SAINT LOUIS, MO, October 06, 2011 — Bizmanualz, Inc., a St. Louis-based Software as a Service (SaaS) provider for the document control marketplace, announced today the latest release 2.3 of Onpolicy.com Procedure Management Software.

Onpolicy.com 2.3 has added new easy-to-use features to greatly simplify user management.  New abilities have been added for bulk uploading of users, release of electronic documents, more reports, and help videos.

“We continue to improve the user experience” said Chris Anderson, President of Bizmanualz, Inc.  “Now any electronic document can be controlled and released, which makes company templates easy to distribute.”

Electronic documents are easily edited, controlled, and released by editors to be accessed from anywhere in the world by readers.  New Onpolicy.com features include:

• Ability to Bulk Upload New Users. Customers can now add multiple users to the system using a new bulk upload feature that streamlines adding hundreds or thousands of users at a time.
• Electronic Document Release. Now files can be released to any user in their original electronic format. Electronic documents are perfect for expense report templates, standard templates for business letters, presentations, or instances where you need to control the starting point for a document.
• “Remember Me” option at login. All users now have the option for the system to remember their login and password, which speeds the login process for when they return.
• Active / Inactive Users Report.  Displays which users are using active licenses  versus those that have been inactivated.
• Software Tour Video added.  Users can now tour the system by viewing a short video of the core features.

Sign up for a Free Trial and experience how much easier your policy and procedure management is using OnPolicy.

Document Management Software

Document management was developed in order to control all of the changes or versions of a document.  In the old days one would have to manage all changes on paper.  Document control job descriptions were created and people were assigned the task of tracking every document, getting review and approval signatures, and ensuring the current release was in the field.  Elaborate paper logs, filing systems, and paper based change requests (document change request) forms were developed to manage all of the paper.  Three-ring binders were used to house important documents.  Although this is a very manually intensive operation, this was the only way to do it back in the day.

Shortly after the advent of word processing software came document management software, which basically allowed one to automate the document controller’s tasks and thus making it a lot less manual. Version control — automated logging, tracking, and control of original documents and their revisions, was a lot easier now.  Very large scale software systems were developed for large organizations to control their thousands of documents.

Document management software today has morphed into document capture, storage, and retrieval with workflows to process documents, records, and all of your paper.  Some provide web-based interfaces for remote access.  If you have a large organization or a lot of documents to mange then software is really the only way to go.

Procedure Management Software

There are three big differences between document management software and procedure management software.  First, procedure management software must work within a compliance environment.  Compliance for ISO, JCAHO, ITIL, Sarbanes-Oxley, GMP, FDA, and government CFR are examples of compliance standards that require document control over your policies and procedures.  Auditors will want to see how you control your documents.  Audit trails with date stamps are critical to demonstrating the compliance.

Second, document workflow requires business rules to move documents along specific workflow states for review or approval.  A standard document management system (like SharePoint) does not have predefined review and approval workflows.  Managing controlled releases and document access can be difficult too.

And third, procedure management systems have a special feature for required reading to show the auditors that the policy has been distributed and everyone has read it.  Release documents can be designated as “required” for your readers to read.  Document management systems do not normally have such a feature.

Both systems store all of your files in a database for fast search and retrieval.  If you are looking for a system to maintain any document type and you don’t have a need for compliance, review or approval workflows, then a document management system will work fine.  But, if you need something more specific to policies and procedures management than a procedure management software system will be more practical.

Bizmanualz, Inc., a St. Louis-based Software as a Service (SaaS) provider for the document control marketplace, announced today the release of Onpolicy.com 2.2 Procedure Management Software, a new SaaS document control solution that simplifies and speeds the development and maintenance of policies and procedures.

Onpolicy.com 2.2 has new enhanced user interface support that simplifies document management and control.  More PDF controls over released documents, more files types and internet browsers are supported, new video help, usage reports and the ability to easily follow your most important documents have all been added.

