Document Management – Why is Taxonomy Important?

Organisations implement document management systems to move away from costly and inefficient paper-based processes and achieve better control over business information.

Taxonomy is generally known as a hierarchical classification process. The importance of taxonomy in a document management system relates to the provision of an indexing structure to aid speed of document retrieval and maximise the value of your information assets.

Careful planning for successful document management

Before implementing a document management system, DCS consultants will help you identify document taxonomy requirements and advise on how to build these into your solution. The criteria used to organise, store and name documents can incorporate standards such as ISO or XMI, or derive from organisation, process or user-specific requirements.

Time invested in carefully reviewing taxonomy and document classification requirements will pay back through time saved when using the document management system. A well thought-out taxonomy will affect the extent to which you are able to successfully automate document capture, by driving the automated routing and storage of the captured documents.

Examples of the benefits of effective taxonomy in automated document capture

You stand to gain maximum benefit from a document management system by adding documents to it as soon as they arrive in the organisation. Typically, this will involve paper document scanning and capture and document capture from inbound communication channels such as fax or email.

Once documents have been captured, the carefully elaborated taxonomy rules will drive the way in which they are handled by the document management software. The ability to automate document handling and archiving means pre-determined file naming conventions and storage rules will be automatically implemented for each captured document, eliminating arbitrary file naming and storing by users.

Find what you need fast

A carefully planned taxonomy will boost productivity by substantially narrowing down document searching and retrieval, even before you implement keyword-based search techniques. The taxonomy will drive automated document classification and help elaborate fundamental meta data for document tagging and indexing.

Successful user adoption

By consulting with all those likely to be involved in using the document management system and building in their feedback, a taxonomy which reflects the way the people in your organisation think and work will drive successful adoption and help get the best return from the document management investment.

Easier security implementation

Document security requirements can be built into your document management taxonomy. Ensuring specific documents are automatically stored in specific areas of the taxonomic structure means the documents will be subject to the security settings applicable to that area. You can thus ensure security policy rules are applied automatically which saves time, reduces error and aids compliance.

Easier implementation of document retention policies

Effective document management taxonomy enables grouping of captured documents to facilitate implementation of global document retention policies. Using the example of document retention for tax regulation compliance, you can save time and effort by setting up an automated review workflow for all documents which no longer need to be retained for tax purposes.