GlobalSearch is being used across the organization primarily for scan/store/retrieve of documents. It allows us to control access to documents far better than we ever could with physical documents, back them up for DR purposes, and control the workflow process of certain documents as they move through our organization. It makes our employees more efficient at finding documents so they can retrieve information when it suits them and streamlines our document-centric workflows.
Pros
The most important part of a document management system is the search portion. That's where your every day users will find the most value value. GlobalSearch does this very well with their defined Searches. Users run searches that have been set up by administrators for them for their particular situation and can quickly get the documents they need.
The GlobalAction workflow engine that accompanies GlobalSearch is very powerful. It allows for complex, conditional workflows which should satisfy the needs of just about any organization.
Capture, the part of document management systems that are pretty much wasted time, is made just about as efficient as possible with GlobalCapture. It supports template based OCR, database lookup into other systems in the organization for populating additional information, and even semi-structured document capture which can be a huge money saver.
The permissions are straightforward and simple to set up and the audit log can be very useful for seeing the who, what, and when of documents.
Cons
The web based interface needs some work. The search results have a preview view of the document. This could be helpful in some situations, but should be an option that can be chosen. Data XChange and Image XChange need to also work in the web interface for it to be viable for many organizations.
A queue showing users all of their documents waiting for them to work on would also be extremely useful.
Likelihood to Recommend
GlobalSearch is a great for SMBs looking for a powerful tool to store and retrieve their documents, automate document-centric workflows, have more efficient document capture processes, or image enable their existing business applications without getting slammed by the high cost of image plugins for most line of business systems. It's easy for your users to learn, stable once deployed, and their support is quick and competent.
We use SmartSearch Document Management to keep track of all of our contracts and other miscellaneous documents. It is used by all senior management and managers in the company in order to retrieve contracts or to analyze the contracts we have with specific companies. Our Legal department finds this software especially useful because we are able to track expiration and renewal notice dates of each individual contract. This helps us tremendously in making sure we stay ontop of renewing or terminating contracts on a timely basis.
Pros
Sends email notifications to appropriate individuals when expiration or renewal notice dates are approaching.
Offers an easy and fast way to search for specific documents.
It allows managers to simply drop documents into the inboxes for Legal to permanently archive.
Allows documents to be easily emailed. No more sorting through various files on the desktop to try to find the correct document.
Is set up in an organized manner that is appropriate for the documents that are contained in the archives.
Cons
There was some difficulty initially setting up the workflows for the email notifications to work. This was frustrating to get worked out and involved multiple test attempts.
The system can be slow at loading long documents, which for a legal department is not ideal.
The documents do not automatically get uploaded with search pdf capability, a workflow must be set up in order to enble this feature.
Likelihood to Recommend
I think this software is great to organize documents for mid-sized companies. We primarily use this system to keep track of legal and regulatory documents that have dates we need to be aware of. It is easy to use, but does have some frustrating features. The workflows can be somewhat difficult to set up. In addition, I wish that the documents were automatically uploaded with pdf search capabilities. However, the ease of searching for documents and the emails that are sent to warn employees of dates they should be aware of, are extremely helpful in managing our company's contractual obligations.
