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No matter what kind of documents you manage in your company and no matter where you work and which device you use - with windream, you will always have your digital workplace with you. Whether in the home office, on the road or in the office - there are no limits to the availability of your electronic documents!
No matter whether workflow modelling or classical document management - with the windream document management system, you will combine both applications into one single, highly integrated software system.
In our e-book you will learn everything you need to know about document management. The DMS Guide is aimed at both beginners and advanced users who want to deepen their knowledge. In the e-book, we explain what a document management system actually is, what advantages it offers you and what criteria you should pay attention to when choosing the right DMS.
A DMS or document management system is used for the electronic capture, processing, management and legally compliant archiving of documents in a database. These are then made available via the system - every authorised member of the organisation has access regardless of location and time via corresponding end devices such as smartphones, tablets or desktop PCs. Documents already available in electronic form are captured directly by the DMS, while paper documents are easily fed into the system via document scanners.
When adding documents to the DMS, the user indexes them. These keywords or indexes refer to information relevant to the content, such as the name of a client or supplier, the identification number of a machine or a designation such as "delivery note" or "invoice". "Allowed" is any information that helps you to easily find the file afterwards via the DMS interface.
Security is always taken care of: the underlying rights concept of a DMS protects the documents from access by unauthorised third parties. It is determined which employees have access to the archived documents and which do not. This function is a basic requirement of a DMS in order to comply with legal regulations, such as the DSGVO or the GoBD.
Since a variety of systems are in operation in every company (ERP, Outlook, teams, financial accounting software, etc.), which sometimes have more, sometimes less to do with documents, a document management software has the corresponding interfaces. This ensures seamless integration in order to transfer the required data to the DMS. This is a clear advantage of a modern document management system: it adapts to your existing system architecture and does not require any costly restructuring that, in a worst-case scenario, would turn half your business inside out.
And what about access to your DMS? You use your document management system either from the cloud or on-premises, i.e. from your company's own server environment. Both options have their advantages and disadvantages, which we will be happy to advise you on.
Learn more about the windream cloud solution
The terms "ECM system" and "DMS system" are among the most frequent search queries on Google, Bing & Co. when it comes to the topic of document management. But what is the difference between a DMS and an ECM system?
In contrast to the DMS, the ECM is not limited to the capture, archiving, management and provision of digital documents. All in all, the ECM manages the entirety of corporate content across all media, which includes not only documents but also unstructured data such as audio, video and photo formats, but also presentations, Outlook files or voice memos. The ECM system is thus superordinate to the DMS.
In addition to the document management system, the ECM also includes other software solutions, such as business process management, collaboration tools, web content management and business protocol management. The document management system thus represents a sub-area within the ECM system.
What is ECM?
Document management is THE central component of every company. Or do you know a company that can do without documents? A DMS is helpful for everyone who has to manage documents. No matter whether employees work in small teams or in large departments. windream is a document management system which does not address any special departments or branches. As a DMS, it can be used universally. In industry as well as in the service sector, in trade or in commerce. You can learn more about our customers, who they are and how individually they use the windream document management software, in our user reports which you can download directly from our homepage here.
To success stories
Basically, a DMS like windream can be used in every department of a company. The size of the company or the number of its employees is irrelevant. The Business Edition of windream allows an unlimited number of users and user groups. In principle, nothing stands in the way of a company-wide use.
Learn more in our on-demand webcast "Digital document management without frills". Our speaker Marco Keßler, Business Alliance Manager of windream GmbH, will show you what digital document management is, whether it is relevant for your company and what advantages result from using a document management system.
Watch the on-demand webcast now.
"Time is money!" - This sentence applies today more than ever. Creating, managing, archiving and researching documents - all these processes can no longer be done adequately on paper in the age of digital transformation. Instead, modern and powerful IT solutions support you in carrying out all your "document jobs" in a purely electronic way. This is especially true in situations that require quick action. For example, in the case of customer enquiries. With electronic DMS software, you are on the safe side in every situation. And the quick retrieval of any information is only one of the strengths of a document management system (DMS). In the following we go into the 7 most important advantages of a DMS.
What is ECM?
One of the biggest advantages of implementing a DMS is the immense savings potential for companies. In addition to paper, printing and archiving costs, you save one thing above all: the time of your employees. A resource that can now be used more sensibly elsewhere. This is achieved on the one hand by faster access times to documents and information and on the other hand by the fact that work processes that were previously done manually can be transferred to digital workflows and completed partially or fully automatically.
