Slashdot Mirror
ISO 9001-Compliant Document Control?
SmoothBreaker writes "Coming into a new company, I have been tasked with sourcing Document Control software to meet ISO 9001 standards. From everything I can find, ISO places no requirements on the software itself, aside from maintaining control of documentation and process. This was discussed eleven years ago. I'd like software that allows intuitive use for our less savvy users, and in a perfect world, graphical access to previous revisions of a document. I've used Microsoft's SharePoint, which the higher-ups like simply because it's Microsoft, but thankfully they trust their Tech Department to find the cream of the crop. What experience do you have with this kind of software, what would you recommend using, and what should I avoid?"
You might look into KnowledgeTree. It's open source.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
I had XP corporate image, and Sharepoint would crash if I tried any of the AJAX style operations. I could right-click and save, or click directly, but using the arrows and checking out crashed every time.
IE developer toolbar and Fiddler installed, I uninstalled both and it kept crashing, then the lease came up on my box and I got a shiny new Vista. Installed both and some other stuff and never had a problem. But it keeps worrying me that IE with Microsoft-only additions had problems with Microsoft's website, manipulating Microsoft's document types.
The problem I believe is the WEBDAV type interaction. When you authenticate, IE lets you do stuff. Then you open the file, and normal browsers would download the file and ShellExecute() to open it (or maintain their own list, but whatever). IE sends the URL to the application (if it's Office type), which has to re-authenticate since it doesn't share IE's session. That way the Office app can check in/out instead of just opening a local copy.
To tell the difference, you can obviously see the normal IE download dialog if it's downloading and opening, otherwise you get the Office dialog that has "Opening [filename..." and only has a cancel button.
I just used FireFox, and tried to avoid checking things in/out. It's all intertwined - impossible to fix. Probably lots of code duplication as well.
That’s exactly my thoughts. And TFA didn’t specify which types of documents? If it’s mainly MS Office documents, SharePoint is probably one of the best solutions. Especially if you are considering upgrading to Office 2010.
Also what’s the size of your needs? SharePoint is free (WSS, aside of a Windows server 2003 licence) if your needs are small enough (Less than 2gb of data for MSSQL Express (free)).
I wonder how much time the submitter actually invested in throwing away SharePoint?
This comment was written using 100% reused electrons.