Ask HN: what document management tools to use? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: what document management tools to use?

3 pointspbhjpbhj7 comments

A friend is looking for a simple document management tool. (I searched here and found a similar question with no answers a little while back?). Docley (http://docley.com/) looks good but isn't released and thus well tested as yet. A full CMS like Joomla might work, but seems poorly focussed. KnowledgeTree is definitely overkill and the MS integration wouldn't be suitable. The community (free-gratis) versions of Magnolia-cms (http://www.magnolia-cms.com/home/magnolia-cms.html) and Alfresco (http://www.alfresco.com/community/) look like possibilities.

He requires versioning, notes to accompany the docs (eg abstract), limited checkout (it's a small firm so just a note of the "owner" is fine), ability to make files available to clients via the web. It would be used for legal and financial docs so it needs to be self-hosted with good security.

There is a low level of technical ability amongst his 5 workers.

Google Docs/Zoho Office would probably be fine if it were privately hosted and readily shareable. There is very little budget available.

We're both in the UK.

So, suggestions? What do you use?

Would a wiki work? If you can find one that has page-level authorisation based on the username, then you can host it and give individual clients' usernames access to specific pages.

Not sure if Mediawiki allows that.

I've installed/used a few Wiki's before and authorisation on a tree has been possible, hadn't really thought of a wiki for document management (ECM).

Have you used a system like this?

I use wikis for my personal use quite a bit, as a holder of notes and scribbles, organized by project. I guess you could call it a document manager, but nowhere did I ever push the system: I only use the basic features and that's sufficient for me.

By the way, earlier this week we set up a company that had an older person that I would consider a computer-Phobe and he was comfortable with using they system in 30 minutes. Is there a legal reason that the system must be hosted locally? If so, then imagesilo will not work. If you would like I can get you set up with a demo and trial to see if it meets your needs. Not trying to sell, just trying to help. You're call.

I would recommend a solution called imagesilo. It is made by digitech systems and is sold through a reseller network. It is very powerful and can do all you ask and more. Numerous healthcare companies and financial institions currently use the system. Data is transmitted in a secure manner and the data is encrypted while it is stored. They also sell a package called PaperVision which is very good.

box.net seems like a good fit for your friend, except it's cloud based.

Do test drive the service with a free account. I'm pretty happy with the service

If you don't mind, what in particular is good, what's not good please?

Not sure he'll go for cloud based, it's largely a psychological thing but ownership of the files and assurance of security is quite a big thing.

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