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Best practices for EasyDMS Public Folder usage/management

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Hi,

We are implementing EDMS and are looking for best practices on the use of the Public Folder in EDMS. We have different sites that have different business models, such as Engineer to Order or a "Projects" based business. While other sites have a large Flow operation of standard catalog products with ordering options. Initial thoughts are to put only documents in the public folders that are common to all users at a site, such as document templates or procedures. Others suggest putting project folders there where anybody can browse through the different documents for a project. And that raises the question about who is the owner or manager of that public folder. We don't want the masses to be able to create random folders so that soon the structure of the Public Folder is a big unorganized mess. Any thoughts on best practices you have implemented or seen in practice are appreciated.

Thanks,

Joseph Whiteley

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Answers (3)

Answers (3)

Former Member
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Hi Joseph,

Some goods points have been mentioned on the usage of classifications and TREX. However, on the subject of folders, IMHO one of the things that makes EasyDMS "easy" is the ability to create folders and provide users a familiar windows explorer type browsing environment. A well thought through folder structure, with restricted access to create folders is what I generally recommend. What I have done in the past is only allowed general users to create folders at lower levels (i.e. level 3 in structure downwards). Some clients have restricted this altogether and only allowed "super users" or IT to create/change folders. The key is to ensure that folder structure design works for the entire organization (which is usually easier said than done).

Cheers,

Lashan

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Thanks to all of you for your input on this matter. Lashan we were thinking along similar lines, that a Doc admin is the only one that could create a folder at level 1 under public Root, and then subfolders from there could be created by the different functional leaders within the business at level 2, and then project managers at level 3 and so on. But still things could turn into a mess after a while. Perhaps a folder clean up every six months or something. Remove folders not in use anymore from completed projects, etc. Of course people could always add folders of interest to their private folder structure if they want to. Does anybody know if there is a performance hit if there is a massive folder structure in the public area vs just a handfull of folders containing only the doucments applicable to all users?

Former Member
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There is a performance issue if a folder (document structure) contains a large number of items (documents and folders). I think the number is 600-800 items in a folder, there a couple of SAP note which describes this issue in detail. Also check note 1386897.

Former Member
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Hi Joseph,

Am in agreement with Kristoffer's comments to an extent.Managing a bulky system has its challenges over time.

Since collaboration is a requirement that you are looking at along with Doc mgmt,would suggest you also explore option of SAP cFolders solution in your case. Would simplify things to a large extent.

Regards,

Pradeepkumar Haragoldavar

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You are right when it comes to searching for documents. We are implementing TREX. Regarding the classification, we do have some high level classification including a classification for the document category, (ex: Manual, Datasheet, drawing, Procedure, ....) But that is it, requiring a complete classification can be time consuming and you soon realize that you can't cover all documents to that level of detail and so everybody would use a miscellanous classification by default. A better approach may be to follow a standard set of verbage for the document description, do you agree? Anyways back to my post. I agree that for searching you would not use the folders. But this is just for browsing through the documents. For example for a given project we know that there has to be certain documents generated. If this was represented in a folder structure that users could look through they could quickly identify if there was anything missing.

Former Member
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A better approach may be to follow a standard set of verbage for the document description, do you agree?

Makes sense if training is appropriate and users are disciplied in their approach while processing DIR's.Needless to say,would help greatly if considerable time is invested for identifying the document categories,classification attributes(current and forecasted),description field parameters so that search and retrieval is simplified.

Regards,

Pradeepkumar Haragoldavar

Former Member
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Hi!

My suggestion is to skip the folders all together! It will end as a total mess after a couple of years. My recommendation is to use the classification of the document type and classify the document with the right information. You can then search for the documents and you don't need to look through tons of folders to find the right document.

I know that you have to put the document in a folder to be able to create it in EasyDMS but at my customers we have a year folder and then month folders underneath where they just dump the documents. We then work with either object links or classification to find the right documents in the business processes. Another recommendation is to implement the TREX engine to be able to find your documents. I donu2019t know if this was the answer you wanted to get but I think this is the way forward if you would like to have a DMS system that could be used to 10+ years. Imagine replacing Google with a file browser!

Best regards,

Kristoffer P