Do you want to know about best tools for product documentation? Document review helps in uncovering problems such as bugs, incomplete or missing requirements and inconsistencies in meaning among different documents. In this document review tutorial, we will discuss what product documentation tools are available and how they help.
There are a huge number of document review tools, platforms and services in the legal market. Be it for eDiscovery or contracts review, there are so many providers and tools, not everyone has time to test them all. And even if you did have time, discovering all the features and functionalities each of them offer would be impossible without spending weeks with each application.
Document review is a fundamental aspect of law firms. When you have a client meeting coming up, you need to have it done in time, and this means quick preparation. This is, however, often not an easy task. By using the best document review tools, you can save yourself a lot of hassle and instead spend more time working on the upcoming cases.
If you’re looking for a tool to help manage your product documentation and make it more visually appealing, this article is perfect for you. Here you’ll find good tools that provide advanced features like creating guides and tutorials, collaborative editing, form automation, workflow integration and many more.
How to Find the Best Document Management Software
Choosing a document storage solution can be challenging if you don’t know what to look for. Luckily, we’re here to help.
I’ll show you the methodology we used to come up with the choices in this guide. You can use the same system to help narrow your search.
Storage Location
In most cases, document management solutions are either cloud-based or on-site. There are benefits and drawbacks to both.
On-site solutions are typically seen as more secure because it’s in one centralized physical location. However, sometimes that limits you to how and where you can actually access your files.
Also, if something happens to that on-site solution like a fire or physical theft, you might be SOL.
Some companies offer just one, while others let you choose which one you prefer.
For example, eFileCabinet offers both on-premises and cloud-based storage. M-Files has both as well, and also has a hybrid solution. Other solutions, like DocuWare are completely cloud-based.
I personally prefer cloud solutions because you can access content from anywhere. But for security reasons, some companies want files stored locally on their network.
Consider what your needs are. Would you like to have an on-site, physical location to go to? Or do you enjoy the convenience of the cloud? Or maybe both! The choice is yours.
File Sharing and Collaboration
What can you do with your files once they are uploaded and stored? While organizing files is obviously important, it’s useless for some companies if the documents can’t be shared with teams or external users.
Look for a DMS that accommodates your internal needs for editing or collaborating on files. Features like automated version updates and in-platform editing capabilities are crucial here.
The size of your files will also depend on which solution is best for your business. If you need to share large files, Hightail is the best choice.
Security
Most business-related files and data are sensitive. So it’s important to have a document management solution that can securely store information.
Some solutions offer access permissions based on individual clearance levels or even location.
Other platforms specialize in compliance for unique industries, like healthcare, legal, or government businesses.
Price
Pricing for DMS is usually based on storage limits and users. At each price tier, you can expect the plan to have additional features and benefits.
The majority of the solutions on this list offer custom plans and pricing. So to get a better idea of how much your document management software will cost, you’ll need to consult with a sales representative.
For those of you who are looking for a cost-effective solution and instant sign-ups, eFileCabinet will be a top choice for you to consider.
Integrations
Ideally, you want to find document management software that works with the platforms you’re already using. Whether it’s CRM like Salesforce, or document editing and creation software like Microsoft Office 365, certain platforms have a wide range of integrations for you to choose from.
However, other solutions that are niche-specific are a bit more limited. So make sure you use software that will actually benefit your workflow process.
1. ClickUp
Key Features:
- ClickUp provides the features for creating docs, wikis, knowledge bases, etc.
- It has text editing capabilities.
- It allows collaborating with multiplayer editing.
- It provides features for sharing the document and setting the custom permissions.
- To add the comment in the document it has features of highlighting the text.
2. Smartsheet
Key Features:
- With Smartsheet, you get a document management platform that is custom-designed to best cater to your business’s specific needs and demands
- The platform helps users plan, manage, capture and report on work, regardless of where they are.
- The platform provides business teams with a live visual dashboard where they can collaborate with each other on a particular task remotely.
- Users get to report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into their tasks.
- Smartsheet efficiently automates workflows to keep each and every member of the team informed and connected throughout as they work towards completing their tasks on the platform.
3. Teamwork
Key Features:
- Teamwork Spaces offers document management software that comes jam-packed with features that simplify the process of task management.
- The software allows you to edit your tasks in a real-time collaborative environment alongside your team.
- The platform allows you to integrate videos, images, and charts into your documents to make them more engaging.
- You can manage who has access to what parts of the document with the help of advanced permission and user management features.
- The platform also offers a plethora of tools to help users seamlessly collaborate across teams and receive feedback from clients.
