Free EDM For Your Business: A Good Idea?

Digital is transforming the way of working within companies. Internal processes are impacted as a whole and in-depth. With the growing trends of mobility and remote working, the cloud and collaborative solutions have gradually imposed themselves. To help you define your choice, comparing the different EDM software is advisable. Centralization and electronic archiving.

GED, What Is It?

We talk about EDM – Electronic Document Management – or GRID (Electronic Information and Document Management) for all the processes of managing and organizing documents in a computerized way. This encompasses all stages of a document’s life cycle, from creation or acquisition to archiving or destruction. Content management comes down to managing it. There are “off-the-shelf” or open-source EDM solutions – free EDM software – customizable.

What’s The Point?

The documents can be of types as diverse as they are varied. A simple digitization is enough to integrate them into the GED if they were originally paper. Once included in the management system, the document must be retrievable. Hence the issue of classification and organization.

Each item is indexed according to its content (full-text search) and metadata (file type, date added, person responsible for adding, etc.). Therefore, your EDM becomes a single search portal for all your documents. And this archiving is more complete, precise, and fluid to use than paper document management.

More Efficient Management At A Lower Cost

EDM provides greater control of internal document workflows (flows) and improves traceability. The collaborative aspect is greatly favored, with the circulation of content being done more easily. The costs associated with paper management are eliminated: consumables, storage space, mail management, time spent scanning, etc.

Accessibility Powered By The Cloud

A GED solution can be based on a local network or in the cloud. For the latter, we speak of off-site storage. It has the advantage of being available when you want and wherever you are. Multiple people can simultaneously access the media and edit it together.

A Compliance Tool

The GED is the ideal tool to comply with legal obligations and quality requirements. Implementing content storage and archiving protocols makes it possible to systematize certain stages. This is naturally part of a quality approach and helps to comply with the standards in force, whether sectoral or national.

Should You Choose A Free Or Paid GED?

Free For Individuals

Among the software publishers, some offer free GEDs. For example, this is the case of the Novaxel Family offered by Visiativ. Lightweight, the application is easy to install and intuitive to use. On the other hand, it is a single station, making it suitable for private use with individuals but not for the professional use required by companies.

Safety And Performance Aspects To Consider

Other EDM solutions offer multi-station. So that companies can use it. While it is true that having a free service available rather than a paid one seems more advantageous at first glance, the reasoning should not stop there. What about the security of your data?

Will you be able to recover them in the event of a denial of service or a concern on the part of the access provider? This data is valuable for you: make sure your chosen service provider is serious. And it is not with players providing you with a free service that you will benefit from the sufficient guarantee threshold.

Paying Offers More Control

With the GED offered at a price, rights management allows the administrator to control who has access to what, in read-only or write mode. So it can be interesting for the company to open this interface to its customers, partners, or suppliers to exchange content and information.

Promote Exchanges

Paid EDM solutions are more complete. Like Alfresco or Visiativ: Novaxel renamed Moov apps, whose APIs (Applications Programming Interface) allow synchronization with all the cloud services used as tools by the company elsewhere. Each business application has a dedicated space on the document management software. An activity wall notably allows users to exchange with each other and to be notified of new content posted or shared.

Accelerate Your Digital Transformation

A complete and paid professional EDM solution goes even further and benefits your entire organization thanks to the improvement and digitalization of the business processes it allows. For example, if you are an SME, you will appreciate the services of Zeendoc, the simple and complete platform that allows you to store and share information from all company departments.

Thanks to the automation of tasks and its intelligent search functions, you streamline all your daily operations to save time and increase efficiency. Special mention for the high level of security offered by the solution: access management, data hosting in Indian, encryption, etc.

Let’s also mention Open Bee, which can adapt your sector of activity to your specific uses and makes you gain productivity while reducing your costs. It simplifies the management and sharing of information within a controlled and secure work environment: traceability, legal value storage, certified digital safe, rights management, etc.

Its integration is facilitated because it interconnects with your existing tools. As a bonus, you benefit from the advice and support of experts for your digital transformation and technical training to support your teams in using the software. Like a library, the database becomes the backbone of your collaborative tools. At the center of the operation of your company, it promotes internal collaboration.

Some software goes even further, giving their GED formula all the characteristics of a true CSR: Corporate Social Network. This is the case of Jalios, in which collaborative editing is combined with a photo library to facilitate 360° sharing of multimedia content on all media. Managing your documents internally is a key tool for fostering interactions between employees.

With a GED well thought out and adapted to your activity, you create an environment conducive to collaborative innovation and operational efficiency. When choosing between free or paid GED, it is appropriate to evaluate all the aspects involved to make the best decision for your company.