5 Document management skills that prove you are a pro (2024)

The first thing we’re going to talk about is numbering like a pro. There’s really a few components to this. There’s internal and external numbering that both need to be mastered to achieve professional status. Internally, you want to use a consistent numbering scheme, because inconsistent numbering confuses your teams, makes reporting a nightmare, and makes you look like a dunce. Also, you want to think about simplifying your internal numbering systems. Being too tricky, clever, or fancy can cause confusion among your team which means they won’t follow the rules or can’t find what they need. Keep it simple. The second aspect of this is external or client numbering. Your clients are clients and that’s where the money flows from. You want to accommodate your clients by giving them the option to view and search using the numbering that they’re familiar with. Obviously, you want to report to your clients using their numbering format as well. True professionals make this happen and the best professionals make sure this is automated. If you want to know how to automate this process email us and we can set up a consultation.

The second thing that you can do to prove that you’re a document management pro is distribute documents like a pro. The first step of mastering distributions is stop with the file servers already. Making your clients or your partners use VPN or remote desktop to log into a server or Dropbox to go look for files in a folder structure makes you look JV (Junior varsity). You want to take it up to varsity, so stop making your clients fight these backwoods systems. The second thing to think about is online distributions. Couriers, emails and all that is super old school. It’s untraceable and it’s really unsecure. If you use an application to distribute documents in a task format, you’re going to be ahead of the game. The third thing is self-service.

Document distribution isn’t just a push mechanism anymore. It’s also a pull mechanism. You want your teams, your partners and your clients to be able to go into wherever he has your documents and, like we said before, it shouldn’t be a file structure on a server or in a dropbox like application. You want them to be able to log in and access what they have permissions to see very quickly, very easily. Documents should be in a register with filters, NOT A FOLDER STRUCTURE. They should be able to export live data and download documents in batch. I’m really inclined to think that they want on-demand access so they don’t have to view document control as a gate keeper or the arbiter of documents. These are your clients after all, so you really owe it to your clients and your partners to make it easy. If you succeed in being easy to work with, they may want to work with you more often.

The third thing to think about is how to handle markups and reviews like a pro. There are a few different things that you need to think about here. The first one is letting your tech affirmative folks do online reviews, markups, and approvals. You have people in your office, I’m sure, that really just like printing papers and marking up documents by hand and scanning them back in to their desktop and then uploading them back into a system. All that printing and scanning sounds like a huge pain to me, but some people do like it, which is why you need to accommodate your paper pushers, too. As the saying goes, “different strokes for different folks.” What does this mean? It means you want to be accommodating and make your teams comfortable with your process – otherwise they will just do their own thing or sabotage your process. It is simply human nature. On the other side of the coin, when you are accommodating it builds your reputation as good a good document controller. It also builds your departments reputation as a good document control group.

Intertwined with distributions, reviews, transmittals, and submittals that make up the daily life of a document controller, it is also important to have a history. Have a systematic way to collect each reviewer’s markups and log them to the document in the correct revision. You also want consistent and clear dispositions. When somebody walks by the hall and says, “Oh, this looks good,” and hands you a stack of documents that are all marked up, that’s not a very clear disposition. You need to know whether it’s approved, rejected, approved as noted. You need to have that document electronically in the system with all of its revisions, markups and dispositions. Preferably the logging and categorizing of these documents is automated all of that as well. If you can automate that – it’s a sure sign of a pro. If you want details on how to make that happen, email us and we can set up a consultation.

The fourth thing that you can do to handle document management like a pro is to integrate like a pro. Here are some areas that you want to be able to integrate with. Procurement, for instance, you want your suppliers and vendors to have the latest revisions because if they’re building from the wrong revision, that’s going to cost some serious cash and it could definitely come back to your document control group and make you guys look bad and cost your company money. Obviously, that is not good, so you don’t want to do that. The second area is cost control. When the cost team is preparing progress reports, it’s really a pain to go back and forth and find the progress for your document register. Cost controllers, they don’t really want to beholden to your schedule and your list of tasks to do. If you could integrate your data with your cost control system so your progress transmits automatically, you’re going to be a step ahead. You’re going to get mad respect from your cost control group.

The third area of integration is inspections. Your inspectors, like your suppliers, they need the right rev to do their job. If they don’t have the right revision, they’re either not being effective or they’re sitting in the field at the inspection site idle with nothing to do. You want to provide them with the right revisions. You also want to add an element of self-service like we talked about earlier. Nothing breeds frustration like unreliable FTPs or waiting for a thumb drive to arrive in the mail from New Orleans when you’re in the fab yard in Korea.

