ECM Definitions

IBM ECM – Enterprise Content Management is included in the IBM Digital Business Automation suite of products designed to automate business processes with electronic document management, workflow, and electronic forms processing. For more information – IBM Digital Business Automation

FileNet – The IBM FileNet Electronic Document Management system designed to facilitate document categorization, search and retrieval, version control, collaboration, and document/data sharing in a secure environment.

Document – An object (file) stored in the FileNet repository. Documents have properties, security, content, and versions. Documents are typically electronic documents (Word, PDF, etc.) and can also be other types of files such as sound, video, database, code files, etc.

Document Class – A category for documents in the FileNet document repository. Documents within a Document Class have the same properties.

Properties – Attributes that help identify (and locate) documents. Properties have values that can further define the document. For example, a Customer Name property might have the value “John Smith” and further more John Smith’s PeopleSoft Employee ID # might be “532897.”

Security – Security is defined by groups of users and specifies how documents can be viewed, modified, or hidden. Typically groups of users are defined by their business roles.

Document Entry Template – A custom page built for business users to add documents to the correct document class in FileNet. On the page are properties that pertain to that document class. Property values will be populated by the business user(s).

Document Search Template – A custom search page built for business users to search for documents by entering values into property fields which returns a list of documents matching that criterion. In addition to property based searches, there is Content base search (locating documents by entering a word or phrase contained within the document content). These two search types can be combined on a search page.