Mobile Document Management
Softology's MobileDM is a Document Management System (DMS) for mobile devices (and static computers) where documents are viewed through a WEB browser. This means that you are connected to your office documentation wherever you go, as long as you have WiFi, or access to a mobile telephone network. You now have an electronic work management system that can be refined and tuned to your exact business requirements, delivering precise control over every aspect of the process. Mobile DMMobileDM is particularly suited to smart phones and tablets, as well as laptop and notebook computers. It is ideal for tablets and phones because we optimise images so that they can be delivered to the device quickly. See more.
MobileDM is a Web-site that supports Android, Apple and some Blackberry device browsers, amongst numerous others. Specifically, our optimisations result in very quick delivery over WiFi and 3G networks for monochrome office documents such as scanned invoices, statements and MS Office documents. This, of course, depends on the network and the nature of the image. MobileDM is a 'software as a service' application that can run on MacOSX, Windows and Linux servers, and the server could be one of your in-house computers connected to the internet, a computer that you have purchased or rented from a provider, a slice of cloud, or indeed a cloud slice that Softology can provide and manage. A cloud slice is in effect a virtual machine (VM) located on a server array at a provider. Amazon and Microsoft are just two providers of VMs, there are many others. We will refer to our WEB service/VM as the 'Cloud Slice' or simply 'MobileDM' hereafter. Connection to the server is by SSL and SSH to provide secure communications. This means that your information is protected by high levels of encryption as it moves to and from your laptop, phone or tablet. MobileDM runs from your laptop's, mobile phone's or tablet's browser, but we also have plans for apps to run on tablets and smart phones, so that you will be able to work even when disconnected from a network. Please see the implementation timetable. Hide this content.
It makes good sense to capture documents on your scanning station or MFD at your office and for those documents to be stored on a server or other computer designated as a document store, especially so for secure backup. See more.
Moreover, with Softology's DMS, MS Office and other documents produced in-house are converted into images and these can be presented for viewing on mobile device. Currently we support replication of documents from Softology's DMS, but we may, in the future, support other storage mechanisms. On a regular basis, nightly maybe, or at low activity times, a scheduled task can poll the document store and identify documents which need to be updated on the Cloud Slice. This automated task will negotiate a connection with MobileDM and transfer the documents over a secure connection to MobileDM. After a few minutes of processing, the documents are then ready for viewing remotely. Hide this content.
When the documents are uploaded, security and role information is uploaded with them thus transposing in-house security to the cloud slice. See more.
MobileDM uses a combination of a Relational Database and an Information Retrieval Engine to provide very flexible and powerful search and retrieval mechanisms. This allows you to:
- Search for specific information (a supplier code, date of invoice etc.)
- Search for general information (ranges and full text with fuzzy matching)
- View documents through simple trees and the tree views from Softology Document Management
- View a Document Folio (more on this below)
- Add notes to documents
- Route documents to colleagues
- email documents to third parties
Over time, we will be adding layer upon layer of powerful searching facilities to MobileDM in order to fully exploit the mix of information stored in the relational model and the IR (information retrieval) model. This will include full text and fuzzy searching. Furthermore, we will be adding the tree functionality that is so popular in our destop Softology DMS system. Softology's Document Folios
Softology's Document Folios are a new and extremely powerful presentation facility. Folios can be made using Softology's DMS by a user with the requisite permissions (the folio owner) , and uploaded automatically to the Cloud Slice. See more.
Folios allow a folio owner to select a set of documents (either a static set, or one that can be updated as new documents are acquired) and upload them for their personal use whilst away from the office, and/or invite guests to view the folio. Guests may be colleagues in a workgroup, or suppliers or customers who can use their email address as a login, and are given a password designated by the folio owner. The folio owner may allow the guest to add notes etc. The guest will login and may select which folio they wish to view. The guest will only be able to see folios which the folio owner has allowed them to view. The folios may be viewed through a tree organised by date or by document type. Folios are always made with an automated expiry date which may be renewed by the folio owner, and all the activities performed by the folio owner are audited. Folios will allow you to effectively make information necessary for your supplier and customers available in a secure manner from their PC, laptop, phone or tablet. Hide this content.
The development of increasingly capable smart phones means that document viewing is viable as long as the documents can be delivered to the phone in a timely fashion. See more.
MobileDM addresses this by transmitting an optimised version of the image so that a phone is usable as an document viewing tool, even over a slow 3G network. A phone with a largish screen and touch controls works best, and as long as the phone is using a current version of WebKit, images should be rendered with the ability to pinch and pan with finger control. Pages can be easily viewed through postage stamp views and there is, of course, the ability to email viewed documents as well as adding notes. Hide this content.
Where an office computer is not attached to a VM on an in-house system, or when Softology's DMS client is not installed, the user may have access to MobileDM through Internet Explorer or Firefox etc. Optionally, the user may have access to folios to work on away from the office. Tablet computers
With over fifty tablets being launched at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show, and an impending doubling of tablet processing capability, tablet computing is promising to become a disruptive innovation over the course of 2013. As well as Apple with iOS on the iPad, key contenders for market domination seem to be Google Android on Samsung and Motorola (and many others), Research In Motion on the Blackberry tablet launched as The PlayBook, HP's tablet based on webOS and Microsoft Windows 7. We have tested MobileDM on Android devices as well as the iPad using their native browsers. Our intention is to develop native apps for each device over the coming year, with the ultimate objective of a 'connected or stand-alone' application available on these major platforms. In-house server
By in-house server we are referring to a server or workstation that acts as your primary document repository. This is where your documents will be located once they have been scanned and indexed, or saved in the case of office and other programs.
It is good practice to scan incoming paper work and save in-house produced
documents to a document repository, because they can be securely backed-up
and they are available on the fast in-house network.
Cloud Slice
The Cloud Slice is a Virtual Server located at an internet service provider's premises (a server farm usually). Softology's MobileDM runs as a service on a Cloud Slice and the slice can be a Linux, MacOSX or Windows server. Your documents are copied to the MobileDM on a regular basis. In effect, obileDM is acting as a document server and also a backup mechanism because your documents can be stored offsite. You may determine the amount of time your documents are kept on the Cloud Slice. This may be from 3 months to years, although the cost of storing your documents permanently on a Cloud Slice will be more costly because you will need to rent increasing amounts of disk space. We are anticipating a typical document life on MobileDM of three to six months, and any folios may be renewed indefinatley (bearing in mind disk storage space). Auditing
Any on-line activity from logging in and out, to making comments will be audited, thus complying with BSI BIP0008. Read more about BSI BIP0008 here. Implementation timetable
Please note that this is a guide and will be subject to change without notice. Q3 2012 Automated upload functionality for documents and secuity information.
General searches including fuzzy search.
Template based searches.
Mobile DM image processing and viewing.
Notes.
Folios.
Tree viewing.
E-mail sending
Additionally in no order
Routing.
Case processing including new post and invoice approval.
Mobile applications for:
- iPad and iPhone
- Android devices
- RIM (Blackberry) PlayBook
- HP webOS tablet
- Windows 7 tablets
