhance productivity and compliance by providing secure access, version control, and audit trails for all managed documents.
Every organization will be familiar with the concept of filing documents. In an era when the paper was the primary means of communicating with stakeholders such as suppliers, customers, employees, board members, and so on, all the relevant contracts and communications would be filed in an organized manner for easy retrieval. The documents could be anything from invoices, sales orders, contracts to photographs, phone interview transcripts, and even video clips.
In this era of electronic documentation, this purpose is served by the EDMS (Electronic Document Management System). Computer programs and storage are used to manage the various kinds of documents an enterprise uses. You can create a new document using the EDMS or scan and store a hard copy in electronic form.
An EDMS (Electronic Document Management System) lets you create, edit, process, revise, and store documents not just in text form but also in images, video, and audio files. Providing a single view of all the documentation. EDMS (Electronic Document Management System) also integrates scanning and printing features along with storage. One of the greatest benefits of having a well-designed EDMS (Electronic Document Management System) is that it integrates with other applications such as your enterprise’s ERP and CRM, enabling you to automate document-related workflows.
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An EDMS (Electronic Document Management System) such as the one from ComplianceQuest can smoothen your document workflow in many ways.
EDMS (Electronic Document Management System) offers several essential features and benefits to streamline document handling and improve organizational efficiency:
An EDMS enables Document Management Solutions right from the time it is created to the time it is published and even after when it needs to be destroyed as per regulatory needs. The key features of an EDMS (Electronic Document Management System) include:
Document Creation: You can create a new document on the EDMS or input files such as scanned documents, emails, mobile applications, or the web.
Document Indexing: Searchability is one of the key features of EDMS that makes it easy to locate documents. Indexing it by tagging with terms improves the quality of search results.
Document Search: In EDMS the search feature should be powerful and look through the document file name, content, metadata, and have advanced filters. It should be able to find a relevant image, audio, or video file.
Document Processing: Paper-based documents need to be converted into electronic format and the EDMS (Electronic Document Management System) should have Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) and/or Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capabilities. It should have document templates for standard formats, link different but related documents, and integrate with the ERP/CRM system. It should enable the sharing of documents, revisions, and in-built editors for various file types.
Document Security: Your documents need to be protected from prying eyes and unauthorized access. Therefore, it should be secure, allowing access only to those who need to see them based on the role or function in the organization. Document Security is one of the most important features of EDMS.
Dashboards: The reporting and analytics features of a good EDMS (Electronic Document Management System) can help gain insights about the workflow, scheduling, access, use, and so on.
Customization: An EDMS (Electronic Document Management System) should match the individual needs of the organization using it as not all document management needs are the same.
Additional Features: Multilingual capabilities, enabling collaboration, being future-ready, scalable, flexible, and mobile-readiness are some of the other desirable features of an EDMS.
Versioning: Documents are essential for regulatory purposes, internal and external audits as well as inspections. Therefore, EDMS (Electronic Document Management System) should enable traceability of every change being made to the document along with capturing the person who is making the change, the change being made, and the time of the change.
An EDMS automates your document management workflow. The four reasons important why you need an EDMS (Electronic Document Management System) in your organization include:
However well you may file your documents, getting all your employees to follow the system when they have more pressing matters to handle can be a challenge. Not being able to locate the document you need can affect your productivity and make you lose time that can be used better in focusing on your core competency. An Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) enables this by keeping your documents neatly organized and easily searchable, thereby reducing the time needed to locate a document.
Manual storage of documents is an expensive affair in more ways than one. You need storage space, shelves, and time to file them in an organized fashion. With time, as the number of documents increase, the storage space requirement will also increase. Destroying obsolete documents is a task in itself, needing someone to go through them and then the waste generated needs to be managed. The paper cost is additional. Any damage to the building can destroy your documents. An electronic system, especially on the cloud, needs less space and less cost to acquire and manage. Even in case of any calamities, your documents will be safe.
Documentation is an important part of compliance. Traceability of revisions is as crucial as creating a document and destroying after it has become obsolete. Without an Electronic Document Management System (EDMS), even digital storage in different files and folders can be a nightmare. Now, even regulatory bodies have started asking for the submission of electronic documents. With an EDMS (Electronic Document Management System), the whole compliance process becomes simpler. It is also easy to integrate regulatory rules into an electronic filing system rather than having to physically change all the relevant documents every time there is a change. Legacy files also have an expiry date. Destroying files that are no longer needed is also easier. You can just schedule the date and receive an alert when it is time instead of having to keep track. The regulator will expect you to demonstrate that sensitive information was stored correctly with all the required safety and security measures in place.
Every business is constantly threatened with the risk of a data breach. Your documents contain sensitive financial, business, stakeholder-related information that needs to be protected. A document management system ensures the protection of such documents with security features such as encryption, role-based access, and so on.
