Document Controlling is an effective way to have a systematic management control of all office documents, i.e. paper documents, which comprised not only printed and published documents, but also prints, photos, etc…. For this reason, beginning 1980s, a number of vendors began to develop software systems to manage paper-based documents to be able to give way for a better paper documents controlling.

Later developers began to write a second type of system which could manage electronic documents, i.e., all those documents, or files, created on computers, and often stored on users’ local file-systems. The earliest electronic document management (EDM) systems managed either proprietary file types, or a limited number of file formats. Many of these systems later became known as document imaging systems, because they focused on the capture, storage, indexing and retrieval of image file formats. EDM systems evolved to a point where systems could manage any type of file format that could be stored on the network. The applications grew to encompass electronic documents, collaboration tools, security, workflow, and auditing capabilities.

These systems enabled an organization to capture faxes and forms, to save copies of the documents as images, and to store the image files in the repository for security and quick retrieval (retrieval made possible because the system handled the extraction of the text from the document in the process of capture, and the text-indexer function provided text-retrieval capabilities.

The following are important aspects of document control:

• reviewing and approving documents prior to release reviews and approvals
• ensuring changes and revisions are clearly identified
• ensuring that relevant versions of applicable documents are available at their “points of use”
• ensuring that documents remain legible and identifiable
• ensuring that external documents (such as customer-supplied documents or supplier manuals) are identified and controlled
• preventing “unintended” use of obsolete documents

In regard to above aspects, documents safety and control is inevitable for every institution to be able to have easy access to all their respective files and official papers. Hence, the use of electronic document management in office administration is more relevant so that paper-based documentation can be minimized and help our “clean and green environment” advocacy.

By: Mr. Dennis B. Dizon | Administrator | Department Office of Balanga