“We have improved the user interface, software speed, and overall operation to advance the user’s experience” said Chris Anderson, President and founder, Bizmanualz, Inc.  “Now different users (editors and readers) have their own interface that supports their different document usage roles.”

Policies and procedures documents are easily edited, controlled, and released by editors to be accessed from anywhere in the world by readers.  Editors make the documents that employee readers use.  New Onpolicy.com features have been implemented to enhance these different work roles including:

• Added PDF Controls. Easier PDF access, search and reading of required policies, procedures and forms documents.  PDF saving, printing and watermarking is configurable for all documents or individually as needed for any single document.
• Enhanced Document Following. Any user can simply check a box to select important, favorite, or commonly used documents to display on their personal dashboard for fast access.
• Integrated Video Help. Embedded tutorial movies expand the online wiki help to provide immediate assistance at the touch of a single button.
• New Usage Reports. Save or export common usage details for work flow status (outstanding reviews), incomplete required reading, or completed required reading by document.
• Seamless File Integration. Complete native integration of Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, and most other file types (extensions) like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, WordPerfect, Lotus123, QuatroPro, and graphic formats, text formats, or html.
• Expanded Internet Browser Support. The latest Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE 6 or newer), Mozilla Firefox (3.6 or newer), Google Chrome and Apple Safari.

About OnPolicy™

OnPolicy (www.onpolicy.com) simplifies document version control and compliance with automated review and approval workflow, easy document access, and internet content distribution.  It encompasses a full library of policies, procedures, forms, job descriptions, and guides reducing the need to write policy and procedure documents from scratch. This SAS 70 type II certified solution “simplifies document compliance” and allows clients to focus on their core business.

About Bizmanualz, Inc.

Bizmanualz (www.Bizmanualz.com) is leading the evolution of SaaS-delivered document control applications in the governance, risk and compliance (GRC) marketplace.  More than 20,000 companies rely on Bizmanualz solutions and services to comply with document management requirements.  Bizmanualz is located in Saint Louis, Missouri.

It can be a daunting task trying to come up with company policies for acceptable internet use, email use, or a computer asset acquisition policy. Wouldn’t it be easier if you had a set of example IT documents and forms available in MS-Word for fast editing?  After all, aren’t there a lot of similarities between every data center?  They all have computers, network security standards, and technology specialists that man help desks, network operations, and system administration.  So why start for zero, stare at a blank page and have to document common computer department practices?  Well you don’t have to…

Bizmanualz new OnPolicy comes with a business process library complete with pre-written sample policy and procedure examples.  OnPolicy is more than a guide book.  OnPolicy is document revision control software that allows you to start with already written policies that are ready to be modified to fit your business needs.

The Computer & IT Policies and Procedures include procedures, supporting forms, and additional resources and references for five key areas:

• IT Administration
• IT Asset Management
• IT Training and Support
• IT Security and Disaster Recovery
• Software Development

All of the files are word documents stored in an online database that provides complete compliance based control for all document revisions, backup & recovery, and employee required reading.  With OnPolicy, you have fast conformance to  ITIL, ISO 27000, ISO 20000, Sarbanes-Oxley or other IT standards.

OnPolicy is installed on Bizmanualz servers right now and waiting for you to schedule a quick demo to experience for yourself how quick and easy building your IT policies and procedures manual can be.

First there is sharing.  Everyone will need an easy way to find and share your final policy and procedure documents.  Will you need quick access from mobile devices?  Then it will need to be on the Internet.

Next there is control.  Version control for all document revisions. Special care is needed to ensure that only the current revision is in use by your staff.  If you are writing policy and procedure manuals for a compliance (ISO, JCAHO, SOX, ITIL, FDA) requirement, you will need a special type of revision control to ensure that all released documents have been reviewed and approved prior to release.  Do you have private documents?  Then you will also need access control to make certain that only specific staff can access certain documents.

