DMS - Document Structures

A Document Structure is a hierarchy of containers that store documents of specified Document Types.

It is similar to a traditional network or disk folder structure where files can be organised.

Every possible/potential folder that a Document Structure may require must be defined in advance. Folders cannot be created in an ad hoc fashion by users of the system.

Expand the link below to see how to create the structures.

From the Administration menu select Document Structures;

When you click the Add Document Structure button the following screen will be displayed;

Enter a Name for the structure.
Select the Related Object Type from the drop-down list.
Enter the name for the physical folder.

You can then add subfolders to the main folder;

You can add as many subfolders as required.

"To Folder" or "Not To Folder"

The DMS works like a Google search, so you don’t need to have folders in place to search and find what you’re after. Entering a reference (e.g. a job number) and part of the document name will get you the exact file you’re looking for. Because of this, folders are no longer needed as much as before. We need to remember that we still have a copy of the documents on the LAN, and having them in organised folders makes any use of the files in this traditional way much easier to find what you’re looking for when browsing through the network.

It is recommended to continue to use folders, but to group more ‘similar’ things together in fewer folders. Folders are still very helpful when you’re browsing rather than searching.

Related Object Types

A Document Structure is always created around a particular type of 'thing' (or object) that all documents in the structure relate to.

For example, A Project will have many different files and documents that must be saved for it. A Document Structure for Projects would be created to capture and organise these files and documents.

Logical & Physical Names

As the Document Structure is a virtual representation of the hierarchy in the DMS, full and meaningful folder names should be used to describe the content of the folder accurately. These 'Logical' names do not need to be constrained in the same way that traditional disk folder names might have been (i.e. length and characters used).

As the DMS also supports publishing the latest version of documents to the LAN (see below), each logically named folder should also have a 'Physical' name, a name that is typically shorter and does adhere to disk folder naming conventions.

Published Latest Version

While the DMS interface provides for powerful searching and browsing of documents, many in-office applications require the documents to be accessible on the LAN.

The DMS can be configured to 'Publish' the latest version of documents to a secure LAN location that:

preserves the Document Structure as a disk folder structure (using physical names)
updates files with any newer versions that become available

The published files allow staff, 3rd party applications, and office processes to quickly and directly access documents from the physical Document/Folder Structure on the disk, being confident that they are the latest version.

Importantly, the location where latest-version documents are published should be secure and read-only to all users bar the DMS service account that maintains the disk files. This ensures integrity in the published version of DMS files/documents.

Version Control

In addition to publishing the latest version of a Document Structure's documents as disk files, version control can be enabled to store a copy of every version of a document over time.

This backup copy of every document version allows the complete history of a document to be seen, including the ability to revert to an earlier version if a mistake has been made.

Importantly, the location where the versions of documents are saved should be secure and only accessible to the DMS service account that maintains the disk files. This ensures the integrity of the version control process.

Note: The history/version of a document is only captured for every version if the document is uploaded via the DMS Proxy, or is detected as a new version added directly to the cloud when synchronisation to the LAN is performed. As Cloud-to-LAN synchronisation is scheduled and periodic, it is not done for every document version added directly to the cloud. ie. if multiple versions of the same document are added in rapid succession directly to the cloud (and not via the proxy), the synchronisation process will only collect (and version control) the latest cloud document, and not the other interim versions that were quickly added.

Applicable Sites

Implementing a Document Structure for a Site (typically an office network LAN) indicates that the site will be the source of documents. A site will typically have LAN Locations for the publish (latest version) files, and for the version control history for all document revisions.

Determining where files should be saved must consider the network/LAN permissions that end-users will have to access the files directly. If the files in the Structure are in any way sensitive to direct LAN access, they should be stored in a LAN location that has network level permissions controlling who can directly access the files.

Sharing a Document Structure

Document structures can be shared with Related Organisations. If related organisations are available, the ability to share a Document Structure will be enabled.

The owner of the structure is considered the Publisher, with the related organisation considered the Subscriber. A shared structure can be used, but not modified, by the subscriber. Once shared from the publisher, the subscriber must complete normal setup/configuration activities (such as establishing Applicable Sites) as if the structure was their own.