February 2002
Doculabs Evaluates Document Management for Enterprise Content Management
by Richard Medina, Stephen Meyers, Jim Bragg and Christine Klima
The economy has constrained IT spending and budgets, and organizations are now looking to do more
with fewer systems. This is especially true in the content management arena. Organizations want to
leverage a common infrastructure to manage content instead of deploying separate systems for
different content-centric applications. An approach like this can improve line-of-business
productivity and reduce ongoing IT maintenance efforts.
Thus, content management customers are developing strategies for "enterprise" content management
(ECM). Doculabs defines ECM as a category that combines the capabilities of enterprise document
management systems (EDMS) and content management systems, with the ability to manage the full
content life cycle across a growing array of content types.
With EDMS being such a key part of an ECM strategy, many organizations want to use traditional
EDMS products as a foundation for a broader ECM. But are the EDMS vendors responding by extending
their product capabilities and architectures to handle the needs of ECM? Doculabs recently reviewed
a number of leading EDMS products and found that while vendors recognize the importance of ECM, many
of them have some distance to go to deliver on the full breadth of ECM requirements.
The Benefits Of Enterprise CM
An enterprise content management approach offers many business benefits. An ECM system that
integrates all the content- and process-oriented technologies within the enterprise provides a
common infrastructure that minimizes the need to deploy and maintain multiple technologies for
different business functions. For users, such a system provides a single point of entry, with fewer
interfaces to learn and reduced training requirements. In addition, users do not need to know or
care where content actually resides.
From a business standpoint, ECM means that organizations can optimize their investments in a
single technology and apply it to a broader range of applications across the enterprise. From an IT
standpoint, a single ECM solution minimizes the need to integrate EDMS and content management
systems from multiple vendors to create a complete system. A centralized, integrated ECM solution
also reduces IT training requirements, leverages developer skills and simplifies administration and
maintenance. Finally, an integrated ECM solution provides organizations with a single point of
contact for software and support, potentially minimizing problems with software upgrades and
customer service that might otherwise be encountered when using products from multiple vendors.
Resellers and integrators also benefit from integrated ECM solutions because such systems give
them a broader set of capabilities that make sense for a wider range of users and applications — a
compelling approach for organizations that want to standardize on a single ECM platform to
consolidate their content management efforts and investments. ECM also enables integrators to
concentrate on building applications instead of learning the intricacies of disparate systems.
Understanding Management Requirements
An ECM system must manage a wide array of electronic content objects throughout their life
cycles, controlling the use of that content, managing business processes that involve content and
integrating with outside systems. ECM capabilities can be divided into a few major categories:
General content management capabilities — The ability to manage a wide variety of electronic
objects. This category includes traditional content types such as images, office documents,
graphics, drawings and print streams; it also includes newer electronic objects such as Web pages,
Web content, email, video and rich media assets. An ECM system should provide a repository for all
of these object types with library services (for example, content profiling, check-in, check-out,
version control, revision history, security and so forth) and the ability to manage these objects
throughout their life cycles.
Process management capabilities — The ability to automate and manage business processes and
workflows. This category includes the ability to support collaborative or ad-hoc approval workflows
as well as higher-volume production workflows.
Integration with other ECM systems — The ability to tie the ECM system into external
line-of-business systems, user desktop environments, other content stores, EDMS systems and
collaboration systems. To leverage IT investments, organizations want to bring their existing
systems into their ECM strategies and integrate processes among users and systems. This integration
can be accomplished through a number of approaches, including object-level interfaces (such as
EJBs), packaged connectors, APIs or enterprise application integration (EAI) technology.
Traditional EDMS systems do a good job of managing certain content objects. These systems are
designed to provide repositories and related services for managing images, documents and print
streams or computer-generated output (in the case of ERM modules). Vendors that have made great
strides toward content management, such as Documentum, Pleasanton, CA, and FileNet, Costa Mesa, CA,
are more focused on capabilities such as managing templates and dynamic presentation and publishing
of content via the Web. The emergence of email, video and other digital assets is expanding the
breadth of content types that must be managed within an ECM approach.
While many organizations clearly need both EDMS and Web content management capabilities, process
automation and integration are the keys to delivering on a true ECM strategy. No matter what format
of content is involved, organizations need ways to automate and control the business processes and
collaboration surrounding the creation, management and use of that content. They also need the more
general ability to manage business processes that may span multiple locations or systems, and that
may require access to the managed content. Finally, integration with desktop environments and
line-of-business systems is important to simplifying use and leveraging content within multiple
applications.