You are probably familiar with this: the mountain of documents that accumulates in a company over the years can hardly be measured. It is easy to lose track of everything, even if a large part of the business correspondence is already received in digital form. A DMS helps you to find your way through the data jungle and supports you as a user to quickly find the desired document or the required information. For this purpose, there is indexing, which provides each file with the appropriate keywords. This reduces access time to a minimum - no comparison to searching for lost files in the basement archive. Your documents are always where you have immediate and quick access to them.
Access can take place at any time and from any place, as long as an appropriate terminal device is in use. On the one hand, this creates new opportunities for collaboration between employees. On the other hand, companies are reacting to the demands of a modern working world in which home office and remote work have long since ceased to be considered an "alternative working concept" to the office - a decisive factor in remaining attractive as an employer in the future. Employees are already attaching more and more importance to the possibility of working remotely in order to better reconcile work and private life.
Processes in the company can be handled much faster with a DMS and are less prone to errors. For example, invoice processing can be partially or even fully automated. Collaboration among employees who need to access shared documents can also be optimised through appropriate workflows and thus be simplified for everyone involved. Each actor knows which processing steps still need to be completed in a process and can release the document for the next person after it has been processed.
windream Business Process Management is the perfect choice for mapping electronically controlled business processes with workflows. This way, you can combine classical document management with digital process management and model your own workflows for your individual requirements in your company.
A DMS must ensure auditability. This means that it is possible to record in the archiving process that it is the original document and that it is archived unchangeably when required.
In Germany, you are legally obliged to comply with certain retention periods, for example in the case of invoice documents, which must be kept in the original for the tax office for a set minimum period. According to the GDPR, on the other hand, you may not archive certain personal data for longer than a specified period of time - the stored data must be deleted again after this time. In addition, there is the problem that requirements in legislation change from time to time and irritations can quickly arise or a change in deadline is simply slept through. A DMS supports you in complying with legally prescribed deadlines, taking changes in deadlines into account and thus ensuring compliance with the law.
A DMS has a positive impact on the environmental sustainability of your company, as you save paper. At the same time, less is printed out, which reduces the consumption of toner or printer ink. All in all, you contribute to a more sustainable management and work more resource-efficiently than ever before.
DMSs use special security mechanisms to protect companies from data loss. The loss of documents can quickly become a business-damaging factor and is to be avoided through the digital archiving of documents.
A DMS also offers significantly higher security standards than a paper archive. This is achieved, for example, through life-cycle management, with which documents are stored on different hardware storage systems according to configurable rules. In addition, backups are carried out as standard in order to be prepared for a primary data failure and to provide "double" or even "triple" protection. The topic of cyber security is also relevant in this context: The task of a DMS is also to archive documents in such a way that they are not accessible to cyber attacks (e.g. in the form of an encryption attack). Offline backups that prevent access by criminals contribute to this in particular.
There are numerous reasons which speak for an electronic document management system (DMS). The integration of windream into Microsoft Windows makes windream a superior document management system.
The technologies we use for the development of our document management system (DMS) windream are patented. Based on the so-called Virtual File System (VFS), you can manage your electronic documents very easily via the Windows Explorer. The typical document management functions are all integrated into Windows resp. into the Explorer. So you work as usual without having to familiarize yourself with a new and unfamiliar desktop.
With our new windream Dynamic Workspace - a component of windream version 7 - and the mobile apps, you are no longer bound to your workplace in the office. You decide where and with which device you would like to work. On the basis of modern web technologies, you make yourself independent of place and time.
In the context of compliance, you work with a DMS software whose conformity with the current legal regulations on immutability in data archiving and retention is fully given. This is confirmed one hundred percent by an independent legal opinion. Compliance with legal regulations relating to tax and data protection, e.g. GoBD and EU-DSGVO, applies both to the management of your documents and to archiving and data deletion after the retention periods have expired.
Learn more about Compliance
Four times in a row, windream has won the competition of the Würzburg "Business Application Research Center" (BARC) within the scope of two studies. These studies concerned an evaluation with regard to the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) functions of our system, as well as an analysis of the ability to generate and administer electronic files. In both studies, the windream software achieved an outstanding result in all test disciplines.
Test winner E-File
windream offers you both a powerful document management system (DMS) and a safe and reliable long-term archive. In order to be able to archive in conformity with the law with windream, you do not need a separate archiving module. Both components - DMS and archiving functions - are already included in the windream software by default.
