A Guide to Document Comparison, Collaboration And Security

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A Guide to Document Comparison,

Collaboration And Security

Osterman Research, Inc. P.O. Box 1058 Black Diamond, WA 98010-1058

Phone: (253) 630-5839 Email: [email protected] www.ostermanresearch.com

An Osterman Research Report

Published August 2010


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A Guide to Document Comparison, Collaboration & Security

2010 Osterman Research, Inc. 2

Executive Summary

THE NEED TO MANAGE AND CONTROL DOCUMENTSElectronic documents are, for many information workers, the primary product that theymanufacture. In many business situations, information workers follow predefined document

workflows and manage documents within a central repository; others choose to assemble, revise,and verify information using nothing more than their email and word processing applications.

Information workers generate the majority of their documents using several different Microsoftproductivity applications, including Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It is not uncommon forusers within the same organization to use multiple versions of the same application. Thesedocuments are then routinely sent via email to communicate and share document drafts withother team members.

In todays organizations, documents are created, revised and reviewed on desktop computers, onthe go with laptops, or mobile devices such as BlackBerrys. As part of the review cycle thesedocuments are shared with others, who then make modifications and forward them to additionalinterested parties, who further revise them and circulate them again to even more people. Theseteams not only review and share documents but attach new versions to messages as they aredistributed to co-workers, colleagues, partners, and customers for input.

Documents are commonly stored in a variety of document management systems and formats,some of which cannot be edited by the people who need access to them. Many of thesedocuments contain metadata or confidential information and can expose potentially sensitivecontent to those who are not authorized to see it.

The end result is a mish-mash of document management practices, version control problems, lostproductivity, and higher costs all of which will become more pronounced as documents anddocument types proliferate, and as economic pressures force companies to do more work withfewer people and tighter budgets.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF NOT DOING THINGS PROPERLYAn organization that does not adequately address these problems can suffer a variety ofconsequences including damage to an organizations brand, lost customers, legal actions andfines for improperly managing information.

Organizations in which documents arenot managed properly can also have asever loss in employee productivity. Ifwe conservatively assume that theaverage employee who is paid $60,000each year wastes just five minutes perday dealing with version control, fileformat and other document-relatedproblems, an organization of 1,000 such

users will lose $625,000 annually inemployee productivity.

However, the consequences can be much more severe and costly than just productivity. Forexample, there have been a number of legal cases in which metadata has been mistakenlyexposed or not presented as required. An organizations inability to track this information or itsfailure to produce it in a timely way can lead to enormous legal judgments or sanctions.

An employee whomakes $60,000 per year and

who wastes 5 minutes per daywill cost the organization $625

per year in lost productivity


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ABOUT THIS GUIDEThis guide focuses on the key challenges in managing documents in todays companies andlooks at the technology that is helping organizations with document comparison, metadataremoval, and content security. This guide also discusses key questions that decision makersshould ask as they develop business practices and deploy technologies to resolve them.

What are the Key Challenges in Managing Documents?

MULTI-PARTY REVIEW AND MODIFICATION/VERSION CONTROLCollaboration has become the byword of the modern organization and will become moreimportant as organizations become more distributed and more dependent on teams to manageprojects. A key element of any collaborative process is the ability to create, review and publishdocuments of various types easily and efficiently.

However, many collaborative tools today lack a variety of important features that are necessary toensure a seamless document creation and modification process:

Version controlArguably one of the most critical challenges in any collaborative document process is versioncontrol. The issue is exacerbated by the use of email as a file transport mechanism, as wellas by the sometimes large number of users that often participate in the document editingprocess. While the track changes feature available in virtually all word processors is ofsome help, it does little to solve the underlying version control issue with which most usersmust contend. For example, sending documents for review via email cannot ensure thatreviewers will use Track Changes or make edits to the latest version of a document,resulting in frequent modification of old versions and extra work in reconciling multiple, editedversions.

Accurate document comparisonThe ability to accurately compare different versions of a document is critical, particularly forsensitive documents like contracts, proposals, statements of work and the like. This isespecially true for documents in which the legal and/or regulatory consequences formisstatements can be severe. A good enough comparison that misses details likecomplicated formatting or table cell changes can have damaging consequences.