Addressing General Content Management Needs
While all the EDMS solutions we evaluated provide good repositories and library services for
managing electronic content such as images and office documents, each has strengths in certain
areas. For example, Open Text, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, and iManage, San Mateo, CA, provide strong
solutions for managing office documents; Tower Technology, Boston, FileNet, IBM and Identitech,
Melbourne, FL, are strong in high-volume production image management, and Hyland, Rocky River, OH,
and OIT, State College, PA, have demonstrated their ability to manage all but the highest volume
imaging applications.
Some vendors also provide ERM modules (also known as COLD) to manage high volumes of
computer-generated output such as reports, statements and bills. IBM, Armonk, NY, Gauss, Irvine, CA,
Tower, Hyland, OIT and Optika, Colorado Springs, CO, have established solutions in this area.
FileNet and Identitech have recently strengthened their ERM offerings to compete with the
high-performance capabilities of IBM's OnDemand ERM software. Other vendors provide ERM through OEM
relationships or partnerships; Open Text, for example, is an OEM for ERM technology.
Web content management requires the ability to manage the various content objects that may be
involved in Web presentation, including HTML pages and Web graphics. In addition, Web content
management requires the ability to build presentation templates that enable dynamic content
presentation and personalization based on user preferences, profiles or other conditions. Templates
are used to define the components included in a Web page, and business rules and logic are embedded
to dictate conditional inserts of different content objects.
Of the vendors we evaluated, Gauss offers the most solid Web content management out of the box.
FileNet, Tower and Identitech offer some level of Web content
management. FileNet offers Web publishing and distribution capabilities, although more advanced Web
content management capabilities are provided through a partnership with Vignette. IBM has Web
content management partnerships with Interwoven and Open Market, among others. Tower integrates with
Stellent for Web content management, but it has its own Web forms and session capture capabilities
that can help create and support e-business applications that comply with the Electronic Signature
Act. Identitech offers Web content management capabilities through a partnership with SilverStream,
Billerica, MA.
Managing email has emerged as an important requirement for ECM. With the explosion of inbound and
outbound email correspondence, organizations need ways to manage email and attachments in the same
way they manage other business-critical content. They need automated or batch ingestion of email,
powerful audit capabilities and strong archival, search and retrieval capabilities. Many
organizations also need records management capabilities to designate certain messages as official
records and to control the retention and disposition of email — a critical need for risk reduction
and regulatory compliance.
With a few exceptions, the EDMS systems we evaluated provide limited email management. Open Text
manages email with its iRIMS records management module, while FileNet offers integration with
technology from TruArc. OTG and IBM provide good capabilities for email storage. Other EDMS systems
require custom integration with third-party records management solutions from vendors such as Ixos,
TruArc and Tarian Software.
Addressing Process Management
ECM systems require two major types of process management: life cycle management and workflow
capabilities. Life cycle management allows multiple users to work together to create, modify and
approve content, with the ability to route content through multistage review, approval and
publishing cycles. Workflow refers to the automation of business processes such as loan processing;
account enrollment, approval and initiation; customer service; and administrative processes for
accounting and human services. Such applications usually involve content routing and often span
different departments, geographies and systems.
Products with the strongest collaboration capabilities include those from Open Text and iManage.
Open Text Livelink is designed around a project metaphor, providing a central location for internal
and external users to share project documents. Livelink also provides online discussions, shared
scheduling and ad hoc routing. iManage offers strong collaboration capabilities that are optimized
for users in the legal field or professional services industries.
Most of the products we evaluated provide solid workflow offerings, with graphical tools for
defining sophisticated process flows with minimal programming and mature engines for executing
those flows. FileNet, IBM (through integration with MQ Series Workflow), Identitech, Tower (through
integration with Plexus and Staffware), and Gauss (through integration with Staffware) all provide
proven production-level workflow solutions.
These systems can also support distributed workflows that may need to interact with a variety of
business systems.
Systems from Open Text, OIT and Hyland are better suited for medium-volume workflow applications.
Open Text offers graphical designer capabilities that have surpassed many production workflow
systems, and its architecture is improving the company's ability to handle low- to mid-volume
production workflows. OIT and Hyland consistently demonstrate their products' ability to provide
medium-volume production workflow, and their systems are more than sufficient for most enterprise
workflow deployments. Microsoft and Xerox systems are appropriate for lower-volume collaborative or
ad hoc workflows.
Addressing ECM Integration
Integration capabilities are critical for ECM systems. Line-of-business systems like SAP and
PeopleSoft hold HR, accounting, contract management and other types of information that need to be
included in any ECM deployment. ECM systems must also integrate with desktop environments and
front-end applications (such as CRM or portal interfaces) to make content management a seamless part
of users' day-to-day tasks.