The fifth thing we’re going to talk about is reporting like a pro. There are three parts to reporting – consistency, consistency, consistency. Pros deliver consistently formatted reports. Otherwise it looks like the reports are just cobbled it together every week at the last minute. You look unsure and disorganized. Consistency part 2. You want to pull your reports from a central document database so all your reports and status jive. We mentioned integrating with cost control. If you produce the progress report for your client and your cost controllers produce an earned value report that breaks out document progress and the numbers don’t match, they’re going to ask the questions that are going to be pretty hard to answer. Consistency part 3. When it comes to reporting, you want to make sure your reports are client friendly, ie. Consistent with their numbering. We mentioned this earlier as well. You want to report using the client’s document numbers and make it very simple for them to see what the progress is in their own terms.

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5 Document management skills that prove you are a pro (2024)

FAQs

What are document management skills? ›

Skills. Reading Comprehension - Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents. Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.

What skills do you need for documentation? ›

Common skills a document specialist should have include:
  • Basic data and analytical abilities.
  • Organizational skills.
  • Typing and computer skills.
  • Time-management abilities.
  • Verbal and written communication.
  • Attention to detail.
  • Responsibility and professionalism.
Mar 22, 2021

What are strong documentation skills? ›

Here are the top related skills to documentation:
  • Management.
  • Responsible.
  • Managing.
  • Planning.
  • Implementation.
  • Sales.
  • Project Management.
  • Communication.
May 17, 2022

What are the features of a good document management system? ›

So to recap, five effective features of a document management system are:
  • Being able to access documents from within a centralised repository.
  • Providing quick and efficient updates at any time.
  • Giving instant access to the right information, from any location.
  • Providing multimedia content access in a range of formats.

How can I improve my documentation skills? ›

Improve Documentation in 5 Steps
  1. Minimize Passive Voice. Time for a quick grammar lesson: ...
  2. Use Catchy Headings and Bullet Points. People today are constantly inundated with content. ...
  3. Reduce Buzzwords and Acronyms. ...
  4. Invest in Visual Content. ...
  5. Organize Your Documents Appropriately.
May 7, 2022

What is professional documentation? ›

A professional document can be a report, presentation, or a document that has technical information relating to the profession of the parties involved. Editage is now offering professional document editing and proofreading services.

What means documentation skills? ›

When we think about documentation skills, the first thing that comes to mind is writing — the grammar, spelling, and sentence structuring. But who likes reading dense text? Documentation is about communicating through various medias and finding the best way to convey an idea.

What is basic need of documentation in professional life? ›

It provides helpful guidance for performance

It allows everyone following them to perform at their best and be clear about your expectations. Taking the time to document each of your procedures in a step-by-step format will save time and money in the long run.

What are three benefits of document management systems? ›

The Top 7 Benefits of Document Management Systems
  • Reduced Storage Space.
  • Enhanced Security.
  • Improved Regulatory Compliance.
  • Easier Retrieval.
  • Better Collaboration.
  • Better Backup and Disaster Recovery.
  • Increased Productivity.
Mar 19, 2015

What do you look for in a document management system? ›

7 elements to look for in a document management system
  • Cloud storage and connectivity. ...
  • Scanning capabilities. ...
  • Search and Metadata function. ...
  • Built-in document editor/creator. ...
  • Document version controls. ...
  • Permission controls. ...
  • Universal format support.
Oct 3, 2019

What is an example of document management system? ›

Most Frequently used Document Management System:

PDF Readers are the best example of a Document Management System through which you can access the PDF file offline and store it to view and even print and publish it anytime at any place.

How do you describe documentation skills on a resume? ›

You're going to want to begin talking about your skills as a documentation specialist starting with the profile summary. For example, "Highly knowledgeable and analytical Documentation Specialist with excellent attention to detail and strong organizational skills."

How do you list document skills on a resume? ›

The following list of steps outline how to list your skills on a resume:
  1. Understand the skills that impress employers in your industry.
  2. List all your exceptional skills.
  3. Remove the least relevant skills.
  4. Consider the job description.
  5. Organize bullets.
  6. Provide examples.
Feb 25, 2020

What are examples of skills? ›

Problem-solving skills: creativity, critical thinking, and analytical skills. Customer-service skills: active listening, time management, and prioritization. Interpersonal skills: communication, teamwork, and empathy. Leadership skills: decision making, stress management, and organization.

What are the 5 basic filing steps? ›

The five basic steps for filing. Conditioning, releasing , Index and coding, Sorting, Storing and filing.

What are the 5 basic filing systems? ›

There are 5 methods of filing:
  • Filing by Subject/Category.
  • Filing in Alphabetical order.
  • Filing by Numbers/Numerical order.
  • Filing by Places/Geographical order.
  • Filing by Dates/Chronological order.

What is the importance of document management? ›

As mentioned above, a good Document Management System helps organizations to prevent mistakes and to increase their efficiency. It can offer significant advantages, such as lower costs of operations, security, information retrieval and governance.

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