Replace Hummingbird DM with SharePoint?

WISDOM DMF Professional makes it possible…

The improved document management capability of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is leading many organizations to ask whether they can use SharePoint to replace their existing Hummingbird document management environment. This paper discusses how by combining Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007) with add-on software called WISDOM Document Management Framework – Professional Edition (WISDOM DMF Professional) organizations can obtain the document management functionality and ease-of-use that they need to create a cost-effective alternative to Hummingbird DM.

The table at the end of the paper summarises how WISDOM DMF Professional adds value to MOSS 2007.

Client / Matter-Centric Operation
Unique document numbering
Meta-data handling
Handles all file types
Searching
Version control
Security
Managing Outlook Email Messages
Offline operation
Intuitive Management of Stored Documents
Integration with other Applications
Workflows and Alerts
Retention and Archiving
Usage logging and Reporting
Capacity / Volume Handling

1. Client / Matter-Centric Operation

When implemented in a Professional Services organization, Hummingbird and other traditional document management systems allows the user to view the document repository as being organized on the basis of Clients and Projects for those Clients. The jargon varies across industries – e.g. users in a law firm or legal department will refer to Clients and Matters while some financial consulting organizations refer to Accounts and Deals.

The legal document user simply chooses Client and Matter to view all the documents for that Matter. WISDOM DMF Professional enables the user to maintain this Client / Matter centric approach when saving to and retrieving from a SharePoint-based document repository.

Figure 1: Client / Matter centric ‘Save to SharePoint’ dialog of WISDOM DMF Professional

The WISDOM DMF Professional user selects values for Client and Matter from searchable drop-downs that WISDOM populates by retrieving data direct from a Practice Management System, by using the Business Data Catalog (BDC) mechanism of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Professional Structure

Figure 2: WISDOM DMF Professional retrieves Client and Matter from existing Practice Systems

WISDOM DMF Professional ships with BDC definitions and a Client/Matter web service, which facilitate integration with existing Practice Management Systems.

2. Unique Document Numbering

As a document or file is saved, Hummingbird and other traditional DM systems remove the need for a user to name the file – instead the system allocates a unique Document ID.

WISDOM DMF Professional also assigns a unique document ID to each document as it is stored in the SharePoint repository. If desired, the existing Hummingbird numbering scheme can even be continued on in the new SharePoint + WISDOM environment. WISDOM will also display a Document Reference, which combines the unique Document ID with other identifying details. When a Microsoft Office document is opened from SharePoint this Document Reference will automatically be available as a Document Property, which provides a convenient means of including the Document Reference in the footers of documents.

3. Meta-Data Handling

Hummingbird and other traditional document management systems emphasise the key role that meta-data plays in the effective management of documents and files. As a document or file is saved, these systems ‘profile’ (i.e. capture meta-data for) the document or file. To retrieve the file the user essentially performs a search based on this meta-data or on its unique Document ID (see above).

WISDOM DMF Professional extends MOSS 2007 so that the user experience when profiling (capturing meta-data capture) consistent and efficient across all applications. Whether the user is saving a document from Microsoft Word, an email message from Microsoft Outlook or a PDF from Adobe Reader, WISDOM DMF displays the same meta-data profiling dialog.

WISDOM DMF Professional includes ‘Smart’ templates for creating document libraries that contain automatic meta-data columns for Client and Matter. These automatic meta-data columns minimize the user effort associated with profiling and ensure accurate meta-data for successful searching.

4. Handles all Types of Files

Microsoft SharePoint can store all types of documents or files. There are obvious differences in terminology and approach between SharePoint and Hummingbird – e.g. with SharePoint every stored file has a name and a known location within a hierarchy made up of site collections, sites and document libraries. The SharePoint document library can be seen as playing much the same role as a Search Folder in a Hummingbird environment.

In addition to the Client / Matter centric view (see above) WISDOM DMF Professional can also provide an intuitive tree-view display of each user’s SharePoint environment. This tree-view is familiar to users from their experience with Windows Explorer and Microsoft Outlook.

