Enterprise content management
Enterprise content management
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Enterprise content management

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Enterprise content management

Enterprise content management (ECM) extends the concept of content management by adding a timeline for each content item and, possibly, enforcing processes for its creation, approval, and distribution. Systems using ECM generally provide a secure repository for managed items, analog or digital. They also include one (or more) methods for importing content to manage new items, and several presentation methods to make items available for use. Although ECM content may be protected by digital rights management (DRM), it is not required. ECM is distinguished from general content management by its cognizance of the processes and procedures of the enterprise for which it is created.

The latest definition encompasses areas which have traditionally been addressed by records- and document-management systems. It implies the conversion of data to digital and traditional forms, including paper and microfilm.

ECM, as an umbrella term, covers document and web content management, search, collaboration, records management, digital asset management (DAM), workflow management, and capture and scanning. It manages the life cycle of information, from initial publication (or creation) through archival and eventual disposal. It is delivered in four ways:

Benefits to an organization include improved efficiency, better control, and reduced costs. Banks have converted to storing copies of old cheques in ECM systems from the older method of keeping physical cheques in warehouses. Under the old system, a customer request for a copy of a cheque might take weeks; a bank employee had to contact the warehouse where the right box, file and cheque were located. The cheque would be pulled and a copy made and mailed to the bank, which would then mail it to the customer. With an ECM system in place, a bank employee could query the system for the customer's account number and the number of the requested cheque. When an image of the cheque appeared on-screen, the bank could mail a copy immediately to the customer; usually while the customer was still on the phone.

Enterprise content management, a form of content management, combines the capture, search and networking of documents with digital archiving, document management and workflow. It includes the challenges involved in using and preserving a company's internal (often unstructured) information in all of its forms. Most ECM solutions focus on business-to-employee (B2E) systems.

New ECM components have emerged. As content is checked in and out, each use generates new metadata (automatically, to some extent). Information about how (and when) people use the content can allow the system to acquire new filtering, routing and search pathways, corporate taxonomies and semantic networks, and retention-rule decisions.

Solutions can provide intranet services to employees (B2E), and can include enterprise portals for business-to-business (B2B), business-to-government (B2G), government-to-business (G2B), or other business relationships. This category includes most former document-management groupware and workflow solutions that had not, by 2016, fully converted their architecture to ECM but provided a web interface. Digital asset management is a form of ECM involving digitally-stored content. Specialized Healthcare Content Management Systems meet the special regulatory requirements for medical devices and interoperability.

The technologies which encompassed ECM in 2016 descend from the electronic Document Management Systems (DMS) of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The original DMS products were stand-alone, providing functionality in one of four areas: imaging, workflow, document management, and enterprise relationship management (ERM).

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