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Subject:Results of DMS thread From:Cathriona Riordan <criordan -at- FLEXICOM -dot- IE> Date:Wed, 7 Oct 1998 18:39:50 +0100
I've received many responses to the mail I posted on Tuesday requesting
suggestions for a good document management system (DMS). Thanks to
everyone who replied. I was asked by a few list members to post a
summary of the replies to the list. (Incidentally, I believe there was a
similar thread a few months back. Sorry for the repetition.)
Here are the key points of the replies:
MS Visual SourceSafe is the most commonly-used management system (for
any kind of file, including documents). Contrary to my ill-founded
beliefs, it is not only well able to cope with large documents, but it
is ideal for this purpose. It seems that SourceSafe is widely used
a. because it has comprehensive version control capabilities
b. because it is already in use in most software houses for managing
source code and other project files
If you've already got SourceSafe in-house, you don't need to buy another
management system for your documents.
Revision Master from Diehl GraphSoft comes a close second because it too
is designed specifically for this purpose, it's easy to use and it's
cheap. You can download an evaluation version from: http://www.diehlgraphsoft.com
Microsoft Word includes useful features that allow you to track changes
and compare versions, but it is not a popular choice of DMS because of
its limited management capabilities. If you only need to manage your own
documents, then Word may be adequate, but if you're in a workgroup
sharing documents with many co-workers, then Word falls short.
MKS Source Integrity is a competitive product to MS SourceSafe, and like
SourceSafe, it manages both source code and documentation.
Texcel's Information Manager (www.texcel.no <http://www.texcel.no> ) was
suggested as a good DMS. It provides an effective way to share and
control documents at a variety of levels, but apparently works best with
SGML-based documents.
Livelink is another product that you can use for this purpose. You can
customize it to suit the needs of your organisation, check documents in
and out, add comments to explain your changes, and restrict access.
Finally, it was suggested I check out the following newsgroup for info
on configuration management systems: comp.software.config-mgmt
Thanks again to everyone who replied! In case you're interested, I've
chosen SourceSafe.