And then there is reporting.  Management will need to know what document versions are released, who has read them, and what the status of all document changes is.  Do you need to review your policy and procedure documents annually?  Then you will need reminders too.

It is all about how you are managing your policies and procedures documents.  File servers serve documents, but they have limited document control features.  Manual, paper-based policy and procedure management systems have been used for years but they are cumbersome, slow, and not very reliable.  As a result, a new class of document management software evolved to become what is now called policy and procedure management software.

Policies and procedures management is all about sharing, control, and reporting.  Employees need to use your policies and procedures.  You need document control for compliance and effectiveness.  As management or as an auditor you will want to see evidence of both.

What do you need to look for in a policy and procedure management software product?

If your primary need is to share your documents with your employees (and you want to save a lot of money), then new cloud-based SaaS policy and procedure software is right for you.  Cloud solutions bring the solution cost way down by sharing a central server, sharing a single software code base, and sharing the software maintenance costs.  Shared solutions mean there are no IT department costs, no upfront software fees, and expansion costs are easily calculated on a per person basis, which makes budgeting for the future a lot easier.

Let’s face it, nobody wants to pay for the cost of maintaining policies and procedures.  So the next best thing is to pay less than your paper-based system or simple file server.  Policy and procedure management software is the least expensive way to manage your policies and procedures.

Still have questions about policy and procedure management software?  Then request a free trial of the new OnPolicy document version control software for policy and procedure management from Bizmanualz.

For years, writing policies, procedures and forms has been done in MS-Word.  The final document is printed on paper and bound into a manual.  If you have ever used a system of paper based binders then you know that this is NOT a simple system.  Keeping track of paper revisions, manually signing-off on paper changes, filing the paper changes, ensuring people have read and are using the paper, and of course, retrieving old versions or change pages is not fast, easy and definitely not simple.  So what is a policies, procedures and forms document manager to do?

Automate Your Policies, Procedures and Forms

There are a lot of document management solutions on the market that are being used to manage document files, but when it comes to policies, procedures and forms management, people need more than just a fancy filing system with some added features.  Users want something that helps them to do their work better and more easily.  Automated policies, procedures and forms management needs to be seamless, unobtrusive, and not get in the way of employees doing their job.

Users want:

1. An easy way to locate the information they need
2. A fast convenient way to access and use the information
3. An intuitive interface that does not require any learning
4. Confirmation that they are accessing the correct information
5. Reminders of outstanding tasks
6. A system that really helps them get their job done

Easily Publish Your Policies and Procedures Online

Publishing policies and procedures online is far simpler and more effective than any paper based policy procedure system.  Paper systems do not provide automated tracking of approvals, notifications, reminders, backup, access control, or remote access.  Paper is slow, cumbersome, and expensive to maintain.  Have you ever thought about what it costs to maintain policies and procedures?

If you are still using a paper system for your policies, procedures and forms, why not switch to the latest software-as-a-service technology that provides the lowest cost, the quickest controlled access to your important documents, and the easiest way to manage your policies, procedures and forms, online.

Sign up for a Free 30-day trial right now.

There are a lot of software solutions for distributing up-to-date documents to your employees.  Most companies are trying to use SharePoint.  With over one million installations, Microsoft’s SharePoint solution is Microsoft’s fastest selling server software product ever.

Microsoft has positioned SharePoint as a collaboration platform, but it’s not designed for quick and easy collaboration right out of the box. Instead, you have to invest a lot of time in understanding the SharePoint architecture in order to customize and configure even the most basic sharing and collaboration capabilities.

Would You Like a Simple Document Sharing System? One That Lets You Access MS-Office Documents in a Controlled Manner?

Most companies want a simple system to locate, access, and update Office documents in a controlled manner. What they mean, typically, is:

• Easy access to files from any computer or web browser;
• Easy navigation that allows occasional users to find Office documents without a lot of intensive training;
• Easy organization to arrange and tag files, so users can find their Office documents with simple searches or browsing; and/or
• Easy document sharing, to allow employees, customers, suppliers, or auditors access to Office documents.

