Document Control - Do You Really Have Control of Your Documents?

June 29, 2010

As companies grow in size, managing documents across your business becomes more critical and complex. Multiple versions are stored on desktops and on the network. Documents are emailed back and forth in effort to collaborate. Are you ever sure that you’re working on the latest version and that no one is writing over your changes? When it comes to documents that are emailed, are you sure they always stay within the business? Are they read by the "right" people? Has the integrity of the document been maintained?

Tough questions for sure. However, these are critical to the Life Science industry as the complexity of document management increases in meeting strict regulatory compliance standards.

When establishing and organizing your document control system it's important to analyze the following aspects:

Roles - Determine users of the system and their roles and responsibilities by answering the following questions:

Who can perform high-level tasks like modification of SOP's?
Who will be responsible for maintaining the system?
Who will be limited to viewing certain documents only?

Mission3 OnDemand has multiple user roles that determine what features and functions are available for users. You can grant some of your team full access to your documents or restrict it to online viewing for due diligence efforts.

Permissions - Determine which users have access to stored document, specific locations, and their ability to upload and download documents. Mission3 provides you with the ability to control user access down to a granular level - one single document.

Organization - Determine the best layout to how your documents will be stored. Mission3 OnDemand allows you to leverage real-time project management and document management functionality, storing documentation against project tasks. This integrated system provides accurate and up-to-date information that is available at the click of a button.

Custom metadata - Custom metadata provides the ability for an organization to categorize and classify documents based on their business processes. This classification helps users quickly identify critical information about documents without having to open and spend time searching for it. Custom metadata enables enhanced search and report results which are refined and targeted - delivering more value to your business.

Search and Report - What critical information needs to be gathered and reported to target audiences?

Audit history
Project Registration
Key Milestones
Document Signatures
Workload
Documents – Where Used

Mission3 OnDemand makes it easy to search through all your documents to find what you need. Robust operational reports are a mouse click away. Your team can stay focused on running the business, instead of wasting time compiling manual reports.

Regulatory Compliance - Are your systems 21 CFR Part 11 compliant? All Mission3 OnDemand products are compliant out-of-the-box.

Validation - With a Mission3 OnDemand’s SaaS deployment, validation is much easier and can be handled by Mission3 allowing your team to stay focused on your strategic mission.

Business Process - Understanding your current business processes and how documentation is routed to its final state is critical to mapping these processes to a new system.

Implementing a document management system that will work for your team is easier and more productive if you’ve thought about these questions ahead of time. Unfortunately, many companies waste their time, money, and effort by trying to cobble together a system that hasn’t been thought through and doesn’t work for the entire organization. Mission3 has deep experience helping Life Science companies of all sizes implement a document management system that fits into their operation strategy in a simple, yet powerful and cost effective manner. Let us show you how to unlock the hidden value in your documents and organization.

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