The requirements for template management are diverse. First of all, it aims to reduce the time spent creating new documents. But it holds far more potential.
A consistent presentation of the corporate identity and corporate design is mandatory externally - toward partners, customers and suppliers. Documents are an important instrument for presenting your company internally and externally. Classic examples include faxes, letters, general correspondence and a multitude of forms.
Furthermore, template management brings a substantial efficiency gain. By carrying metadata from the DMStec onto the respective document - project numbers, document numbers or titles for manuals, for example - the work becomes noticeably easier and faster. Errors are reduced at the same time.
Besides these three conventional goals, there are further, more specialized requirements that template management can fulfil.
Context-related templates
Context-related templates fall into two categories: documents that are carefully reviewed and revised in form and content and later provided for filling in - that is, as forms - and those distributed as a uniform template or instruction. ISO 9001, integrated management systems and quality management also belong in this context. Such documents include procedure instructions, process descriptions, contract documents, invoices and engineering change records.
Process templates
Some templates initiate a process or accompany it throughout its entire lead time. An example would be a change request for a part. This request describes not only the change as a document itself, but also the current status of the change via workflow - say: request submitted, request in implementation, in review, request approved, completed.
One central store for all templates
Experience shows that colleagues save their templates on their personal computers instead of filing them in one central place. A considerable amount of documents accumulates this way.
Targeted, fast selection
It must be ensured that the templates people need can be found quickly and easily.
Compliance
This is about ensuring a binding process. Through an appropriately designed workflow, a department can create or revise a template. In the next step, the template is passed to one - or any number of - review bodies for checking, and finally approved. This ensures that both internal and external guidelines are followed.
Workflow-supported template revision
It must be ensured that consumers can only find and use approved templates. An approved template is not necessarily the latest version: that is the case when a department versions a template for revision. This version is then the highest available version, but not yet for the consumer. Only after the revised version is approved can it be used as the definitive one.
Availability in third-party systems
PRO.FILE takes over the archiving of the templates and, through its permission system, provides the actually valid template. trisoft offers an interface for making these templates available in third-party systems such as SharePoint or on the company intranet site. Nothing changes for the users of the templates - they access the system they are used to.
Template management with PRO.FILE
PRO.FILE offers the decisive advantage that all the requirements and functions mentioned can be covered with the standard system. As a rule, an introduction with examples from existing solutions is sufficient for a company to start implementing template management on its own.
We are happy to support you with migrating existing data from quality management, the integrated management system or ISO documents. The effort is manageable, since such documents are usually filed in a clean structure and can therefore be loaded easily.