How Does SharePoint Stack Up?

SharePoint is really a file storing solution, as opposed to file sharing. File sharing requires easy access to files from any computer with Internet access.  SharePoint is weak on easy file access, navigation, organization, and sharing.

• Easy file access. Sure, you can access SharePoint from a web browser, but you have to navigate your way through the system, which takes a lot of time.
• Easy navigation. You have to invest time in learning the SharePoint environment.  Every system is different, customizable, and has so many options available (yet hidden within a series of cascading menus) that the user is overwhelmed.
• Easy organization. Moving files from the web interface requires you know the URL of the destination folder.  So instead of copying a document located somewhere in or outside of SharePoint you must link to the document from a folder even though there is no easy way to do this.
• Easy sharing. Allowing users access from outside of your domain is not supported. That means you cannot send an e-mail with a link to a document that the recipient can download.

The best thing about SharePoint is that it has a host of capabilities out of the box, including electronic content management (ECM), document management, and collaboration. One of the worst things about SharePoint is that it requires a lot of custom development (which makes SharePoint popular with consultants who are happy to be your SharePoint designer).

Even worse, though, is that SharePoint really fails in usability.  When it comes to file-based collaboration, usability is not a “ready to run” feature.  You need an experienced SharePoint consultant to configure your system for effective usability.

Think of building out SharePoint as just building another web portal. You have to define your information architecture with actual workflows or expected user experiences, and finish with a usable visual design that encourages your employees to use the system you’re building.

SharePoint is set up and run by business users with little or no IT experience all the time but, only after a significant investment in learning SharePoint.  Any organization considering SharePoint will need an individual focused on being a SharePoint Designer who will set up, run, and administer your SharePoint server.

Here’s Where Bizmanualz “OnPolicy” Can Help

OnPolicy is a file sharing solution from Bizmanualz, designed to allow quick and easy access to files from any computer with Internet access.  OnPolicy helps ensure high-quality communication by automating the document review-and-approval process (or what we call “Work Flow”), organizing your Office – and other – files, making information readily available when and where it’s needed, and ensuring that you review your documents regularly.  OnPolicy software can be implemented immediately, so your entire organization will be able to use it right now.  To learn more about OnPolicy, email info@onpolicy.com , or call us (800-466-9953 or 314-863-5079) and let us show you why OnPolicy is a better document management solution.

• Hard costs (money for materials and equipment);
• Soft costs (typically employee time); and
• Opportunity costs (lost revenue).

Each cost is not a real savings unless we’re able to recover that cost, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a cost to be considered.  Let’s look at each one in some detail, to see its impact. That way, we can compare the cost of policy and procedure management manually with OnPolicy software.

Hard Costs of Maintaining Your Policies and Procedures Manually

Hard costs consist of printers and materials used to maintain your policies and procedures documents. Printing costs vary with volume, as well as the type of printer and paper you use.  In general, paper is inexpensive, maybe US $0.006 (6/10 of a cent) per sheet — if you’re printing on both sides of paper, that’s $0.003 per page.  High-speed copiers (100 pages/minute or thereabout) can cost as little as $0.005 per page, for a total of $0.008 per page. We’ll round that up to a penny a page for high-speed copiers. If you have a slower printer — let’s say a typical small-office printer that prints 15-20 ppm — your print costs could easily rise to $0.03 per page, with paper.

For argument’s sake, we’ll say the average cost to print is about 2 cents. Add in the cost of equipment depreciation, collating, binding, and equipment disposal, your total cost to print a policy and procedure manual rises to 15 cents a page — or more! — depending on what equipment you use. And we haven’t talked about lease-versus-buy, or SLAs. Do you see how expensive this can get?