Truth be told, every business across every industry regardless of its size or number of employees needs an Electronic Document Management System (EDMS). Even a start-up cannot do without an EDMS, though it may have a manageable number of documents in the early stages. As the business grows, so will the number of documents, so will its need.
The ComplianceQuest Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) caters to the following industry but is not limited to them:
An Electronic document management system or EDMS (Electronic Document Management System) from ComplianceQuest helps organizations of any size in any industry create a well-organized data storage system using keywords, facilitates real-time collaboration between employees, and provides data security. The Cloud-Based Document Management System can be accessed across geographies making collaboration between teams sitting in different parts of the world effortlessly. The future-ready software allows different users to access data in real-time, thus ensuring traceability. EDMS is used within an organization by various users in different capacities. Some of them are mentioned below:
We are still getting started and have only just implemented Document Management. We are very excited about the potential for managing our QMS and can’t wait to move onto the other Compliance Quest modules with the help of Amit.
Karen Bligh,
Australian Dental Manufacturing
ComplianceQuest provides a cloud-based quality management system with document management as its core. The EDMS (Electronic Document Management System) automates the documentation workflow enabling a smooth experience right from the time of creating a document to the time legacy documents becoming obsolete. The workflow is captured in its modules:
Creation and Categorization
Right from document creation to the time of its being published, the CQ EDMS makes the entire workflow smooth and easy. You can store and organize your documents in a central repository based on various templates and classification criteria. The solution provides pre-approved templates that make the creation of relevant documents in the right template easy. It also enables the linking of related documents – for quick and easy identification and cross-referencing.
Review and Approvals
Review and approvals are an essential part of the document creation process. The ComplianceQuest's EDMS (Electronic Document Management System) makes it easy to assign a reviewer, alerts them when the document is ready for review, tracks any changes made to the document before it is approved. Email notifications and reminders ensure timely completion of the process. Imitating the organization’s best practices, CQ-DOC also enables approval workflows based on sequential, parallel or combination review.
Document release can be automated or done manually based on predefined ‘effective dates’. Features such as the automatic conversion of native Microsoft Office document to PDFs – restrict viewing by end-users. Employees receive notifications as needed.
Training forms an important part of the document workflow and is facilitated by the ComplianceQuest Document Management Solution. All those who need to be trained based on their job functions are alerted on a new document being issued or an existing one revised. Training Coordinators get a view of who have completed training and who still haven’t.
Revision And Periodic Reviews
The software records the revision history for each document. You can set review periods or obsolescence rules for all documents to ensure timely review and compliance with internal policies.
CQ's Document Management Solutions can help manage the processes associated with Documents Change processes such as requests, reviews, incorporation, and closure.
Creation and Categorization Right from document creation to the time of its being published, the CQ EDMS makes the entire workflow smooth and easy. You can store and organize your documents in a central repository based on various templates and classification criteria. The solution provides pre-approved templates that make the creation of relevant documents in the right template easy. It also enables the linking of related documents – for quick and easy identification and cross-referencing.
Review and Approvals Review and approvals are an essential part of the document creation process. The ComplianceQuest's EDMS makes it easy to assign a reviewer, alerts them when the document is ready for review, tracks any changes made to the document before it is approved. Email notifications and reminders ensure timely completion of the process. Imitating the organization’s best practices, CQ-DOC also enables approval workflows based on sequential, parallel or combination review.
Release Management Document release can be automated or done manually based on predefined ‘effective dates’. Features such as the automatic conversion of native Microsoft Office document to PDFs – restrict viewing by end-users. Employees receive notifications as needed.
Document Training Training forms an important part of the document workflow and is facilitated by the ComplianceQuest Document Management Solution. All those who need to be trained based on their job functions are alerted on a new document being issued or an existing one revised. Training Coordinators get a view of who have completed training and who still haven’t.
Revision And Periodic Reviews The software records the revision history for each document. You can set review periods or obsolescence rules for all documents to ensure timely review and compliance with internal policies.
Change Management ComplianceQuest Document Management Solutions software can help manage the processes associated with Documents Change processes such as requests, reviews, incorporation, and closure.
Documents form an essential part of an enterprise’s journey. Document management is also essential as part of regulatory compliance for quality and safety. From a quality control point of view, key documents include supplier-related documents, regulatory compliance documents, and documentation related to CAPA, change, complaint management, audits, and inspections.
A robust Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) is a critical element of any automated EQMS workflow. In fact, we could say it is the first step in building a quality management culture in your organization. When different teams collaborate, they need documents to keep track of progress. The management communicates to its various stakeholders in various forms and a record is essential to be maintained. Your EDMS serves as the single point of truth for all key documents.
An EDMS (Electronic Document Management System) can help manage the risks and mitigate the challenges by organizing the documents in an intuitive manner for easy document management, storage, retrieval, and change.
