Computers Articles

Document Retrieval Documents are there to be retrieved when needed. If they are never going to be retrieved, it would be a meaningless exercise to keep them, wasting space, man hours and money. You retrieve documents for personal, business or legal purposes: • You might want to re-read an old story or letter, which you have stored in an organized or random manner along with many others. That would be a personal purpose.

What Is Workflow? In the context of documents, workflow means moving the documents. Goods Delivery Notes accompany merchandise and come back to the seller duly acknowledged by the buyer; Invoices have to be sent to the buyers; Checks have to be sent to suppliers; Letters have to be sent to many persons and organizations; and so on.

Significance of Policies You may have heard of the word ‘policy’ so often that you might have forgotten what it really signifies. Before we look at document management policy issues, let us first refresh ourselves on the significance of policies.

Automating Document Management As in every other area, computers and software have also impacted document management practices. • Instead of paper documents, you store information in a digital form in computer “files”. • Instead of unwieldy paperboard folders, you have digital folders on the computer disk in which the digital files can be stored. • Instead of heavy filing cabinets occupying valuable floor space, you have compact computer disks the size of a book or less on which incomparably greater numbers of digital folders can be stored.

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

For managing the business successfully: You need to analyze results and trends for making informed business decisions.

As your business creates more and more documents, you face the document management issue of organizing these in a meaningful manner.

A document management system helps you manage the constantly accumulating volume of documents. Documents have a habit of proliferating in any business.

Document creation involves creating an original document and subsequent changes to that document. Changes are inevitable in practice. Editing is usually needed to make corrections or to improve the document. At times, the document could even be deleted before it is put to intended use.

You push the power button on your computer and 5 minutes later you're finally ready to start computing. It seems as though it takes forever and a day for your computer to get going,