But Wait! There’s More…

You have to protect your documents from disaster, too.  Usually, that means some sort of offsite backup and storage.  Internet backup costs run in the $50—80 per year range for about 50GB of space.  Depending on how many documents you manage, you may be looking at another penny per page per year for backup and recovery services. Your hard cost to maintain your policies and procedures is now up to $0.16 — 16 cents — per page.

Soft Costs of Maintaining Your Policies and Procedures

Soft costs consist mainly of your employees’ time — the worker-hours you spend within the organization preparing, printing, collating, fixing, distributing, training, searching, maintaining, and answering questions about your policies, procedures, forms, and other documents. This is probably the most expensive piece of your policies and procedures system; hence, it’s where automating policies and procedures management will likely make the biggest difference in your cost.

What Are the Top 10 Consumers of Time When Maintaining a System of Policies and Procedures?

1. Writing new policies, procedures, and forms for new and existing processes;
2. Annual reviews of all policies, procedures, and forms;
3. Preparing revisions for review, approval, and release;
4. Printing, copying, faxing, collating, and binding documents for distribution;
5. Distributing printed documents (and retrieving old, outdated copies);
6. Backing up documents and restoring previous versions;
7. Training new hires, answering questions, and updating current employees on changes to your policies, procedures, and forms;
8. Preparing policies, procedures; and forms for upcoming desk audits;
9. Taking corrective action on document control audit findings; and
10. Time employees spend searching for policies, procedures, forms, guidance documents, etc.

It’s not uncommon to spend 60 minutes — or more — revising a document and circulating it for review and approval before it’s released for use. Once the document is released, employees can spend 2-10% of their time looking for the right policy, procedure, and/or form to do their job (and, of course, they sometimes don’t find anything), which brings us to training.

Authors (and editors) need to be trained on formatting policies and procedures, storing and retaining policies and procedures, and of course reviewing and approving policies and procedures.  Not to mention every employee needs training on how to find, use, and improve your policies and procedures.  Training is one of the most overlooked areas of policies and procedures deployment so it’s no wonder that companies spend thousands on policies and procedures training alone.

If you pay an average office worker $50,000 (including expenses and benefits), a small system of 100 documents could be costing you $30,000 a year in lost productivity. People’s time is getting more expensive every year– inflation, labor costs, and competing priorities all contribute to this problem. So, anything you can do to reduce the amount of time you spend on maintaining policies and procedures will have a significant impact on your performance.

Opportunity Costs of Maintaining Your Policies and Procedures Manually

Opportunity costs are associated with lost revenue or indirect expenses. We already mentioned one: time your employees spend maintaining documents and file systems.

How many sales are you losing because customer service operators can’t find policies or procedures for returns, complaint handling, or release of information? What about employee turnover? Frustrated employees who cannot find the information they need to do their jobs won’t stick around for long.  What about the confusion caused by not knowing which policy or procedure document is the most current? That’s why document control is really important.

Why let the simple things hold you back?  There’s no reason to allow errors — caused by outdated policies and procedures documents — to drive away your best customers and employees. Hard to quantify or not, it makes sound business sense that automating document management will save you a lot of money.

Policy and Procedure Costs

We’ve talked about how using policies and procedures software saves you money. But, how much?! In hard costs, a small organization can save thousands of dollars. In soft costs, tens of thousands. In opportunity costs, it means a percentage of your business — maybe a sizeable percentage — when you lose customers and skilled employees.

The conclusion: Your procedures drive your total cost of compliance.  The more policies and procedures you write, the more it costs you to maintain each and every one of them.

Recapping…

There are three major costs associated with every document management system:

• Hard costs;
• Soft costs; and
• Opportunity costs.

We find these costs are easier to control when we get rid of our paper-based document management systems in favor of electronic policy-and-procedure management systems.

Even better? A document management solution like OnPolicy.

Document control is required in order for a Quality Management System to be compliant with ISO 9001. The same is true for other standards, guidelines, and regulations — the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) , the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), and many other laws and guidelines require that you have control over your documentation.

