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[D512]Document Management Software Comparison

by Dustin Baker, Dus

On a separate front, confidentiality laws stipulate that strict confidentiality should be maintained for certain kinds of data that come into the possession of a business.

It's easier to comply with these legal requirements with good document management software.

Awareness of Legal Requirements

The different laws and regulations can be kept updated in the document storage area and referred to quickly whenever necessary. This makes compliance with the laws much easier. Document management software makes it easy to capture these documents and retrieve the needed document in minutes, if not seconds.

What Are Confidentiality Requirements?

Document management software by itself won't protect confidential information. You have to take specific action in the form of developing policies and implementing them, using the software features where available.

To aid this, we take a brief look at typical confidentiality requirements.

The basic premise is that every individual has the right to privacy. Personally-identifiable information that comes into the possession of a business should be kept under tight security and used only for the purposes for which it was collected.

Medical conditions, educational levels, personal beliefs, financial position and sexual orientation are examples of personal information that an individual would not like to be freely distributed. Even other kinds of information should not be disclosed to third parties.

Other Kinds of Confidential Information

There are business secrets, such as product designs, marketing strategies and software codes that the business would want to keep confidential.

However, much of this confidential information needs to be disclosed to others in the course of business. The usual protection in such cases is to impose confidentiality obligations on the recipients. For example, employment contracts would invariably contain an obligation not to divulge business information to unauthorized persons.

Policies such as keeping the information secure and using only a secure means to transmit it applies to these kinds of information also.

How Do You Maintain Confidentiality?

First of all, identify which information is confidential and mark it as such. Develop and implement policies like those listed below:
Collect only the minimum amount of information
Collect certain kinds of information only with the free consent of the individual
Keep it under tight security with restricted access and secure transmission
Use the information strictly for the purposes for which it was collected (as clearly indicated to the individual when it was collected)
Keep it only as long as it is needed, and then destroy it
Impose confidentiality obligations on any recipients to whom it has to be disclosed
Train staff to handle information confidentially

How Document Management Software Helps

Good document management software contains components to restrict access to information stored in the central computers. Different levels of permissions for access, modification and deletion are granted to authorized persons. Use of passwords and audit trails not only restrict access, but also keep track of who accessed the information.

Destruction of information after the required period of storage is also easier with a document management system. Documents can be flagged with expiration dates and periodical reviews of expired documents can be reviewed and removed systematically.

Speaking of document-retention periods, laws also impose obligations to keep certain records for specified periods. For example, business accounts, employee records, health and safety records, etc. need to be maintained for a specified numbers of years. Here again, a document management software can help you keep track.

Keeping documents beyond the periods they're needed is a waste of resources. In the case of confidential information, it might also be against the law.

Conclusion

There are two main kinds of confidential information. One consists of business secrets that you don't want to get into the hands of competitors. The other is personal information you collect, or that comes into your possession, in the course of business. The law imposes confidentiality obligations regarding the second kind of information.

Good document management software helps you protect your business interests or comply with the law by restricting access to confidential information.

Importance of Data Recovery Management
Data residing on computers can be lost due to virus attacks, deliberate destruction by outsiders (or insiders) and data corruption. Such losses could affect your business in several ways:
?You could find it impossible to make informed business decisions in the absence of relevant data
?You could face penalties and legal actions for not complying with government regulations, such as maintaining employee data, filing statutory returns and so on
?You might be unable to pursue claims against your debtors or defend claims by your creditors
?The costs and problems of recreating the original data might even drive you out of business
Data loss could thus lead to extremely serious and costly results. You protect yourself against this danger through a good data recovery management system.

A sound data recovery management system would ensure that:
?Chances of data loss are minimized, and
?Lost data are quickly recovered in a usable manner.

We look at data recovery management issues in this article.

Conventional Data Recovery Procedures
Backing up the data, in the hope that it could be restored if the original data is lost, was the traditional practice. Data was backed up on to magnetic tapes that were stored safely at another location. It was assumed that this would protect data even in the case of a fire or natural disaster as it could be restored any time.

Tape was the preferred medium of backup because it was less costly compared to disks.

However, there are a number of problems with this strategy:
?Both backup and restoration of data were extremely slow with tape compared to disk
?Considerable time would typically be involved in locating the relevant tape, bringing it to the office from its safe store and restoring the data to the main system. The consequent disruption of operations could be intolerably serious.
?Even if the data on tape was not corrupted, the restored data might prove unusable owing to several factors, including a change in the operating environment

It was soon found that simple backups could not ensure timely and reliable recovery of data when needed. Full mirroring of critical data and applications on redundant servers and such other practices began to be adopted.

Costs of disk storage have also come down significantly to make disk backup affordable. However, unless you have a carefully worked out policy for data recovery, you could still be incurring unnecessary costs and yet might not be able to restore data when needed.
Elements of Good Data Recovery Management
A sound data recovery management policy would have the following elements as a minimum:
?It would be a carefully worked out policy and not just an ad hoc exercise
?It would assess the value of different kinds of data arising in the business. Not all data have the same importance. Some are critical data. Others are just history
?It would consider the costs and times involved in different alternatives and assess these against the criticality and timely recovery of each type of data
?It would include a clear document and data retention policy. Keeping unnecessary data and documents means wasting space, equipment and money

In addition to policy, the aspect of implementation would also be carefully developed.
?The technology to be adopted for backup on a continuing and automatic basis
?The practices to be adopted for such needs as recreating the data as from any point of time and under the original environment
?Procedures for regular testing of backups to ensure that they are still recoverable and usable
?Procedures for recovering data to make them available in time to meet operating needs. This might differ from one kind of data to another
?A continuing review of changing needs, and actual data loss and recovery events, to identify changing requirements and take timely actions
Focus Is on Data Recovery
Traditionally, the emphasis was on backup. Backing up is only a means to an end. The end is the ability to recover the data if the original is destroyed. It is on this end that a good data recovery management system turns its focus.

Backed up data might not be recoverable in a usable form later. So your attention should be on ensuring that satisfactory recovery would be possible when needed. This needs attention to several factors.

It is this focus that is reflected in the policy and procedures we discussed above.
Changing Environments Could Affect Needed Actions
One key element of data recovery management is attending to the environment. This means two things.

One, it involves recreating the environment under which the original data was created. The data might not be usable otherwise.

Two, it means adapting the data recovery management itself to new developments. Existing policies and procedures might be less than optimal under new conditions.

It is thus necessary to tailor your data recovery management to suit the changing environment as it affects your organization. This is the significance of the continuing review of the policies and procedures we had mentioned earlier.
Get A Good Document Management System
Don't let your data face the kind of risk indicated at the beginning. Every day, new kinds of viruses are appearing and hackers on the Internet are improving their ability to crack the toughest of security measures.

A good document management system could be your best bet in such a context. Such a system would include several of the data recovery management tasks. Most systems would typically include continuing data protection features and some might even provide data recovery facilities.

Get a good document management system.

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