Explorer view of sharepoint document libraries and folders

Figure 3: WISDOM provides an intuitive tree-view display of the user's available SharePoint environment

The WISDOM tree-view display helps users to adapt from their Hummingbird libraries and folders to the new SharePoint site, document library and folder structure. It is also convenient for users from the Administrative departments within a Professional Services firm – who no longer need to supply a ‘dummy’ Client or Matter number (as required by Hummingbird or other traditional DM systems).

The WISDOM tree-view display makes navigating a large SharePoint environment efficient in terms of both user effort and machine resources. Relevant features in this regard include:

SharePoint Favorites – one click access to frequently used libraries and folders
My Recent Files – rapid access to recently used documents and files
Search Site Tree – quickly locating within the SharePoint site / library tree.
Filter Sites and Libraries – for zooming in on a wanted site or library
Choked File List – good bandwidth usage when viewing large document libraries
Filter File Display – server based filtering based various meta-data columns
Smart Caching – at both client and SharePoint server

5. Searching

WISDOM’s intuitive display of the SharePoint site and library hierarchy means that users can often browse rather than search for the file(s) they want. However it is still essential that users be able to search efficiently across the SharePoint DM repository. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 enables powerful searching on the basis of meta-data (profile information) as well as by free-text indexing. WISDOM DMF Professional dramatically improves the user interface to the MOSS 2007 Search Engine. WISDOM allows a search to be initiated directly from within the ‘Open from SharePoint’ dialog that it adds to Microsoft Office applications.

Figure 4: Client / Matter centric ‘Open from SharePoint’ dialog of WISDOM DMF Professional

WISDOM DMF Professional also provides convenient access to specially tailored ‘Search Documents’ and ‘Search My Documents’ pages. These search pages contains controls that correspond to the main search criteria and which WISDOM populates by retrieving from an existing Practice Management System. Users can then simply select valid values (rather than keying search criteria) - the result is more successful searching with much less user effort.

Figure 5: Client/Matter Search page of WISDOM DMF Professional

6. Version Control

SharePoint 2007 will automatically create new minor or major versions for a document each time it is checked back in to the DM repository. Versioning can be configured for individual document libraries. SharePoint will retain a specified number of minor and major versions, and allows reversion to a previous version.

WISDOM DMF Professional assists with Version Control by automatically checking out the documents as they are opened for editing from SharePoint. WISDOM Explorer allows a user to view the Version History for a file simply by right clicking its name in a WISDOM Explorer display.

7. Security

Tight integration with Windows Active Directory together with flexible, role-based permissions down to individual document level means that a SharePoint DM solution easily matches Hummingbird in the area of security. SharePoint’s hierarchical structure of site collections, sites, document libraries allows security to be delegated safely to individual teams and business units.

WISDOM DMF Professional enhances the SharePoint user experience by providing one-click navigation to the SharePoint browser page for setting document level security. WISDOM makes document-level security available to Contributor-level users (out-of-the-box SharePoint requires Design or Administrator permissions to set Document-level security).

Figure 6:‘Secure Document’ in WISDOM DMF Professional streamlines document level security

8. Managing Outlook Email Messages

Email messages form a key part of the documentation trail in most organizations, so it is essential that there be an easy-to-use, effective means of managing those email messages. In addition to saving the message and any attachments, there is also a need to profile the message (i.e. capture meta-data in respect of it).

WISDOM significantly improves the out-of-the-box integration of Microsoft Outlook and SharePoint so that these requirements are satisfied. The resulting solutions more than match the email message management capabilities of Hummingbird and other traditional DM systems.

WISDOM users can drag-and-drop to save messages to their favourite locations in SharePoint. WISDOM automatically creates a unique name for each message, thereby reducing the risk of storing duplicate copies of that message in SharePoint.

WISDOM has excellent handling of attachments, on both incoming and outgoing messages. Messages are saved so any attachments preserved automatically – alternatively attachments can be saved separately to SharePoint.

SharePoint Document Management

Figure 7: Installing WISDOM DMF Professional adds a number of customizations to Outlook 2007

As it saves messages to SharePoint, WISDOM will set columns related to the standard email attributes (such as To, From, SentOn, etc) and prompt for any content types and custom meta-data columns – just as it does when saving any other types of files.