Document control has been around for as long as people have conducted business. In the old days, it was all about controlling paper documents. Then along came electronic documentation, and a whole new world was opened up. Still, many organizations have decided to stay with paper-based systems, even though these systems can lead to many common document control mistakes.

With all their flaws, paper-based document management systems are familiar to many of us. We hate things that are unfamiliar to us or that take us into unfamiliar territory, even if what we have isn’t working all that well.

With that in mind, are any of these document control mistakes familiar to you?

1. Assuming your document files are backed up on a regular basis

Sometimes, paper files are backed up; sometimes, they’re not. The only way to know if your files are backed up is when you attempt to recover a file. When was the last time you did that? How long did it take? Hours? Days? Never?

Who knows how to retrieve old company files and where they’re stored? Who has the time to recover your files? Who’s responsible? Many companies make assumptions about their backup processes. Unfortunately, most companies don’t test their assumptions until they really need “that file” and can’t locate it. They should be saving their documents electronically…and automatically. (Hint: OnPolicy archives your documents automatically and securely, preventing you from deleting your important documents.)

2. Remembering to save document revisions under a new name

Most people use Microsoft “Word”. Word doesn’t have a good revision system, or “version control”; prior to Word 2007, it did, but that feature was removed. If yours is like most companies, you’re saving your documents with new names (e.g., “My Document rev 1.doc”), rather than overwriting them (you hope). This is far from a foolproof technique: at some point (and you may have experienced this), someone’s going to used the “Save” command instead of the “Save As…” command.

Then, you have to hope the earlier version was backed up (see #1).  OnPolicy automatically saves each version of your documents for you, separate from the originals.

3. Using a shared hard drive to store your documents and files

Shared drives (HDD, flash drives, etc.) are easy to implement. Just purchase a network drive and connect it to your network. Now, do you give everyone in the company access to the new drive space? Who is in control of the drive?

Setting up access controls can be a time-consuming issue, so many companies don’t set any access controls. There are no restrictions on what anyone can do. The result? Documents are revised, renamed, moved elsewhere, or even deleted. If you don’t control access to documents, you don’t have document control. OnPolicy provides access control to your documents by department, category, and by user role (“Readers” can’t change documents, for example).

4. Not using document templates

If your employees are writing procedures “from scratch” every time, you invariably end up with different styles, formats, and structures. The ensuing lack of consistency could confuse anyone trying to use your documents.

Document templates provide a standardized format. Even better? Having ready access to a well-stocked library of best practices that you can edit and make your own. Bizmanualz has always provided standardized content in MS-Word format for easy editing and customization. This content is also available for use in the OnPolicy document management system.

5. Printing paper drafts for review

Paper documents aren’t easy to distribute to reviewers. The reviewers mark up their paper copies and give them back to you and it’s up to you to decide which changes to incorporate. It’s also up to you to incorporate the revisions in the document and, if necessary, resubmit the document with changes to the reviewers. And, if you have several offices, warehouses, etc., spread out over a large area, document review is that much harder to coordinate…and get done on time.

If you had all this in a system like OnPolicy, you’d route your documents to the reviewers electronically, they would enter their changes electronically, and you would edit them electronically. The more spread out your workforce is, the more benefit you derive from a system like OnPolicy.

6. Distributing your final documents without protecting them

Many companies use MS-Word to write their policies and procedures. If you distribute Word documents, you have to remember to write-protect them. Unprotected, your documents can be changed by any employee without others being aware of the changes. To reduce the likelihood of unauthorized changes, OnPolicy distributes documents for general use in Adobe format (“.pdf”). Adobe Reader is available to everyone for free, while you have to buy licenses for Adobe Professional; this helps you maintain control over documents and keep unauthorized changes in check.

7. Distributing paper documents to employees

Paper and three-ring binders have been used for decades to house and distribute policies and procedures. Paper documents are difficult to control, though, and people can make changes to them without anyone else’s knowledge. Papers get lost and forgotten.