Managing multiple document formatsThere can be difficulties in ensuring compatibility between multiple document formats,especially when different versions of the same software are used in an organization (e.g., thedifference in file format between Microsoft Word 2007 and Word 2003), not to mention whendifferent vendors software is used. For example, the typical user today will create or be sent.doc, .docx, .rtf and .pdf files. Resolving the differences between file types and allowingindividuals to access and modify documents regardless of the software they use is vital toensuring employee productivity.

Ease of useIf a system is not easy to use, employees simply will not use it. Consequently, the difficultyinherent in using many content control solutions will keep employees from utilizing them,negating much of the value the organization had hoped to realize by deploying the system.Solutions that are easy to use and leverage your existing software tools and infrastructureinvestments will increase adoption and limit training costs.


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METADATA CLEANING & MANAGEMENTMetadata is often defined as data about data, an accurate and descriptive definition, but not anespecially useful one. Metadata should be thought of as information associated with and madepart of an electronic document that is notvisible in the normal viewing or printing ofthat document. In that sense, hidden data

might one day replace metadata as a moreuseful term.

Metadata includes descriptive, historical, andtechnical information and is typicallygenerated automatically. It can also includehidden information manually added by users of the document. Classic examples of metadata arethe information contained in document properties and comments or tracked changes inMicrosoft Word documents.

What Challenges Does The Organization Encounter?

MANAGING CONTENT POLICIESInformation workers that routinely send high value business documents typically utilize ametadata solution on their desktop computer to limit the risk of sharing critical content. However,metadata protection on the desktop is only part of the challenge. Organizations need to gobeyond the desktop and secure documents across BlackBerrys and web mail. Some companieswill require tools to easily monitor and enforce metadata policies across the entire organization.

While the protection of the specific content generated and managed by users is important in andof itself, the information about this data or metadata is also important to maintain. In manycases, the metadata associated with electronic content is just as proprietary as the data itself,and so must be managed and secured along with the content. Without proactive metadatamanagement, companies are subject to increased risks. Being able to remove, preserve andmanage metadata is critical for a variety of purposes, not least of which are statutory and legal

requirements.

With lawmakers passing legislation that mandates stringent controls on information such ascustomer data, health records, transaction records, and non-public company data the cost of non-compliance can be severe. An organizations inability to track content, remove it as necessary orits failure to produce it in a timely way can lead to enormous legal judgments, sanctions, publicembarrassment and lost customers.

AUDITING DOCUMENT CHANGESBeing able to track the changes each document reviewer makes can provide valuable informationin legal matters, as well as identifying process improvements. A history of the document changescan provide detailed history into the evolution of a negotiation process, for example, and analyzethe history of another reviewers input.

INTEGRATION WITH A VARIETY OF PLATFORMS AND SYSTEMSEmployees, particularly in larger organizations, must access several different systems to do theirwork. A 2008 Osterman Research study found that 44% of information workers must accessmore than five different systems in the normal course of doing their job, and 68% must accessmore than three different systems. Consequently, leading solutions must be compatible with alarge number of platforms and systems. Being able to leverage existing systems throughintegrations or web-based services will increase their utility as well as the employee productivitythat will be gained from their use.

An inability to properly clean

metadata from documents canexpose an organization to

enormous liability


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LOST PRODUCTIVITYOne of the key issues associated with poor document management and collaborative practices isthe lost productivity that ensues. This is, for many organizations, the worst problem they facebecause the problem is repeated over thousands of users in some cases. As noted earlier, justfive minutes of wasted time per employee each day can equate to $625,000 in lost productivity

every year per 1,000 employees.

COSTWhile the problems discussed above can sap employee productivity and create a variety of otherchallenges, none of them will be solved if the solutions to address them are too expensive orprovide a return-on-investment that is too low to justify their deployment.

What Questions Should You Ask of Vendors?

OVERVIEWClearly, the problems outlined above are serious and should be addressed in order to reduce

costs and improve the efficiency of the company. However, it is important to ask the rightquestions at the outset of any product evaluation in order to accomplish two primary objectives:

To define requirements up-front in order to satisfy all of the constituencies within anorganization that will need to use the processes and technologies that are implemented.

