Enterprise content management software system help to manage the vast quantity of content being generated all across an enterprise. Highly significant is its ability to extend the management to even unstructured content like word-processed documents, spreadsheets and graphic & multimedia objects.
Such unstructured content also contribute to the knowledgebase accumulated by an enterprise and constitute important evidence needed in litigation. Hence the ability to bring these under its management is a big plus point for Enterprise Content Management Systems.
Managing Content
Managing content is not just improving its findability and providing advanced search facilities. It is also about managing it in such a way that the content can help the business achieve its goals. Primarily these goals consists of streamlining business processes through improved collaboration facilities, reducing costs (often by producing more for the same cost) and ensuring that the business can function 24/7 even in the face of disruptions.
Also important is the need to comply with government regulations in different areas, with a minimum of cost and distraction.
Enterprise Content Management works by using tools and technologies to manage content through its complete lifecycle - Capture, Store, Deliver, Preserve and Destroy. Using tools and technologies becomes meaningful only if their deployment is guided by carefully developed strategies that are appropriate to the particular business organization’s needs and environment.
Capture
Unstructured documents can be electronic documents like emails, instant messages, word processed text, spreadsheets and so on. They can also be paper documents, which are scanned into the electronic repository, and recognition technologies like OCR are used to convert them into machine-readable documents.
Structured content typically enters the system through electronic forms. The forms can also be unstructured, or paper-based, and technologies are being developed to process these also increasingly better.
The data capture can occur at a centralized location or in a distributed manner near the points of origin.
The content is categorized in a manner that is appropriate for the particular business before it is committed to the content repository. Each business must develop categorization systems that supports its business processes best.
Captured documents are indexed based on certain key words or the full text. Indexing is a pre-requisite for subsequent findability.
Manage
The manage component typically comprises of the following:
- Document Management includes such services as library services, document profiling, search, check-in/check-out, version control and security that help create, revise and use the documents
- Records Management deals with the issue retention to meet legal regulations and business requirements. Not all documents are declared as records and kept in this manner.
- Email Management involves deciding which emails are to be retained and categorizing the retained emails before sending them to the content repository
- Web Content Management deals with the policies and tools for authoring, reviewing, approving and publishing Web content
- Digital Asset Management is concerned with the storage and retrieval of multimedia documents such as audio, video and photographs, which have high business value
Storage and Preservation
Content is stored in repositories that can be of different kinds. The repositories should not only store the content, but also make it easy to find desired content quickly.
Storage technologies are being enhanced continuously and range from paper and microfilm to hard disks in a RAID, optical disks and magnetic tape. Content that need to be preserved for longer periods must be stored on long-life media, such as microfilm.
Content is backed up in a recoverable manner as a contingency against system disasters.
Content Delivery
Enterprise Content Management systems integrate content from disparate sources, either by storing all content in long-term data warehouses or by using such technologies as XML to make it look as if the disparate content is coming from a single source.
These kinds of integrated content sources would be optimized for querying and analysis. Content can be delivered not only through search but also through syndication and different methods of publication. It might be localized for different global markets and personalized to suit user preferences.