File management software - ??

[Jeeebus]

Looking for ideas on file management software for a small business. Lot of word/excel/pdf type documents that would be saved by client/transaction with subfolders/categories as to type of document.

Basically something that could be easily searched by title, keyword, etc.

Any recommended options?

 

[Kaido]

I'd just do UltraSearch on the client computers with folders on a Windows server and do access restriction using group policy. That way everyone can save any type of document to a mapped drive using the normal "Save As" function and then search for it:

http://www.jam-software.com/ultrasearch/

You can get into document management systems, but they get expensive and complex pretty quickly, both of which are challenges for a lot of small businesses (not having the funds to acquire & support a DMS or the on-site technical know-how to keep it running).

 

[KB]

A lot of CMS products do this, including the ability to checkin/checkout documents, version histories etc. Some cost money like Sharepoint, others are open source like DotNetNuke and joomla, however the document management features may be commercial.
We use sharepoint at my work and its works very well for this.

 

[pcslookout]

The software forum is that way <------

 

[Broheim]

A lot of CMS products do this, including the ability to checkin/checkout documents, version histories etc. Some cost money like Sharepoint, others are open source like DotNetNuke and joomla, however the document management features may be commercial.
We use sharepoint at my work and its works very well for this.

I'm considering becoming a sharepoint developer, they get paid an obscene amount of money and I love working in .NET. Sharepoint is incredibly popular and powerful but equally expensive so it's way outside the price range for a small business.

 

[pcslookout]

I'm considering becoming a sharepoint developer, they get paid an obscene amount of money and I love working in .NET. Sharepoint is incredibly popular and powerful but equally expensive so it's way outside the price range for a small business.

Really? How old are you?

 

[fjmeat]

What are you using now? Just a shared folder sitting on a file server?

 

[Broheim]

Really? How old are you?

early 20s.

 

[pcslookout]

Isn't being a sharepoint developer boring though ?

 

[Broheim]

Isn't being a sharepoint developer boring though ?

I wouldn't really know since I've never tried it, most software development is "boring" but supposedly sharepoint developers are in high demand because it requires a lot of knowledge and know-how.

OP, sharepoint does come in a basic free edition if you feel up for the task, but it might be a bit much for you and kind of shooting sparrows with a cannon for a small business.

 

[pcslookout]

I wouldn't really know since I've never tried it, most software development is "boring" but supposedly sharepoint developers are in high demand because it requires a lot of knowledge and know-how.

OP, sharepoint does come in a basic free edition if you feel up for the task, but it might be a bit much for you and kind of shooting sparrows with a cannon for a small business.

Ok thanks!

 

[Jeff7]

I'd just do UltraSearch on the client computers with folders on a Windows server and do access restriction using group policy. That way everyone can save any type of document to a mapped drive using the normal "Save As" function and then search for it:

http://www.jam-software.com/ultrasearch/

You can get into document management systems, but they get expensive and complex pretty quickly, both of which are challenges for a lot of small businesses (not having the funds to acquire & support a DMS or the on-site technical know-how to keep it running).

ooOOOOooooh, support for regular expressions. This may well replace Voidtools' Everything.
I can see one terribly handy feature in Everything though: Ctrl+F or F3 immediately bring the cursor to the proper text box. Neither key/combo does anything in UltraSearch. :\


Looks like I'll still need Agent Ransack though, for searching of network drives.

Ever since Microsoft decided that Windows Search didn't need to properly deal with things like wildcards, or things that aren't words by themselves (example: searching for thing may not yield a result if the filename is thing_name.txt or thingname.txt).....between the bouts of suppressed thoughts of excessive violence, I've been on the lookout for the perfect search tool.
A combination of Agent Ransack and Everything did the job reasonably well. Everything indexes any local drive and finds things immediately.
Agent Ransack searches a file at a time, but it still manages to find things faster than Windows' search tool: Searching for *thing* in Agent Ransack will turn up results faster than searching name:thing in the Explorer Search bar, even though I'd expect them to be doing the same thing.

 

[LeoW]

Simply using an organized folder structure and file naming convention and buying ABBYY Fine Reader to convert your PDF's into readable (searchable) text is the easiest way. Both Mac and Windows have great instant search functions that you can use with a shared drive, server or even Dropbox.

If you want to file checkout system for collaboration (like Sharepoint) that's a different story.

 

[Vdubchaos]

Windows Explorer hehe

Seriously, it's just a matter of organizing the files within the folder structure. Keep it as simple as possible and figure out the category you want to separate the documents by.

Remember, less is more.

PS, assuming you are in Win7 you will be able to search for docs easily as well

 

[kt]

I wouldn't really know since I've never tried it, most software development is "boring" but supposedly sharepoint developers are in high demand because it requires a lot of knowledge and know-how.

OP, sharepoint does come in a basic free edition if you feel up for the task, but it might be a bit much for you and kind of shooting sparrows with a cannon for a small business.

If it's a small business use, I would opt for the Search Server Express. It basically includes the Sharepoint Foundation (the basic free version) and a few features that are in the paid version but bundled for free with Search Server Express. Limitation on the Search Server Express is that it has to be a standalone server install and can't scale out to cluster of servers like the paid version of Sharepoint.

Basically, it's like SQL Server vs SQL Express Server.

 

[Broheim]

If it's a small business use, I would opt for the Search Server Express. It basically includes the Sharepoint Foundation (the basic free version) and a few features that are in the paid version but bundled for free with Search Server Express. Limitation on the Search Server Express is that it has to be a standalone server install and can't scale out to cluster of servers like the paid version of Sharepoint.

Basically, it's like SQL Server vs SQL Express Server.

is the 2013 version available yet? I only noticed foundation alongside the commercial version.

 

[Jeeebus]

The software forum is that way <------

Pretty sure I posted there and it was moved here.

 

[BurnItDwn]

sharepoint is the best example of the worst execution of good ideas ruined by incompetence.

The best is just keep the files on a unix filesystem and use find or grep -r.

Don't hire anybody too stupid to know how to use grep or find. Problem solved.

 

[tfinch2]

sharepoint is the best example of the worst execution of good ideas ruined by incompetence.

The best is just keep the files on a unix filesystem and use find or grep -r.

Don't hire anybody too stupid to know how to use grep or find. Problem solved.

LOL. Yeah, let's search binary file formats with a tool meant for plain text that does not use any indexing.

 

[kt]

sharepoint is the best example of the worst execution of good ideas ruined by incompetence.

The best is just keep the files on a unix filesystem and use find or grep -r.

Don't hire anybody too stupid to know how to use grep or find. Problem solved.

Sharepoint is a tool, not the solution. Like any other tool, its efficiency lies with the person using the tool.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Sharepoint is a tool, not the solution. Like any other tool, its efficiency lies with the person using the tool.

We had many lotus notes applications that were coded by a friend of mine. They got rid of them, and took on sharepoint and have tried using it for EVERYTHING under the sun.

Also, I believe they are hosting it on the slowest and oldest computer known to man, and there are well over 1000 users across many different IT departments using it.

I don't like sharepoint because it's main feature is the hourglass.

 

[BurnItDwn]

LOL. Yeah, let's search binary file formats with a tool meant for plain text that does not use any indexing.

run strings on the binary files

 

[Kaido]

Looks like I'll still need Agent Ransack though, for searching of network drives.

I use UltraSearch on all my Windows 7 machines at work specifically for searching network drivets. For whatever reason, Microsoft decided to remove network search functionality in 7. That was my biggest headache migrating from XP to 7.