To put the vendors whose solutions are evaluated on a level playing field instead of relyingon statements of individual vendors varying features, functions and specifications.

We have assembled a list of questions that companies should ask of their prospective vendors.

WHAT ARE THE KEY FEATURES AND FUNCTIONS YOU NEED?The features that a company might require to help manage documents will vary based on a

number of factors, including the number of documents it will need to review in a given period oftime, the size of the company, and the complexity of the documents that will be under review.Included later in this section is a list of features that should be considered for comparison amongleading vendors solutions.


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Document comparison capabilitiesIt is critical to evaluate the comparison engines of each offering. It is vitally important to testthese engines using complex and lengthy documents with complex formatting, since simpledocuments may not reveal the differences in accuracy between each comparison solution. Itis also important to test the comparisons on other document formats your organization relieson such as PDF.

Multi-user document tracking capabilitiesExcept for use in all but the smallest organizations or for the simplest of documents, asolution should be able to support both serial reviews and parallel reviews in order tomaximize the speed with which documents can be reviewed and the efficiency of reviewers.Further, the solution must protect master documents against corruption during the reviewprocess.

Single-master tracking capabilitiesThis is a key feature, particularly inorganizations with a large number ofreviewers and/or if multiple documentrepositories are employed. Single-master tracking ensures that thecorrect version of a document is theone under review regardless of wherethe document is stored.

Metadata cleaning capabilitiesIt is critical that a solution be able to clean metadata from any document. As noted earlier,reasons for cleaning metadata might include removing communications between a client andan attorney that could be included as comments in a document, eliminating earlier changesthat might not have accurately reflected company policy, or eliminating comments that couldportray an organization in a negative light.

Provision of document change historyAn audit trail of a documents change history can be very important to demonstrate how a

document evolved over time, and to determine who might have made changes and why thechanges were made.

Version control capabilitiesVersion control is among the most vexing problems that any document reviewer will face.Any solution should ensure that the correct document is the one under review to preventmistakes and time wasted reviewing older or incorrect documents.

Comment managementComments are a vital part of the document review process because they allow reviewers toask questions, request clarification from authors, point out potential violations of companypolicy, and so forth. Any solution must be able to manage comments in meaningful ways,such as using tracking comments for each individual reviewer, allowing comments to be

hidden, filtering comments by individual reviewers, and so forth.

PDF capabilitiesAny solution should support both the creation and manipulation of the Adobe PortableDocument Format (PDF) given the ubiquity of this format across multiple platforms.Individual reviewers should be able to create PDF documents, compare PDFs to other PDFsor Word documents, make changes to them, assemble multiple PDF documents into a singledocument, etc.

A solution should be able tosupport both serial reviews

and parallel reviews in orderto maximize the speed with

which documents can bereviewed


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Ease of useEase of use is a critical consideration for any solution, since a system that is cumbersome,time-consuming or difficult simply will not be used.

Document corruption preventionCorrupt documents are the fear of all users particularly at the 11th hour. Corruption can be

prevented by solutions which control round-tripping by protecting the integrity of the masterversion by not introducing bad formatting, styles and other word processing formats into themaster document.

Security capabilities and supportSecurity is of critical importance for any solution. Depending on the organizations policies,security capabilities might include the ability to redact comments or changes, clean metadataprior to document transmission or presentation; the ability to encrypt documents duringtransmission and at rest, such as when written to CDs or DVDs; support for PDF security;rights management; and data protection to ensure that sensitive information is not sentoutside of the company.

WHAT PLATFORMS AND ARCHITECTURES ARE SUPPORTED?

The platforms and architectures that a solution can support are a vital consideration, particularlyin a heterogeneous desktop and server environment, or when document reviewers in differentorganizations are involved in the review process. Issues to consider here include support for:

Microsoft Office, the near-ubiquitous desktop productivity application.

Client/server capabilities.

Support for leading server operating systems and desktop operating systems, including thegrowing penetration of 64-bit operating systems.