Today, documentation is moving onto the Internet.  More and more people make regular use of laptops, smartphones, and tablets (they’re not waiting for their employers to provide the tools, either). Eliminating paper saves trees, improves document control, keeps your employees better informed, and allows for a more effective management system.

8. Not collecting outdated documents from your employees

It is a lot harder to stay on top of who has what version of your documents when they’re on paper. It’s not uncommon to find an old employee handbook that was given to an employee on their first day…10 or more years ago! Electronic online controls, like those you find in OnPolicy, ensure that all employees have only the latest and most accurate version of any important document, when and where they need it.

9. Designing your own document control system

Many organizations decide to design their own document control software.  SharePoint is the most common platform.  But SharePoint is not a document control system and unless you are a SharePoint designer, you will likely end up with an IT project over time and over budget, with software designed by software engineers who are not compliance and control experts. Many such projects are abandoned, eventually. It’s much easier to purchase a system designed by document control experts than to build your own software product.

10. Receiving document control audit findings

The most common Quality Audit finding is “lack of adequate document control”. Procedures are not:

• Followed;
• Controlled;
• Backed up appropriately;
• Retained; or
• Kept in legible condition.

Just about any quality audit will turn up a document control finding. Using electronic document control software virtually eliminates such findings. Document control software automatically prompts your users to review, approve, release, and even read documents. Documents remain legible, they’re continually backed up, they’re access-controlled, and you’re in compliance.

Now, you know how to eliminate and prevent the Top Ten Document Control Mistakes — with “OnPolicy” software, new from Bizmanualz.  Try OnPolicy FREE for 30 days — find out how you can make managing policies, procedures and forms much easier.

Top 10 Document Control Mistakes:

1. Assuming your document files are backed up on a regular basis.
2. Saving document revision files under a new name.
3. Using a shared drive to store your documents.
4. Not using document templates.
5. Printing paper drafts for review.
6. Distributing final documents that aren’t protected.
7. Distributing paper documents to employees.
8. Not collecting older revisions from your employees.
9. Designing your own document control system.
10. Receiving document control audit findings.

You go to the work area to ask about getting a copy of the procedure; two employees volunteer their copies. You glance through their copies and find that (uh-oh!) they’re not in agreement. Parts of the procedure have been lined through and comments handwritten on them. “What about a master copy?”, you ask.

The employees both assume the supervisor has it, but they have no idea where she keeps it. It might be in her desk or in one of the file cabinets; they’re all locked.

You decide to look on the company’s document server for a backup copy before bothering the supervisor at home. You find there’s neither rhyme nor reason to the server’s directories. You think there ought to be an “Operations” folder and maybe a subfolder called “Procedures”, but that’s not the case. (Right then, it occurs to you that all the HR information is on your computer and you’re not backing it up on the server. You make a note to start doing that, soon.)

You search the entire document server for one procedure. In about 15 minutes, you think you’ve found what you were looking for. Only that copy was last updated 5 years ago —  any resemblance between it and the other two copies are superficial. Who knows if the procedure’s ever been reviewed?

You know this is not a good situation; it would be worse if you had an audit coming up soon. For the time being, you have one of the employees make a copy of his procedure for the new hire and tell the new hire to “read the procedure and ask him if you have any questions.” Then, you send an email to management, expressing your concerns.

Is this document control? Are you thinking, “There has to be a better way”? Or, are you thinking, “Looks a lot like my company”?

“Lack of structure” is one reason to consider OnPolicy^TM procedure management software; it gives your documents the structure and organization they need. In the coming weeks, we’re going to discuss other reasons why you need a system like OnPolicy. We’d like you to join the discussion.

Think about the good and the bad of your company’s document management system. What do you like about it? What don’t you like? Have you had any major problems with it? Do you foresee any?

Wouldn’t you be better off with policy and procedure management software?