How to Setup A Managed Document Environment

Some of our clients start from a position where they are running an existing manual business continuity process. The first challenge for them is to move from this manual process to a managed document solution. The ImpactAware platform offers a smooth transition from manual process through to full dependency modeling. This tutorial provides a comprehensive list of steps that clients need to follow to implement the first stage of this transition: from manual process to managed document process.

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Creating Your User Community

The first step in setting up your managed document business continuity environment is to create your user accounts.

Start up the ImpactAware Application and logon as an Administrator. Goto the User tab and add accounts for each of your Business Continuity Practitioners or Champions.

Creating Your Activities

Once you have created your users you need to setup part of your dependency model elements to attach your managed documents to. It is up to you how to structure this, but as a minimum you should start by defining all of the activities that are managed by your Business Continuity Practitioners. Some clients may go further than this and develop a full organizational model.

Within the ImpactAware Application goto Assets by Type tab and make sure the Activity type is selected in the drop down at the bottom of the screen. Create the number of activities which you want to attach documents to. At a minimum you must give each Activity a name and assign it to a user you created in the previous step.

Moving Documents Into The System

Now you have a list of Activities and have assigned these to your Business Continuity Practitioners you need to add documents for them to manage. These could be templates that they are required to fill in or existing documents that you want them to manage.

Within the ImpactAware Application goto the Documents tab and add a new document to be managed. Give the Document a public name and attach the file you want managed. Make sure you select the managed document radio button and select the Activity that you want the document attached to.

Once the above process has been completed you will have a number of users managing a series of Activities. These activities will contain a series of managed documents.

The Business Continuity Practitioners View

To simplify the management from the Practitioners point of view we provide a simplified application that allows them to view and manage the documents under their control. There is no need for Practitioners to use the ImpactAware Application within a Managed Document Environment. Practitioners should be advised to use the Managed Document Application.

Practitioners should be provided with their logon details and advised to install the Managed Document Application. This application provides them with a list of documents that they need to manage. Each document is listed with a review status, a last review date and the activity which it relates to.

Practitioners can download and view the document, update the document and upload as well as simply mark the document as reviewed if no changes are required.

Monitoring The Process

You can monitor the process using the ImpactAware Application, but clients may want to monitor the process by building up their own analysis. This can be done via a number of routes including the creation of a Crystal Report template or an Excel Report template.