Support for a variety of other systems, including Microsoft Active Directory, Citrix, MicrosoftOutlook, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Internet Explorer and various mobile platforms.

HOW CAN THE SOLUTION BE DEPLOYED?It is important that a solution support deployment options that are most useful to the organizationtoday and also based on how its needs will change in the future. It is important to not onlyevaluate installation options such as silent installation on desktops, but to also look at solutionsthat offer modular deployments so different workgroups can have a tailored interface withdifferent features.

WITH WHICH SYSTEMS DOES THE SOLUTION INTEGRATE?A document solution should support all of the systems in use by an organization today or that itmight use in the future. These systems might include Microsoft SharePoint (rapidly becoming thedefault collaboration platform in Exchange-enabled environments), Microsoft Office, EMCDocumentum, Open Text, Autonomy Interwoven, Starlaw and various other platforms, as well as

the email systems in which these documents will be sent.


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Summary

Managing documents effectively is critical for every information worker. Todays organizationsproduce and manage contracts, legal agreements, documentation, corporate policy manuals andmore. A failure to adequately manage these documents and control their content can lead to avariety of consequences, including loss of employee productivity, legal judgments, andcustomers.

Technology that provides document capabilities that will permit individuals to manage documentsefficiently and securely, and at the lowest possible cost in terms of both direct expenses andpersonal productivity are requirements in todays companies. As organizations evaluate themany solutions available to them, they should ask a series of detailed and probing questions toensure that the solution they choose best matches their current and expected requirements.


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Product Comparison Worksheet

The following worksheet provides a list of common features and functions to look for as youreview document solutions for your organization.

SolutionA SolutionB SolutionC

DOCUMENT COMPARISON

Can you compare Word-to-Word

Can you compare PDF-to-PDF

Can you compare Word-to-PDF

Can you compare embedded Excel tables and other objects

Can you compare multiple versions of documents

Can you synchronize between all versions and changes

Can you easily compare attachments in email messages

Can you accept/reject PDF and Word changes with Word trackchanges

Can you email a redline as track changes

Can you email or save a redline as a PDF

Can you perform paragraph, line, character and word levelcomparisons

Can you manage and customize rendering sets

Are comparisons of complex documents (100+ pages) accurate

Is accuracy high in tables, list numbering, bullets & complex formatting

COLLABORATION

Does the user interface allow for easy review cycles

Can multiple reviewers work in parallel on a document

Can you manage comments with/without MS track changes

Does it support MS track change reviews

Can you compare one-to-many document versions

Does it control a single master document for you

Does it provide an additional level of version control

Does it decrease document corruption

SECURITY

Will the solution discover and remove metadata in documentsDoes it detect metadata with mobile users (Web Mail, PDAs,Blackberrys)

Can you easily enforce company-wide rules for metadata cleaning

Can the user initiate metadata discovery on files

If text is improperly redacted will users be notified to fix the issueAre there different risk categories to help users (High, medium andlow-risk)


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Can you remove metadata in a batch process

Can you convert Office files to PDF

Can you convert a PDF to Office file format

Can you create a PDF from any application

Does it offer 128-bit PDF securityCan you combine multiple PDF documents into one PDF

Can you add and remove individual pages from a combined PDF

USER INTERFACE

Is the user interface easy to understand

Is the user interface customizable

Can security policies run silently in the background

Are settings easily locked down or removed

Are there tools for Admin to create and manage security policies

Does the application offer custom or modular installation

INTEGRATION AND PLATFORM SUPPORT

Does it provide Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 & 2010 System and UISupport

Does it integrate with your DMS (Hummingbird, SharePoint,Interwoven, etc)

Does it easily integrate with other business applications (e.g. CRM,Practice and Matter Management Systems)

Is there Unicode language support for all language documents andplatforms

Is there support for SMTP, FTP, HTTP, IM and Webmail channels


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AUDITING AND REPORTING

Can you report on the entire document lifecycle

Can you audit/report on user and enterprise wide activity

Are there statistical and summary reports

SUPPORT RESOURCES

Are there phone, web, and email support options available

Are there global support options available

Is there an active online user community (forums)

Are there training resources available

Are Professional Services available

2010 Osterman Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

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