=> Visit Teamwork Spaces Website
4. monday.com
Key Features:
- monday.com is a cloud-based document management software that arms you with all the tools you need to centralize and plan your project from its inception to its eventual conclusion.
- The platform provides you with customizable forms, which you can use to create items in a short span of time.
- It is also very easy to automate project approvals and tasks using monday.com
- The platform also allows you to collaborate with your team members on a document online in real-time. You can chat, assign changes, and tag people or groups onto a document.
- The project dashboard gives you clear insights into your tasks with comprehensive stats, metrics, and insights.
- Also, the data monday.com provides you with about your work in real-time can be leveraged to track, monitor, and eliminate project risks.
5. HubSpot
Features:
- HubSpot Sales Document Management and Sales Tracking Software will be helpful for building a library of sales content for the entire team.
- You will be able to share documents from your Gmail or Outlook inbox.
- It will alert you when the prospects will get engaged with the content sent by you.
- It will provide insights on how the sales content is helpful to move your sales process forward, how often the content is used by the team.
- HubSpot has all-in-one Sales Software with a lot of features like Email Tracking, Email Scheduling, Sales automation, live chat, reporting, etc.
6. LogicalDOC
Overview: LogicalDOC aims to help organizations gain control over document management by focusing on fast document retrieval and business process automation.
Meant for: Thanks to its flexibility, LogicalDOC can adapt to various needs and is best suited for small, medium, and large organizations, including banks, healthcare, mechanical industries, and medium-sized municipalities.
Key features:
- Operates on web-browsers, iOS, and Android App with a multilingual interface.
- Provides multilingual full-text indexing, version control, document password protection.
- Allows document search, check-in/check-out function, annotations, internal messaging, and email sharing.
- Enables modifications under specific functions.
Pros: LogicalDOC is a very intuitive tool for planning, executing, and managing business projects.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 on G2.
Price: LogicalDOC Community is free, open-source software. There are larger packages available with consultation. Check LogicalDOC’s website for more.
Editorial comments: The free, open-source software, while being a cost-effective option, lacks some safety and document recovery features. These are available with paid licenses.
7. M-Files
Overview: M-Files provides a next-generation intelligent information management platform that improves business performance by helping people find and use information more effectively. Unlike traditional enterprise content management (ECM) systems or content services platforms, M-Files unifies systems, data, and content across the organization without disturbing existing systems and processes or requiring data migration.
Meant for: M-Files is suitable for small to mid-sized businesses that lean heavily on paper-based processes. Their packaging is unique. Customers can choose which features they want and can opt-out of others, making it both flexible and cost-efficient.
Key features:
- Enables customization with other features available for purchase and bundling.
- Offers offline access, file recovery, file type conversion, version control.
- Provides OCR features for more complete search capabilities.
- Offers collaboration tools, automated workflow, compliance tracking, eSignature.
- Offers features for document archiving, assembly, indexing, and retention.
- Provides access and control permission tools.
Pros: M-Files is very safe and offers enough cloud storage. Accessing content across devices is easy. It enables easy content retrieval by using the search feature. Besides, sharing files across the team is also easy, especially when working together on the same project.
Rating: 4.3 out of 5 on G2.
Price: M-files offers a free trial. The cost after the free trial depends on the features you need and the number of users as M-Files is focused on giving you the exact features you need.
Editorial comments: The user interface takes some getting used to, the check-in/check-out feature requires additional tasks and reminders, and licensing can become more complicated with larger groups.
8. OnlyOffice
Overview: OnlyOffice is a software office suite and DMS developed by Ascensio Systems SIA. Offering a 3-in-1 editing suite, reviewers have called this software “TheSwissArmy App for the Microsoft Universe.”
Meant for: OnlyOffice provides a platform for document management best suited for multiple educational organizations (schools, higher education institutes), small and medium-sized companies, enterprises, and government organizations.
Key features:
- Offers collaboration tools, eSignature, document archiving, version control, file recovery, file type conversion, OCR, document assembly.
- Provides project management tools, team chats, file sharing, and presentation tools.
- Operates on the desktop version for Windows, iOS, and Android apps. It can be accessed via a web browser.
- Offers training through live, online calls.
Pros: OnlyOffice has perfect desktop integration. It runs on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows smartphones and cloud, like no other software in the market.
Rating: 4.3 out of 5 on G2.
Price: A 180-day free trial of their cloud-based service is currently being offered. The price varies based on what edition you choose. The Cloud-based Edition can be as low as $3 per month per user when purchased at a 3-year subscription. Other editions offered are Enterprise, Integration, and Developer.
Editorial comments: OnlyOffice lacks compliance tracking, offline access, and document indexing.
