We often get questions on the specific differences between Workshare Professional and the features offered in Microsoft Office 2007 for document comparison, metadata removal and document security.
Every organization’s software requirements are different but I have gathered the most common questions that are asked as customers migrate to Office 2007 and evaluate their need for a third party comparison application like Workshare Professional.
Questions to ask about document comparison features:
- How accurate do you require the document comparison to be?
- Will a comparison involving tables, numbering, and lists be compared accurately in Office 07?
- Do you need to compare RTF, DOCX, DOC, HTML or Text only file formats?
- Do you ever want to compare PDF to PDF or a Word to PDF?
- How are embedded objects, images or excel tables compared within documents?
- Do you need to be able to compare a scanned (OCR) or image based PDF?
- Is a consolidated view to compare more than two documents important?
- Are training costs a concern?
- How easily can you accept and reject changes from multiple document reviewers?
- In addition to Track Changes, are redline format options in PDF, DOC, DOCX, RTF, or XML a priority to you? How fast do you need the document comparison to run?
- How flexible or customizable do you need rendering set functionality to be?
- Would you like to print only the pages with redline changes?
- Is DMS integration a necessity?
- Would you like document comparison features integrated with your email application to speed workflow?
- Will each document comparison solution provide the same level of support on issues that arise over complex documents or templates?
Questions to ask about PDF features:
- Do you need PDF to Word conversion?
- What file formats are supported?
- Are PDF security options a priority?
- Does combining files into one PDF (PDF Bibles) offer value?
- Do you work within a DMS and require the ability to create PDF files from there?
- Would you like to enforce a policy to make sure everyone converts specific documents to PDF?
Questions to ask about metadata features:
- Do you need all hidden data elements to be identified by the software solution?
- Is performance important? Do you want to avoid being slowed down by your metadata cleaning software?
- Does metadata cleaning need to be enforced for scenarios important to your organization - Outlook, Lotus Notes, Outlook Web Access, BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Mobile Devices?
- Is the user experience easy to use and/or customize, or will training be a requirement?
- Would you like to be able to configure the application to exclude important metadata items like document reference ID’s, headers and footers?
Other questions to consider:
- Are other matter-centric security features important such as removable media encryption, blocking file transfers to USB devices, or full disc encryption?
- Would you like to classify and tag documents for their sensitivity?
- Are redaction features available and easy to use?
- Would you like to be able to identify proprietary content within emails or documents?
- Are centralized policy management, policy distribution and software deployment tools important?
- Would you like to have visibility into metadata risks, and monitor, track and audit policies?
If you are in the process of evaluating legal document management software solutions you may also benefit from reading these latest research reports by Osterman Research; A Guide to Managing Documents in Today’s Law Firms, and A Guide to Document Comparison and Security For Corporate Legal.