Audit-compliant archiving
With the rights concept integrated in the windream software, you can protect your electronic documents against unauthorised access or deletion. The individually definable rights concept allows you to assign rights for folders and documents. Thereby, a right can be granted down to the level of a single document. You as an authorised user will finally determine which employees are allowed to access certain documents which you have archived in windream, and which employees are not. This way, you create the basic prerequisite for complying with legal regulations, e.g. the EU-DSGVO.
The windream software has such a modular structure that nothing stands in the way of a customer-specific adaptation of our document management system (DMS). Among other reasons, this is also due to our philosophy of open interfaces. They allow you to design your system individually according to your own requirements, to extend it or to expand it specifically by using further windream software solutions.
With numerous solutions for special requirements, we offer you a windream product world which is getting bigger and bigger. For example, you can integrate scanning solutions for the digitisation of existing paper documents as well as specialized solutions in the fields of ERP, SAP or imaging. In total, there are about 100 software products available which we and our windream partners have developed for you.
Integrations
Usability" - i.e. user-friendliness - and thus the acceptance of a DMS in your company can decisively contribute to the fact that the use of a DMS really becomes a success. With windream, your employees are always on the safe side. Because your employees will continue to work as usual without having to familiarise themselves with a new software interface. This is due to the fact that windream is completely integrated into Windows!
Your employees simply use the familiar Windows Explorer with its integrated windream drive to access documents. Within this DMS-drive, you simply create the required folder structures and save all documents in the desired directories within the DMS-drive. Done! All other commands for executing DMS-specific functions are carried out via the context menu of the Windows Explorer and via the file properties of the documents. DMS-specific functions are, for example, the assignment of access rights to documents, the creation of document versions, the assignment of indexes or keywords, the document history and much more.
There is no need for a time-consuming training of your employees, as they all know the Windows Explorer and its functionality. The acceptance of the windream document management system (DMS) by your employees is therefore extraordinarily high, as they use windream intuitively.
The windream document management system (DMS) is THE solution, if you are looking for a technologically leading and, at the same time, easy-to-use software, with which you can handle all tasks concerning documents and business processes completely digitally. The latest windream version 7 with its "Dynamic Workspace" offers you an unprecedented freedom in managing your electronic documents - easily, securely, efficiently and cost-efficiently.
DMS software comprises much more than "just" classic document management. "DMS software", these are also products that can be used to extend classic document management with additional DMS software solutions that make every office worker's life immensely easier. DMS software solutions can be designed for very different purposes, for example, as integration with third-party products used in your company, as a specialized solution for email archiving, as an imaging system for digitizing your paper documents, or even as a highly specialized solution for SAP systems. All this and much more can be found in the windream product world in the form of own developments or as products of our windream partners.
The document management system (DMS) windream is considered to be the technologically leading solution for capturing, managing and archiving any kind of documents. Learn more about our products, solutions and integrations.
It is the classic case of a "media break", as it is often called in technical jargon: You receive a business letter by post, i.e. on paper. However, since this letter is relevant to your business, you want to transform it into digital form as quickly as possible in order to have it available in your IT-based information system - for example, a DMS - and to be able to assign it to a specific business process or project. So what to do? - With our software solutions for the digital transformation of paper into electronic form, you can largely automate the entire workflow. For this purpose, you can use our software solution windream Imaging, for example. With it, you can scan documents conveniently. But there is much more: If configured accordingly, the imaging system is able to index the scanned document on the basis of the automatically extracted metadata and to assign it to a specific folder of your windream DMS. Even the automatic generation of a PDF file and its archiving is child's play with windream Imaging. Even the automatic extraction of document contents from image files is no witchcraft - our software will do this in no time. Thus, you and the employees of your company will be able to find any archived document again immediately. Simply type a search term into the search mask. The DMS software immediately finds every document that contains the search term.
Scanning
Creating, collecting, processing, analyzing, interpreting, classifying, archiving data - all this is typically part of the workflows in a company which we associate with the management of data. With the windream software, you can handle these tasks quite elegantly, because documents are data, too. So, what could be more obvious than archiving any kind of data - completely independent of its specific type and form - in windream in an audit-proof way? Because windream does not care what kind of data you save in the digital windream archive.
The metadata - i.e. those data which describe a document in the form of indexes - help you to retrieve archived documents in a targeted way and thus to find them again within seconds. Simply enter the metadata into the windream search mask. The document management system will immediately find all documents matching the metadata and list them in a clearly arranged result list.
As windream automatically extracts the full text from the archived documents and saves it separately in its database, it is sufficient to simply enter any terms into the search mask. windream will then search for these terms in the full text database and find all documents which contain the entered search terms. With this kind of retrieval, the full texts of the documents are used as metadata, so to speak.
