Streamline the Document Approval Process With Agile Document Control Software

By Chris Nahil
On September 25, 2023

With many digital documents circulating within an organization, ensuring they go through the proper approval processes without hitches is essential. However, traditional online and paper-based systems often fail to meet these demands, disrupting workflow and potential setbacks. This is where agile document control software comes into play.

By integrating agile principles, this software provides a dynamic solution, ensuring documents are swiftly approved, easily accessible, and compliant with all necessary regulations. Dive deeper to understand the benefits of agile document control and how it can redefine how your organization handles its document approval process.

The Costly Implications of a Disrupted Document Approval Workflow

Despite the number of software solutions available to assist with the document approval process, many organizations still carry out their document approval workflow using online and paper-based systems.

While this can initially seem simpler than spending the time and money required to implement agile document control software, it can quickly cause confusion, leading to reduced productivity and important information getting lost or left out.

Even if teams use online systems, important documents can get lost in someone’s inbox for weeks if they are out of the office or if they simply don’t see the email. This can significantly slow down the approval process.

How an Agile Document Control Software Can Help

Agile document control software offers a transformative approach to managing and organizing documentation within an organization. Let’s look at how:

Streamline Document Approval Processes

This solution can streamline your approval process and improve productivity by eliminating bottlenecks and reducing the chance of delays, miscommunications, errors, and compliance issues.

Enhance Collaboration and Feedback

Instead of having to wait for colleagues to send documents by email, they can be accessed by anyone who needs them at any time. It’s also easy for anyone to leave or view feedback. This enhances collaboration and allows for changes and approvals to occur more quickly.

Improve Compliance and Version Control

This software improves version control by letting you track changes. This means you can see exactly when people have made changes and who has made them. Its built-in version control functionality also allows you to roll back changes.

Increase Visibility and Access

Agile software allows you to access your documents anywhere and from any device. This visibility and access means you can view, edit, and approve important documentation no matter your location, which decreases the chance of delays.

Integrate with Quality Management Systems

This software can integrate with your organization’s quality management systems (QMS) to help organize your documentation and promote collaboration and discussion between teams.

Overcome Implementation Challenges

Agile document control software can help overcome implementation challenges by removing inefficiencies, providing full access to documents for those who need them, and notifying the right people when action is required.

Considerations for Choosing Agile Document Control Software

Document control is not just about organizing files; it’s about ensuring an organization’s operations’ efficiency, security, and scalability. Choosing appropriate document control software becomes pivotal as more enterprises shift to agile processes to enhance their productivity and response time. That’s because the right tool can directly impact an organization’s growth trajectory, employee productivity, data security, and overall operational excellence.

Here are some key considerations for choosing this software:

  1. Scalability and flexibility: Choosing flexible software that scales means you won’t have to pay change to a different software platform and migrate your documents as your organization expands.
  2. Security and data privacy: This should be one of your top concerns when choosing agile document control software. Data breaches can cause major disruption and damage to your organization. They can damage your reputation and even lead to legal issues if customer data ends up in the wrong hands.
  3. User-friendliness and ease of adoption: Choosing agile document control software that is easy to use and has a user-friendly interface means you’ll get up and running faster. Employees are more likely to want to use it, increasing productivity in your organization.
  4. Integration capabilities with existing systems: Before choosing software, you should check how easily it integrates with your existing systems and other popular software that employees are likely to use, such as Google Docs and Microsoft Office®.
  5. Vendor support and training resources: Implementing document control software can be time-consuming. Choosing software with vendor support and training resources can increase productivity and reduce time spent figuring out how to use the software.

Optimize Your Document Approval Process with ETQ Agile Document Control Software

Agile document control software eliminates creating and handling unnecessary documents that don’t add value. It promotes only producing the documents you need and frees up more time to focus on development.

ETQ agile document control software provides a centralized and controlled framework where you can manage the entire lifecycle of your documents, from creation, review, and distribution to archiving. It provides employees with access to the most up-to-date versions of documentation to ensure that your organization remains compliant and allows them to open, collaboratively edit, and publish changes seamlessly.

Consult an expert to learn more about ETQ’s document control software and how it can help your organization optimize its document approval workflows.