9. SharePoint
Overview: Microsoft’s document management solution was initially presented in 2003. With each update came better integration with Microsoft’s other products, making SharePoint one of the most widely used DMS.
Meant for: Compounded with its ability for lists and integration across the whole Microsoft ecosystem of products, SharePoint is best suited for large organizations to segment their access policies and controls.
Key features:
- SharePoint is very customizable. Nearly 65% of users choose to add custom functions.
- Allows external sharing of files.
- Offers content management using libraries, lists, metadata, records management, and retention policies.
- Provides search functions to find files and contacts.
- Team sites provide space for predetermined groups of users to collaborate. There are also customizable sub-sites.
- Automates business processes by creating alerts and workflows.
Pros: The tool is easy to use, configure and deploy, ensures the security of data, and allows role-based access to SharePoint sites.
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 on G2.
Price: SharePoint does not offer a free trial, but SharePoint Online Plan One starts at $5 per user per month. The largest package, Office 365 E3, is $20 per month per user. For full pricing information, check the company’s website.
Editorial comments: Transitioning to SharePoint is time-intensive, often taking large companies 3-5 years before fully adopted. Users have also noted SharePoint’s unwieldiness in its daily functions.
10. VIENNA Advantage
Overview: Founded in Germany in 2005, VIENNA Advantage prides itself on being the first DMS to be securely integrated with enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions.
Meant for: VIENNA Advantage is the right choice for medium and large size enterprises looking for a reliable, scalable, cost-effective, and well-supported DMS product along with ERP and CRM integration.
Key features:
- Provides cloud-based and on-premise options.
- Offers highly secure encryption, eSignature, version control.
- Provides 24-hour customer service from live representatives.
- Offers indexing and OCR.
- Automates workflow management.
- Enables customization.
Pros: The product provides enterprise resource planning, document management system, and customer relationship management, all in one application.
Rating: 4.3 out of 5 on G2.
Price: The community edition is open source and free. Larger packages are available with a consultation with a VIENNA Advantage representative.
Editorial comments: VIENNA doesn’t offer a mobile app for access, but it can be accessed through a web browser.
What to Look for in Document Management Software
While all document management systems digitize and organize documents, making them easy to retrieve or revise for users with permission, many other features might be built into your document management software. Here’s a look at some of the tools and aspects you might want to consider when choosing a document management system.
Usability
One of the most important elements of any software is usability. It could offer all the features in the world, but they won’t do you any good if the system isn’t user-friendly. Many document management systems offer free trials that allow you to test them before buying. If possible, allow your team to try out the software during the free trial period and offer their feedback on what they like and dislike about it.
Document Sharing and Collaboration
While the primary function of a document management system is to digitize and organize files, most modern software also allows users to share files with one another and collaborate on editing them. Some document management software allows users to edit a document simultaneously, while others rely on a check-in/checkout feature that guarantees only one user can work on a document at a time. Others offer both options.
Version Control
Version control, sometimes referred to as “versioning,” is a critical feature of document management software that lets you keep track of changes to a document. The best document management software even maintains an archive of old versions, letting you see how documents have changed over time and revert to an old version if needed.
Image Scanning and OCR
Image scanning and optical character recognition are useful features for businesses that have a lot of paper records they would like to digitize. Scanning is the first step – turning a paper record into a digital file that can be imported into the software. OCR is a more advanced feature, but it’s a must-have for streamlining large digitization projects. OCR reads the text of an image and makes the content of the image searchable. The best document management systems use OCR to automatically fill out metadata and make it even easier to search for the document later.
Electronic Signatures
Document management software is often home to files that require a manager’s signature, such as purchase orders. Many document management systems integrate with an e-signature tool, such as DocuSign, to allow electronic signatures. You can often send a document to a recipient with a request for their signature through the software.
Workflow Automation
Workflow automation features move tasks along automatically. Take the purchase order above as an example: You could set up a workflow automation so that once a purchase order is generated, it automatically goes to the appropriate manager for their signature. The manager will receive a notification, and when the task is complete, the next relevant team member (such as someone in the accounting department or the manager’s supervisor) will be notified. If more action is necessary, you might be able to build that into the automated workflow as well. The best document management systems allow you to customize workflows to suit the way your teams work together.
Conclusions
Choosing the best (and most appropriate) document review tool is a tough ask. There are hundreds of tools available but only a few that stand out as being worth using or acquiring. But how do you choose the best product documentation tools?
Document review tools are designed to help you extract data from company documents during legal discovery. These tools can save you hundreds of hours by automating the document review process. Comparing an average of three different types of software products, our review found that the best products for document review cost between $4 and $10 per month. This can start as low at $29 for the first month.