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Document Manager
Overview

Send Newest Content Across the Enterprise

Working on the front lines means that it’s harder to get the “latest” versions of anything coming from headquarters. Pricing lists, proposal templates, promotion materials, competitive information, presentations… there’s always a question of whether or not everyone’s got the right version. Maybe your company’s current approach is to periodically send a CD into the field, or to use email alerts to let frontline workers know that new documents are available for download. Either way, the process is cumbersome for everyone involved.

Afaria Document Manager is the easy solution to ensure that frontline workers always have the content they need. It provides organized initial delivery and ongoing updates for content and data files to frontline devices, without the involvement of users. With Document Manager, you can deliver and update files containing dynamic information, including text files, graphic files, and HTML files. Content can be disseminated to all users, or to selected sub-group(s), as needed.

With Document Manager, document owners maintain control over their content and can easily replace old documents with the latest versions, allowing files to be refreshed automatically when outdated. Administrators can quickly and efficiently "push" content to users and/or allow users to subscribe to or "pull" specific files.

Flexibility for Users and Managers

Document Manager lets you create document management “channels” using server-based files and/or external media sources such as CDs. You can create different channels that all use the same media as the source, or specify that new channels use the same media by default. Channels can associate dependent files with a main file, and deliver dependent files as either viewable or hidden. For example, when distributing an HTML page that includes graphic files (required to display the HTML file correctly, but not needed by the user), a channel could send dependent .jpg files as “hidden.” So although not separately viewable by the user, the graphic files would populate the HTML page correctly.

Document Manager gives users and administrators a variety of options for document delivery:

  • Subscription: Users can subscribe to an entire channel of documents or to selected documents within a channel.
  • Scheduled: Deliveries can be scheduled for convenience.
  • Requested: Specific document(s) can be requested for delivery.
  • Automatic: Documents can be automatically “pushed” to users based on management decisions or user subscriptions.
  • Notices: Users can be automatically notified when updates are available for those documents to which they’ve previously subscribed.
  • On- or off-line delivery: Documents can be made available either on- or off-line, giving users choice about when and where to receive them.

You can initially distribute information to your users on a CD or disk and then periodically deliver updated files via "normal" Document Manager channels. Document channels can be quickly refreshed to ensure that channel files are consistent with original source files.

Communication Optimizations

Document Manager’s connectivity optimizations make the challenges of low bandwidth transparent to the frontline user while minimizing transmission costs. For example, when users request a file that already exists on their system, Document Manager detects the differences between the file at the client and the source file on the server and then sends only the differences. When running over any frontline network— including WANs, Wireless WANs or LANs, VPNs, or dial-up remote access connections—Document Manager’s optimizations shorten connection times. It can sense the presence of a network in the background, connect, measure the available bandwidth, and decide what work should take place, all without user intervention. If a connection is lost, it bookmarks its place in the process and picks it up again when a connection is re-established.

Document Manager makes it cost-effective to deliver and automatically update important documents. It decreases the time frontline users have to spend navigating through the LAN, Internet, or intranet for pertinent information and makes it easy for content owners to keep content fresh. In doing so, it reduces the total cost of ownership associated with managing content.