To ease integration, systems should provide either packaged integration with leading ERP systems
(such as those from SAP, PeopleSoft and Oracle), or they should have technology partnerships with
ERP vendors. Among the products we evaluated, FileNet and IBM have relationships with and
integration capabilities with the major ERP players. In general, the smaller vendors we evaluated
are beginning to develop ERP partnerships and must open their systems to facilitate integration.
Hyland and Identitech both have integration capabilities with SAP.
To integrate with desktop applications, all the products we evaluated offer at least the basic
ability for users to access library services directly from common desktop authoring tools such as
Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Almost all systems also offer integration with the operating
system and Windows Explorer, providing users with a familiar treelike view of the content
repository.
The ability to integrate with front-office applications is less common. For example, many
organizations have standardized on portal servers or CRM systems that act as the primary interface
for their customer service representatives or field sales personnel. For example, Documentum and IBM
offer integration with Siebel's leading CRM suite, but the EDMS products we evaluated require more
extensive custom integration and programming to tie into such applications.
ECM solutions can simplify integration through their architectural approaches. For example,
products that are built on Java or COM object models provide a better solution for integration with
systems across a variety of platforms. In addition, ECM products that are J2EE-compliant can be
deployed on J2EE application servers such as BEA WebLogic or IBM WebSphere; this provides underlying
services and simplifies integration with other e-business applications that are deployed in the
application server environment. Object approaches also facilitate the use of enterprise application
integration (EAI) servers (such as those from Tibco, Vitria and webMethods) that minimize
point-to-point integration when tying in to multiple disparate systems. Support for industry
standards such as XML can also simplify content sharing and exchange among business systems both
within and outside an organization.
The products we evaluated were mixed with respect to their current architectural approaches, but
many are at least moving toward open standards. For example, FileNet plans to provide a Java-based
API in a future release and has an initiative in place to provide more Java-centric support. iManage
is moving toward a Java-based, multiplatform offering. Open Text's application architecture includes
built-in XML support. OTG provides a COM-based API and is just starting to move toward providing
robust XML capabilities. Identitech has a focused initiative for providing future Java API and XML
support. OIT's solution is built primarily in C, but it provides XML integration capabilities.
Most of the other products we evaluated merely expose C APIs that can be used for integration and
customization, which is more resource-intensive than object approaches and does not leverage new
developer skills. None of the products we evaluated are architected around application server
deployments or the J2EE specification.
Conclusion
The majority of the EDMS vendors we evaluated are forming strategies to deliver on ECM
requirements, but they still must evolve to get there. The most complete ECM solutions are those
from Documentum and FileNet. Documentum has clearly succeeded in expanding beyond its traditional
EDMS roots. In fact, we no longer consider Documentum to be an EDMS solution vendor (and did not
review their solution for this article). FileNet has recently refined its technology and market
strategy to make a similar shift by addressing the needs of Web content management as well as
process management.
All the solutions we evaluated were lacking in terms of email management and true life cycle
management capabilities. OTG is the farthest along in email management while OTG, FileNet, Tower,
IBM and Identitech all offer strong archival and hierarchical storage management capabilities. Open
Text has good records management capabilities, and Identitech recently added records management to
its core offering. Both FileNet and IBM are planning to extend their powerful repositories and
archival capabilities into the records management arena. FileNet has partnered with TruArc, while
IBM has recently announced a partnership with Tarian.
For end-user organizations interested in leveraging a common EDMS infrastructure for ECM, few
EDMS systems can deliver on the full breadth of ECM requirements. We expect EDMS systems to continue
to evolve and architectures to address broader ECM needs, but we think it will take another year or
two before a significant number of EDMS vendors can make the leap into true enterprise content
management.
If you want to leverage existing content systems or repositories as part of your ECM strategy,
realize that relatively few EDMS vendors have a solid approach or strategy for simplifying this
process. Few have a well-articulated strategy for coexisting with Microsoft SharePoint Portal
Server, which we expect to become a leading content repository that will be part of most
organizations' office environments in the next two years.
Your first priority should be to identify your overriding business requirements — which may
reside in EDMS, Web content management, process management or integration. Understanding your
requirements in these areas will help you identify the systems that will address your highest
priorities, and it will also help you determine the technologies you'll need to integrate in order
to deliver on the promise of an integrated ECM strategy.
Richard Medina, Stephen Meyers, Jim Bragg and Christine Klima are analysts at Doculabs, a
Chicago-based consulting firm that helps organizations select and optimize technology. Doculabs can be
reached at 312-433-7793, info@doculabs.com or
www.doculabs.com.
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