With every Ontario document management system, you want to make sure the implementation is done right the first time. To do this, you and your vendor must follow industry best practices that will lead to a successful outcome. The key is to have a vendor solution match your requirements.
Companies must explore all practical considerations when purchasing and implementing an Ontario document management system. You must understand all the components typically included in a system and how your company will benefit. It’s important for you and your team to go into any document management project with your eyes wide open so you can make informed decision.
Best Practices for Implementing an Ontario Document Management System
The first stop in any document management project is to understand your company and its vision. You must analyze how technology will help you achieve your goals. The project should address where in your company you’re deficient and where you have the greatest opportunities.
Starting with a holistic view will better position your solution within your organization. For example, you need to consider how documents, information and automation will affect all departments and business units within your company. If you don’t, you could waste valuable resources and miss opportunities to gain efficiencies and cost reductions. You want to create cohesive indexing plans, search strategies and records management plans so you can save time later.
In addition, you need a thorough understanding of your company’s political landscape, including who makes decisions and how they typically make them. Your Ontario document management implementation may fail if you don’t pay attention to political ramifications.
Executive management, functional department managers and IT managers should all understand the requirements for a solution and agree on the overall vision. They need to have consistent views on how the technology will fit now and into the future within the company. Everyone needs to agree on the projects goals and make sure they’re logical, relevant and scaled properly.
All sides must work together to establish the vision, goals, plan and implementation schedule. And, critically important for best practices, is to select the right Ontario document management system for the organization. The solution must, without a doubt, solve the business’ document and information challenges. The implementation must be done in a way to produce the optimum results.
Furthermore, the team must keep focused on what will best achieve the company’s goals and product the most meaningful results. Companies often get side-tracked by focusing too much on all the bells and whistles that come with different solutions. But, sometimes this doesn’t provide what’s needed. Instead, you need to find the best match for your short- and long-term requirements and implement it based on the plan you and your team developed.
Rules of Deployment
With any Ontario document management system, you need to follow some basic rules. The following list of items will help you get, and stay, on track to a successful outcome.
- Select a vendor with a solution that will integrate with your current applications and any additional applications you plan to purchase in the future.
- Develop an agreement that is comprehensive and all-inclusive in terms of what the vendor will be providing. You don’t want to leave anything open to misinterpretation.
- Make sure a complete list of all solution components is provided to you before the project begins. This includes all hardware, software, resources and other things you must have available before the vendor can proceed with implementation. If you don’t understand everything that’s need to start the project, you might experience significant delays and cost over-runs.
- Schedule regular project meetings between you and the Ontario document management vendor to review project status.
- Develop a project time table that includes milestones and estimated completion dates for each step in the Ontario document management project. Indicate expectations for communicating progress at each milestone.
- After implementation, make sure you document all suggestions from your solution vendor. Identify how you will handle upgrades, support and other things once implementation is completed. You want to have clear-cut plans for maintaining your Ontario document management system for many years to come.