DM Magazines verdict on Web Client
With Web 2.0 constantly gaining traction within business applications, many Document and Content Management vendors have rushed to proclaim their offerings as 'webclient friendly'. Very few, though, have delivered a product as well rounded and user-friendly as DocuWare 5.1. This new offering represents a major advance over DocuWare's already impressive thin client product.
The upgrade/installation process is remarkably straightforward - everything is set up centrally, with no need to install anything on the user desktop - with Wizard-guided menus making administration and ongoing maintenance a breeze. Administrators set which users can access which file cabinets, and which menu choices are visible to them. At the same time, users can customise the view of their work space to suit their requirements. Common searches, for instance, are easily stored and displayed on login. Individual users' task menus can therefore show items in the way that the user will want to work with them.
The user interface is extremely well designed to allow users to see and act on tasks in the most intuitive manner appropriate for their job role. Once logged in, the user will see current tasks, for example invoices for approval, and they can instantly 'stamp' one as authorised, and send it into the appropriate workflow quickly and efficiently. For instance, if a user clicks on an email in the left-hand window list, it is displayed in the righthand document window, and any attachments are shown in a central thumbnail list. A single click on any of these will display each attachment instantly, from CAD drawings through PDFs to PowerPoint presentations, within the browser window.
Zooming, rotating and panning are easy and practically instantaneous. There is no need to install any additional plug-ins in order to view practically any file type. Simple full text searching is also fast and efficient, with returned documents showing the search term highlighted in colour. Archiving documents into the DocuWare file system is equally intuitive, and a file cabinet can hold over 4 billion documents, with encryption and/or compression optional.
DocuWare 5.1 offers all of the major functions of a DM system in a highly flexible web client solution, based on Web 2.0 technologies such as AJAX. While the company is clearly hoping to do well within its traditional SME marketplace, there is no reason why larger enterprises should not take a good look at this product. The web client approach will undoubtedly appeal to organisations with remote offices, field workforces, subsidiaries etc. as well as those involved in acquisitions.
Users will also be attracted by DocuWare's straightforward integration capabilities - search, store or viewer functions are easily integrated with SharePoint, for instance, via web parts, and can even be combined with other applications such as ERP systems. In the same way, DocuWare functionality can be easily integrated intoany ASP.NET web applications.
Remarkably, the web client is available at no additional cost within any purchase of the DocuWare product. The DocuWare philosophy has long been "'simple installation, simple administration and simple usability" and with DocuWare 5.1 web client, the company has taken this ethos to new heights.
VERDICT: By quite a large margin, this represents one of the most complete, flexible and user-friendly web client-based DM offerings on the market: delivering in the real world what many competing vendors can only vaguely promise.
