RE: Documentation Management Systems

["Dan Goldstein" <DGoldstein -at- riverainmedical -dot- com>]

Hi Karen,

Carefully spec out your company's needs before you speak to any vendors.
Vendors make a lot of money by:
* selling you functionality that you don't need
* customizing software to meet your actual needs

Some issues to raise in the specs:
* Read/write/edit/delete control
* Search and browse functions
* Catalog methods and flexibility
* Naming conventions and flexibility
* Document keyword tags for searching
* Version tracking and control
* In-house/external DB hosting
* Appending comments to others' documents
* Maximum purchase and maintenance costs

Some questions to ask the vendors:
* What companies like ours use your products?
* Does your software meet our specs out of the box?
* If not, how much will the customization cost us?

Caveat emptor, and keep your eyes on the spec.

Thanks,

Dan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Karen Murri
> Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 6:57 AM
> To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: Documentation Management Systems
> 
> What questions should we be asking (ourselves, our IT folks, 
> and vendors) while we shop for, purchase, and setup a 
> documentation management system.
>  
> (I tried to find stuff in the archives, but search didn't 
> cooperate. I'd take pointers to previous threads, too.)
>  

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