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Hi everyone! I am a tech writer (two years experience) at a major
telecommunications company. I have a problem concerning document management.
My boss wants me to lead a document management process for our department of
40 people. He explained in detail the theory of document management using
amdocs,pcdocs, etc. and repositories. This is what they did at his previous
position. I looked up such a tool on our corporate intranet, but the only
tool that is a corporate standard is Panagon. This was decided against since
it was too costly, but he would still like some kind of checking in and out
process for documents.
Now, other parts of this he wants are password protection of all department
documents (already accomplished with Word 2000), standard header and
footers, versioning and an archive of previous versions of templates, and
even separate versions of each document created before it was frozen. Each
time someone checks in and out of the document, a new version is created.
This task has been in my workplan for a long time, and I should probably get
started with it soon. I do not agree with so many versions of documents
since our shared drive space is small and we are always running out of room.
I broached my boss's proposal with the requirements team, and they do not
like it at all. They expressed to me that they have set ways and that I am
their peer and should not be put in a position of organizing their
documentation. Not sure what to do.
I'm not familiar with any "standard" procedures that are available or
followed by other companies to formally manage document changes. They are
looking to me, but I am not sure what to do, especially if I don't agree
that all the changes proposed are feasible. I am not sure who to proceed
with this.
Beth Smith
SBC/Ameritech
ACM Team, Technical Writer
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