Messages can be saved while Offline and Outlook rules can be used to automate the routing of messages to particular SharePoint locations.

9. Offline Operation

These days mobile workers need to be able to take documents, email messages and files out of the central DM repository, so that they can work with them while out of the office and offline. However it is important that on return to the office, that any new or revised documents are easily uploaded back into the DM repository.

WISDOM DMF Offline provides this functionality in a SharePoint environment. While offline, documents are held in special folders in the Windows file share environment, and in Microsoft Outlook. When the user next comes online, WISDOM will handle the upload of new or revised documents to the corresponding libraries in SharePoint. WISDOM will capture any relevant meta-data for new documents and update Version numbers if appropriate.

10. Intuitive Management of Stored Documents

Once documents and files are stored in the document repository, it is essential that there be an intuitive way for users to perform management tasks. These include moving the documents or files to other locations, changing their meta-data, taking them offline or even deleting them.

WISDOM users can right-click in any Windows Explorer folder (including the Desktop) to upload a file or files to SharePoint. WISDOM Explorer also runs from Windows, providing users with Windows Explorer like interface to viewing the SharePoint DM repository and performing operations on files stored in SharePoint, including moving, coping, renaming, deleting, downloading, etc.

SharePoint Document Management

Figure 8: WISDOM Explorer provides an intuitive way to manage files stored in SharePoint

11. Integration with Other Applications

Most users in a Hummingbird environment access the DM repository while working in familiar applications such as Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Hummingbird is integrated closely into those applications, e.g. replacing the standard ‘File, Open’ and ‘File, Save’ commands.

Installing WISDOM DMF Professional on a user’s PC causes similar custom integrations to appear in Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and also in Windows, providing a familiar experience for Hummingbird users.

WISDOM DMF professional also adds a ‘Save to SharePoint’ customisation to Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat, which makes the user experience of saving a PDF to SharePoint from Adobe the same as saving a document from Word, Excel or PowerPoint.

SharePoint Document Management

Figure 9: WISDOM DMF Professional adds ‘Save to SharePoint’ to Adobe Reader and Acrobat

WISDOM extends the File menu of Word, Excel and PowerPoint with ‘Open from SharePoint’ and ‘Save to SharePoint’ options. If the user then chooses the Client / Matter option, WISDOM will display a Client / Matter centric dialog rather than the standard WISDOM tree-view display.

If desired, these enhanced Save and Open menus can be made to replace the standard ‘File, Open’ and ‘File, Save’ menu items in Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

12. Workflows and Alerts

Workflows and alerts are further areas where a SharePoint-based DM solution is more than a match for Hummingbird. This is because SharePoint 2007 is designed to handle general collaboration as well as document management.

Users can subscribe to any document library and have SharePoint automatically send them an email alert whenever a document in that library is added, modified or deleted. With SharePoint 2007 those alerts can also be defined at the level of an individual document. SharePoint can also be configured to trigger a workflow whenever a new document is added or an existing document is modified. These approval workflows can be pre-defined or custom designed as required.

13. Retention and Archiving

Retention and archiving is another area where a SharePoint-based DM solution is more than a match for Hummingbird. This is because SharePoint 2007 is designed to handle general collaboration as well as document management. Each document library in a SharePoint environment can have a Retention Policy defined for it – e.g. retain all documents in this library for a specified period, or for a period determined by a formula or other calculation. When the period has expired SharePoint can be configured to delete the document or process it according to a custom defined workflow. These workflow processes can archive the document, if desired after alerting relevant users and obtaining their approval.

WISDOM DMF can provide even more flexibility around retention. A good example is the use of custom ‘DMF Plus’ screens to capture a specific Retention Period for each document or email message as it is saved to the SharePoint DM repository. DMF Plus logic can also be used to determine automatically the location where the document or message will be saved. Custom event handler logic can cause a newly saved document or message file to be made read-only to all users except those with a special role (e.g. Record Managers).

SharePoint Document Management

Figure 10: Custom ‘DMF Plus’ screen prompting for Retention Period and other record attributes

14. Usage Logging and Reporting

SharePoint 2007 can be configured on a site collection by site collection basis to automatically log all or selected access events related to documents or files stored in that site collection.

