Not your usual blog on Document Management and Delivery (DMD) Add-ons

Last weekend I went on a day trip to London

On the Tube, I saw a series of posters from the company managing the advertisement space on the Tube: “87% of the passengers welcome ads on the Tube”, “Each Tube traveler spends on average 44 min on the Tube every day”, “1 billion people journey by Tube every year”. Next I was expecting a poster like “What are you waiting for? Place your ad here.”

This is probably what you would expect from the average blog on Document Management and Delivery Add-ons for ERP: “Each invoice you send by regular mail takes X minutes to process”, “You’re sending XX documents per month.” “Using XXX Document Management System can save you up to xx per month.” That’s not what this blog is about. I think we can agree that this is the way to go. (The number of offerings in the area is proof enough that there is a need for such a solution).

The question then becomes, not if you need it, but what functionality a Document Management and Delivery Add-on should provide (well, besides the obvious one of sending document electronically)? What features should you look for? I can think of several aspects which one should take into account when reviewing Document Management Add-ons:

Bulk emails

- If you can send individual emails (accounts would probably be a good example), could you send batch emails (like a marketing campaign)?

Processing method (Outlook, SMTP) and email template (Text, HTML)

- How are the emails sent? The obvious option is Outlook. Creating a new email and allowing the user to fill in the email body. But what if you are sending the same email every day? Wouldn’t email templates be useful? Can the template use advanced graphics? Nowadays, when company identity is so important wouldn’t you want to be able incorporate logos and company graphics in the email?

Conditional attachments

- Are there additional documents you need to send with an invoice or an order confirmation? Like T&Cs or a CAD drawing or a fact sheet? Wouldn’t it be useful to define attachments to go with every email? Then every time an email is sent additional documents are automatically attached?

Archiving

- What if you are required to store a copy of the document sent? Archiving could be a very useful functionality. Rather than manually saving a PDF copy to the network or on SharePoint, with the same click sending the email you could have the document archived. Including detailed metadata for SharePoint libraries.

Usability and Setup

- It is good to have all there advanced features, but how easy are they to set up and use? Will you have to call your NAV partner every time you want to add an additional recipient for a customer?

Roadmap and Upgrades

- Are there any plans to develop the product further? How far ahead is the partner thinking? How does he envision the product in 2 years’ time? Having released a new version, how easy will it be to upgrade? After all, you will have to pay for an upgrade, even if the new release is provided free of charge, as a benefit of being on an active enhancement plan.

Navigating the myriad of flavours these add-ons come in isn’t an easy task. Various solutions might provide similar functionality but be presented in totally different ways. Answering these questions will help you get an idea of what you need out of a Document Management and Delivery system.

If you’ll like to find out about our Document Sending Add-on click here or contact us via email.

Please feel free to leave a comment with any opinions, suggestions, and questions. I look forward to hearing from you.