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Loz Flan

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Looking for flexible customisable document management system for multiple users with individual clients

Hi all,

I've spent the last week googling about open source document management systems to try to work out which one to settle on for a documents business. Users of the system require documentation from clients and the other service providers … I've read a little of Alfresco, nuxeo and and logicaldoc and am trying to work out which one is best to base thing on so any advice  on this appreciated…  a lot of the information I've read on websites is at least a few years old

Ideally I want a good quality open source software I can then develop to my needs. I'm a little wary the open source nature of Alfresco may go the way of SugarCRM given one article I read https://medium.com/mathias-conradt/dumping-alfresco-for-nuxeo-as-my-preferred-document-management-system-2116cf421d36  but im not sure how much this should influence my decision.   … here is what I'm looking for …

I envisage an ideal system to be something along the lines of … main users could send documentation requests to clients via a browser link by email & text message … message would list documents required. From the browser, clients can upload documents to their custom repository by drag and drop or file selection from their computer. Client’s interaction with system would simply be web based. Documents are all converted to pdf within the process and stored in the system separately but can be presented back to the user as a single multipage pdf. The system should allow easy categorisation of  the documents within the single multipage pdf ie user presented with thumbnail sized pages which can be quickly easily zoomed and categorised ie client or user can select numerous pages at once to categorise different portions of a document say. On upload completion, main users  would receive prompt enabling them to check documents and send back response to client for remaining documents required. Any ability for the system to recognise empty required signature or date sections of forms within the upload process would be a bonus. A linked mobile document scanning app would allow clients to scan documents from their phone ie maybe original email link also sent via text message which prompts user to download app and opens it with their authorised account.

System should be able to create docsets ie subsets of the original documents for specific purposes. All users of the system ideally would have some type of predefined ability to authorise docsets for various other users and the ability to send prompts to others for additional documentation or to work on or verify documents.

OCR would be required and any type of auto categorisation by OCR would be a bonus. Document types to handle probably limited to pdfs, Microsoft Google office type documents, jpgs, pngs, tiffs.

Regarding use and users. I envisage up to thousands of individual users each with up to hundreds of clients using the system so it would need to be able to handle that and potentially more.

There will no doubt be many further requirements like work flows, admin capabilities etc but the above is a starter functionality list.

Any suggestions?
Avatar of Scott Fell
Scott Fell
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If you are looking to create a product that you can resell, this is no easy task.  For your requirements, I suggest listing out each criteria you are looking for on a spreadsheet.  Then in the next column, put a weight on how important each item is.  Then go through the demo's and grade on each category and that will help you decide.

For something out of the box, I would look at https://www.worldox.com/ and note there are re-seller opportunities.

Otherwise, I would look at using office 365 as your core and using the api's for any programming you need. Some very big advantages of using office365 over google gsuite that I have found include:

  • Everything on office 365 is stored on HIPAA complaint servers  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/TrustCenter/Compliance/HIPAA
  • When you call to ask for help, you get people that can assist and not have to wait 24 hrs for some higher level tech to tell you it can't be done
  • Most offices are already using MS products
  • Microsoft is less likely to change or discontinue things on a short notice like Google

Doing a lot of customization is going to mean leaning more on api's and using something like office365.  The downside is you will find it is a lot more worth than you put down on paper.  My suggestion for this route is to start out with just par of your grand scheme and get that work really well then bring some clients on board and gradually add services making sure each works very well as you add on before growing larger.

My own experience with this users get frustrated with a web interface to upload documents. The more they can use their own file system the easier it will be.  That is where a client like OneDrive can come into play.  A lot of this will also depend on the industry. Some industries may have a client intake form for instance and that can be the basis of setting things up.  Compare that to an office that just wants to go paperless which can be a very harrowing experience.
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