SharePoint Document Management

Figure 11:SharePoint Server provides tools for Usage Logging

The Site Collection Administration, Audit Log Reports page provides a range of reports of the resulting usage log information, including Content Modifications, Content Viewing, Deletion, etc.

Additional custom reports can be created using SQL Server Reporting Services.

15. Capacity / Volume Handling

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 implemented on SQL Server 2005 is capable of handling very large volumes of documents. MOSS server farms can have multiple front-end web servers and multiple back-end database servers.

WISDOM DMF is installed on the MOSS server environment as a SharePoint Solution, which means that MOSS will automatically manage the deployment of the WISDOM web service and other server components as additional servers are added to the farm.

WISDOM DMF makes it relatively easy to federate multiple server farms so that the individual user is able to view all available documents as being structured along business lines, regardless of where those documents are stored.

WISDOM DMF provides a number of features that enable very efficient navigation of large SharePoint document stores. See item 4 above for more details.

Ref	Requirement / Capability	MOSS 2007	MOSS 2007 + WISDOM DMF Professional
1	Client / Matter Centric Operation
1.1	Ability to view the document repository as being organised by Client and Projects / Jobs / Matters for those Clients.
1.2	Valid values of Client and Project / Job / Matter retrieved directly from existing Practice Management system.
2	Unique Document Numbering
2.1	Unique Doc ID automatically assigned to documents / messages / files as they are saved or uploaded to the document store.
2.2	Document Reference comprised of unique Doc ID, Version number and optionally Project / Job / Matter name able to be displayed and inserted as footers of Office documents.
3	Profiling / Meta Data Handling
3.1	User prompted for relevant meta-data whenever a document, message or file is saved or uploaded.
3.2	Automatic profile (meta-data) attributes.
3.3	Modify simultaneously meta-data related to multiple files.
3.4	Copy / move files from one part of the DM repository to another, maintaining profile (meta-data) information.
3.5	Meta-data able to be maintained without programming.
3.6	Valid values of profile (meta-data) attributes retrieved from external data store (e.g. CRM, Financials or other system).
3.7	Template-based creation of new areas / folders within the DM repository, e.g. for a new client, project or matter.
4	Support for all types of files
4.1	All types of files able to be stored in the DM repository – including Word, Excel, PowerPoint documents, Outlook email messages, PDFs, drawings, graphics files, etc.
4.2	User-friendly handling of special characters (e.g. % # … ) in names / titles of files being stored in the DM repository.
4.3	Folder-based viewing of files stored in the DM repository to reflect client / project / job/ matter structures and other relevant structures (e.g. for non-client related files).
4.4	View a list of at least 30 recently edited or saved documents / files in the DM repository, with click to open file.
4.5	Efficient navigation / browsing of document store.
5	Searching
5.1	Free text search of all documents in the DM repository, including PDFs, email messages and their attachments.
5.2	Keyword / profile (meta-data) based searching.
5.3	My Documents Search – automatically search the DM repository for documents created by the current user.
5.4	Search for a document based on its automatically assigned unique document number / document ID.
6	Version Control
6.1	Create and retain multiple versions of a document as that document is edited over time.
6.2	Major and minor versions – e.g. version 3.1, 3.2, 4.1
6.3	Restrict number of versions retained in the DM repository.
6.4	View available versions of a document stored in the DM repository, directly from Windows or Microsoft Outlook.
6.5	Revert to a previous version of a document.
6.6	Automatic Check Out when document opened for editing.
7	Security
7.1	Integration with Active Directory – access permissions for the DM repository can be specified using users and groups defined in the Windows Active Directory environment.
7.2	Role-based permissions - ability to control access to different areas of the DM repository on the basis of the user’s role ( e.g. Read-only access, read/write access, etc)
7.3	Secure extranet access to documents in the DM repository.
7.4	Document level security – ability to impose access controls to a particular document.
8	Managing Outlook Email Messages
8.1	Drag and drop to save an email message or multiple email messages to the DM repository from InBox or Sent Items.
8.2	View folders, files in the DM repository direct from Outlook.