Search & Find
Whether invoices, delivery bills, birth certificates, letters, e-mails or contracts - documents determine our lives. Actually, any information can be considered as a document, independent of its content and form. And because this is the case, you can create, edit and archive any kind of information in windream. And all this, of course, in compliance with the generally valid laws for the storage of digital documents and their availability.
Documents, files, information, formats - if you work with windream in your company, it does not matter what kind of files or information you save in the DMS. A simple double-click on the file archived in windream is sufficient to open the file with the associated original application. Whether it is a classic Office file like an Excel sheet, a Word document or an "exotic" file format - if the original application is installed on your terminal device, any file and the information it contains will be opened immediately. Unless, of course, you have a powerful file viewer like windream DocView at your disposal. Then, you do not even need the original application to read the information in a file. The viewer knows several hundred file formats whose contents or information it brings to your screen.
Nowadays, typewriters are only found in museums. Typing on paper has long since been replaced by electronic documents. Because the creation, management and archiving of electronic documents opens up completely new dimensions of office organization. Collect your personal, business-relevant electronic documents and information and store them, for example, in a digital information pool of your company, which contains your entire corporate knowledge. In a modern DMS like windream, it is even possible to automatically convert the most different file formats of your electronic documents into the universal PDF or PDF/A format. Without having to do this process manually. In this way, you future-proof the readability of your electronic documents and the information they contain. And in this way you can make your electronic documents available even to users who do not have the original application installed for the file format in which an electronic document was created. After all, PDF is universally readable.
Document editing is certainly THE central topic when it comes to modern document management and a system suitable for it. However, editing does not only comprise the modification of document contents as such, but also the editing of metadata like e.g. indexes. But windream can do much more: For example, you can create new versions of your documents in order to be able to continue editing them without overwriting the previous version. This is a very important criterion when it comes to keeping different versions which reflect different stages of a document and thus document its creation on the basis of the editing data.
With the document versioning function integrated in windream as a standard feature, new versions of a document saved in windream can be created with only one mouse click. Versioning has serious advantages, as this function allows you to create a new version of a document without changing the old version, for example. Thus, it is also possible to create any number of versions of a document with versioning.
What are the basics for successful document management? This question can certainly be answered by a variety of possible answers. One of the most applicable: the security of your documents. If this is not given, digital document management cannot work in the long run. In windream, there are very special security mechanisms with which you can secure your documents. For example, the lifecycle management for documents. This allows you to save your electronic documents fully automatically and according to configurable rules on different hardware storage systems, also redundantly in terms of one or more backups. After all, the basis for relaxed working is always to be prepared for the worst case scenario!
Digital archiving has now completely replaced the traditional "paper archive". The advantages of digital archiving are obvious: audit-proof storage of all documents in digital form, much faster retrieval and thus significantly shorter access time to each digitally archived document.
In windream, you archive every document in an audit-proof way. On the one hand, this means that digital document archiving is always carried out on the basis of and in compliance with the legal regulations which are decisive for business-relevant documents. On the other hand, the term revision security also means that documents are securely protected against changes. In short: In windream, you can archive all documents in such a way that they cannot be modified or edited after archiving, if required
Meet compliance requirements
Are you still working according to the "analog" principle and still not executing business processes with digital workflows? Are you still running from office to office to have documents forwarded and signed? - Then it's high time to really drive digital progress in your company. Business processes take place in every company - every day and thousands of times. But often they are not digital! How would it be, for example, if digital workflows could even be connected to the documents accompanying the processes? With our software system windream BPM, you can design your business processes completely digitally - namely with workflows!
A workflow is the digital contrast to traditional, "analog" business processes. Workflows are executed via the windream BPM Client application. For this purpose, both a Windows and a web application are available. In contrast, the workflows are modeled and configured with the BPM Designer - simply, quickly and reliably. The BPM-system is the ideal supplement to your windream DMS. Thus, you have both a document management system and a business process management system as an integrative "complete package" under one roof.
Optimize workflows
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Support is very important to us! In case of support we are known for our fast response time. Our service offer within the scope of software maintenance provides you as a user with a comprehensive range of assistance and support services. For our customers, we have developed a maintenance and software service program which offers you a comprehensive package of services around the windream product world on a contractual basis and covers the complete support for your windream system. Thus, your company will always be on the safe side in case of a fire. And also safe from incalculable maintenance costs.
We will be happy to advise you personally on our digitization solutions!
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