Document Management - contineo, docmgr, Knowledgetree

Does anyone have any suggestions/tips for managing scanned documents? I found Contineo and it looks like a possibility. I have been using MS Access with a table of keywords and a button that opens the associated scanned pdf document but I am not sure if this is a good approach. Thank you.

e-copy with out an associated document management system, simply has you include the key words in the document name. You then search for documents with that key word in the file name.

So your access db is a step above

Dave

Hillie

I have had to tangle with doument management systems in the past although not specifically for scanned material.

Your approach of using an MS Access database could work well, the only possible drawbacks that come to mind right away are scale and the number of users. MS Access databases are fine in their place but can start having problems if they get too large. Number of users may cause trouble sooner, MS Access is fine as a single user database but is not really suitable for multi-user applications. For a small set up with say five users it will be ok but remember to watch out for this.

Lastly something easily overlooked when designing document management systems is having easy ways to identify and cull out documents that are no longer required - too old can be shunted off to an archive etc.

I hope this helps.

Pete Cheer

Thanks for the tips! It is hard to know what is the best way to go.

Have a look at Owl or KnowledgeTree.

Both are open source but I believe KT may have an active directory plug-in. Otherwise, for a small group, Owl is pretty nice.

Best.

I have been trying docmgr. It seems pretty good. My problem with my access db is that if you mess with the file names or locations, the system fails. Docmgr allows checking in and out of files and mass import from a folder or automatically with a cron job. It also has fine tuned permissions. Another nice feature is that is does ocr on pdfs when it imports them though the quality of the ocr does not seem to be amazing. Has anyone else used docmgr?

One quote from here:

"You can also check out http://docmgr.sf.net In essence it has the same capabilities as Knowledgetree but the interface is much cleaner IMHO. We use both knowledgetree and docmgr in production at my company. Don’t ask why but has something to do with mergers & acquisitions. :) The general opinion is that docmgr is easier to use and knowledgetree has more capabilities on storing meta-data of documents."