Xythos keeps documents in compliance

Xythos has always been a cost-effective alternative to traditional ECM (enterprise content management) systems. From its inception in 1999, Enterprise Document Management Suite has worked with ease and sophistication, including shared file folders combined with secure, offline access and other essential functions such as approval workflows. Moreover, Xythos' recent versions included enterprise features such as LDAP integration and robust APIs for custom development along with JSR 168 (portlets) and JSR 170 (document repository) support. While Xythos isn’t unique in offering these features, they still aren’t commonplace among document management products.

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Version 6.0 takes an important leap forward by introducing records management so your organization can handle growing compliance requirements without making employees’ jobs any more demanding. Along with the records auditing and retention policies, Enterprise Document Manager 6.0 has more flexible roles, improved reporting, and now lets you archive e-mail messages and their attachments as records.

Old style, new features

Xythos uses a proven architecture where metadata about documents is written to a database, while content resides in a file server. This isn’t what you normally find with an ECM system (usually, everything goes into the database), and it makes Xythos very scalable.

Enterprise Document Manager’s Web interface maintains the simplicity of prior versions. From a view that looks like a My Documents directory in Microsoft Windows, I quickly uploaded, managed, and shared documents. Each document has a secure file link (URL) that can be password protected and safely exchanged with business partners or contractors.

Using the toolbar, I created personal and project workspaces, established groups and added members, and shared files among colleagues, all in a few easy steps. Workspaces automatically inherit security settings, so there’s little risk of users compromising the system by having access to these capabilities.

Library services transparently handle core functions such as document version control. For example, users can save a file multiple times under the same name, yet still view all previous versions. As users upload and edit files, they use forms to add metadata that classifies documents. This information helps in searches, which can be saved for reuse.

The subscription function sends an e-mail notification when changes occur to directories and files, but I would like to see Xythos add other notification options, such as RSS feeds.