Document and Workflow Management Systems

Companies that use file servers to provide document handling often faces the problem of qualitative file storing, searching and versioning.

Even if there is an optimal structure and organizing rules of the file system, often it appears to be hard to set up necessary control, to proceed searching and file management because of constant growth of information volume. It’s obvious that no file system can possess such powerful features in access control, versioning and document searching to compete with document and workflow management system built on a database.

Just like in other IT spheres, a great number of products have been developed during the evolution of document and workflow management automatization. Those products provide almost similar functionality to manage files and their metadata. Choosing the optimal product for these needs, clients often pay more attention to the product’s price and performance rather than to its functionality criteria.

For over more than 10 years Microsoft company has been successful in developing MS SharePoint document and workflow systems package that contains a free standalone version of SharePoint Foundation portal and versions for a fee – SharePoint Standard and Enterprise that have some functionality differences. The popularity of the package has increased especially due to development of the cloud-based version SharePoint Online.

Unique functionality in file searching and management as well as the possibility of its flexible extension make MS SharePoint a pure leader among other document and workflow systems offered on the market. The free version of the product allows third-party providers to use SharePoint Foundation as a base to create their own document handling products.