amagno-ecm-logo-header_60.png

29. August 2016

Document search – bigger time killer than private conversations

More time is wasted in the office on searching for documents than on those private chats you have with colleagues. This might be a controversial proposition. Or maybe not?

Just give it some thought. Even in a well-structured office, you are always busy searching for the right document in the archive, at your desk or in the depths of the network drive. Even in the case of files that you have stored yourself, trying to find them again can often take several minutes. This becomes especially tedious when covering for a colleague who is on holiday. Because we all have our own analogue and digital storage structure in our heads. And we pack this structure with us as we set off on our summer trip to Lake Garda. Take a quick look at a colleague’s desk. Are you immediately able to find your way around?

Even structured storage in the network drive doesn’t help much

Admittedly, we have just described the worst-case scenario. Most companies nowadays give their employees good instruction on how and where they should store relevant documents. Nevertheless, searching for documents in a structured storage is still usually tedious. File naming conventions are inconsistent. Documents for individual projects are scattered everywhere. Invoices are in the invoice folder, quotes are in the sales folder, and concepts with the project manager on his or her desktop. Tension increases dramatically if documents are duplicated, for example, in order to store an invoice not only with accounting but also in a personal project folder. This creates unnecessary redundancies and also puts a strain on the IT infrastructure.

Reduced gap between analogue and digital document search

What’s remarkable about the whole topic is that the gap between the analogue and digital document search is not that great. In the filing cabinet in your office, you only see the labels or lettering on the folder initially. If you’re familiar with the alphabet, then you’re already at a great advantage. “I” – for invoice … do you then search for the invoice number? Customer number? Time? Oh, sugar! The required invoice is three buildings down in the archive. We’ll see each other again in three days.

However, there is not much difference when searching on the network drives. They are also usually sorted by letters. You can find invoices here under the letter “A” for accounting. You should be able to locate and open electronic documents without delay. At the same time, there should only ever be one copy of each document to prevent misunderstandings from occurring and to prevent it from being edited twice. Legally-compliant versioning must be reserved for a Document Management system and not for the individual employee.

Simplify the document search as much as possible

The logical next step must be to wave goodbye to traditional paper storage AND the network drives. For you as the user, you shouldn’t have to worry about where the document is stored or what it is called. The relevance of your personal search is the one and only crucial factor when it comes to finding a file. Searching for the file name alone is no longer the done thing. Providers of modern Document Management systems have known this for quite a while now and offer a full-text search.

AMAGNO offers a document search with extreme performance

And now for some advertising: Yes, we at AMAGNO have not just focused solely on the capture and management of documents and data. There’s no point in just storing documents and then hiding them behind some large, obscure operating areas. Our full-text search can be started using a freely-selectable key combination from any application (hotkey search). Here, of course, you are not searching by file name, rather the full-text search can find the relevant search term in over 100 file formats. Our highly-efficient document search finds the right document from millions of files in a matter of seconds.

The document preview is also an essential part of the document search

Searching for a document on the network drive does not conclude with a list of search results. The document search only ends when you have actually found the right document. AMAGNO’s comprehensive document preview is a great help here. This allows you to take a detailed look at the file before you even open it. This also works with over 100 file formats and even for documents with more than one page. This means that you can scroll through documents with identical front pages but different content without opening them.

Find out more about our full-text search or allow us to demonstrate it to you live during one of our webinars.
Do you have a different opinion? What do you view as the biggest time killers in the office?

We always welcome your comments. Tell us about your experiences with the document search.

Valentin Tomaschek
Als Senior Marketing Manager ist Valentin bei AMAGNO verantwortlich für Online- und Printmedien, Social Media, Presse und Veranstaltungen.

Leave a Reply

Amagno