Chapter 3

Document Management

What's in this chapter?

  • Understanding document management and how Microsoft SharePoint meets the needs of an enterprise-class document management system
  • Exploring Microsoft SharePoint's extensive document management capabilities
  • Administering and using Microsoft SharePoint's document management capabilities
  • Leveraging Microsoft SharePoint APIs to programmatically interact with its numerous document management features

Organizations both large and small alike struggle to manage their document resources effectively. These organizations are often plagued by vast amounts of paper documents stored in file cabinets, desk drawers, and various other physical locations. These paper documents can consume large amounts of storage space, which may result in costly expenses. It is not uncommon for important documents to be misfiled, and it can be difficult and time consuming to find them even if they are filed properly. Unfortunately, this problem isn't limited to paper documents; many of the same issues occur with an organization's electronic documents as well — due to disorganized file shares and local user copies that lack centralized management, consistent structure, and organizational oversight. Managing documents in this way — whether they are in paper form or electronic form — is costly, inefficient, and ineffective.

Imagine a typical company employee who creates business documents on a daily basis. Many times, the employee will create a document and ...

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