IBM FileNet Reviews

FileNet is very robust and it’s scalable. It's unlimited as far as size and file types that we manage. It's very accessible. It really works for us, for what we use it for.

In ECM, the M is management. Before, we didn't really manage very well. We had shares with files stuck over here; a laptop with some important files on it over here that are important to our enterprise. FileNet has allowed us to have a true enterprise system for all of our employees, customers and so on.

I would like to see a hybrid cloud, where we could have a cloud solution behind our firewall and use the benefits of the cloud without exposing it to the outside world. I would like a private cloud in conjunction with an external-facing cloud, like the box solution that they're talking about now. We don't have that right now.

We have a different use-case for our ECM solutions than most. We are a government lab with high security requirements. I probably would never house much of our data on an external cloud. The access that administrators would have to data does not meet our security requirements (i.e., Security Clearance for the US Government and ‘need-to-know’ requirements). However, I feel that cloud technology is a much better way to secure and share data. I would like to utilize cloud technology that we could implement on our own servers behind our firewall in conjunction with an external cloud for storing data outside our firewall or maybe in a DMZ to enable collaboration with our sister labs and customers in the government and industry.

It's very stable.

Scalability is unlimited; it really is.

Technical support is good. We rely on them a lot. We think of them as a partner. They're excellent, for the most part. We've had a few times when we were stuck and never had a solution. It was because we were way outdated on our system. For the most part, IBM, they're good. They're really good.

I have given it a high rating because we've analyzed other systems; compared everything out there. We do that because our CIO's office wanted us to. There just isn't anything better out there for what we use it for, for ECM.

The most important criteria for me when selecting a vendor to work with is that they deliver what they promise; not just a white paper but actually implemented it and it's working. If they do what they say, I think that's most important.

I have been working remotely for an insurance client and I use IBM File Manager.

The most valuable features of IBM File Manager are workflow, content, and process capabilities.

IBM File Manager should improve the UI. There should be more customization based on the user.

I have been using IBM File Manager for eight years.

I have found IBM File Manager to be stable.

IBM File Manager is scalable and it is easy to do.

We have approximately 100 users using this solution.

I rate the technical support of IBM File Manager a three out of five. They could improve by being more responsive.

The rate of initial setup complexity of IBM File Manager a two out of five. Whereas five is complex.

We have two people for the maintenance and support of the solution.

I rate the technical support from IBM File Manager a three out of five.

I rate IBM File Manager a seven out of ten.

On-premises

We use it as a business documents repository for documents such as invoices, packing lists, POs, etc.

One way the solution has helped our organization is that HR uses FileNet to keep personnel documents instead of keeping photocopies.

The most valuable feature is access control.

We do not know how to use the FileNet API. It seems like it is very difficult and not transparent. They could also improve on the solution's resource consumption and cost.

I've been using FileNet for two years.

The stability of the solution is good.

My impression of the scalability of the solution is that it is not really good since FileNet is a high resource-consuming solution.

The knowledge of their tech support staff is perfect but, even with that kind of support, we still need internal staff who have a notable level of knowledge of the solution.

We switched from an AS/400-based, on-demand solution because the company decided to abolish the IBM AS/400.

The initial setup was complex. Access control setup took a long time and it was difficult to upload documents from other systems.

We worked with Starting Point and RSTN.

The cost is about $40,000, plus yearly maintenance.

We looked at Ricoh and ParaDM. We chose IBM FileNet because of the brand name.

The biggest lesson I have used from using this solution is that, if it were up to me, I would choose a solution with a very easy upload method and an easy-to-use API.

My advice would be to understand the company deeply before making a decision.

We're not using much automation related to FileNet. We will introduce BAW soon, with a goal of introducing time savings. In terms of expanding our use of automation in our organization, we may convert some of our approval processes from paper to digitalized documents.

There are two use cases. One is as an extended datastore for IBM Connections, but we don't have many Connections customers. We have actually lost two such customers in the recent years because IBM didn't do anything for that product. 

The more common use case is as a general filestore for documents, with interfaces to the Web, etc. It is used to store incoming invoices and documents and to classify them. It's also used to automate the process of document storage, when documents come in. We have a mechanism to automatically categorize a document based on content. Based on that, we are able to create attributes for the content management system. Then we store the document in FileNet to enable retrieving it. We have PIDs, a universal access code, for each document and via that we are able to retrieve documents, even via applications.

We have created some interfaces. We have a central solution to make it easy for customers to plug in their application systems in an easy, customizable way, without having to program it. We also work in the area of analytics where we use Cognos. We have customers who retrieve information about incoming invoices. They can click on a link and retrieve it automatically out of FileNet or Content Manager.

FileNet helps increase productivity. For example, in reporting for a construction company, when they look at the costs, they can see the incoming and outgoing invoices. By clicking, they pull that document from the content store. The productivity comes from not having to go to a folder and look for a document. It's the integration which makes it productive, day-to-day.

You can only see how much the solution saves when you did not have a content system before. We have customers, for instance, who stored their documents in PDF format in folder structures. They had structures based on year and customer number. To find and use a document would take three to four times more effort than to have access via automated interfaces. The next gain is when you plug in mobile. Then you need something like FileNet, an intelligent content store.

It also helps with compliance and governance issues because it's a datastore that is not modifiable, and you can guarantee that. You cannot guarantee that with a folder-based file structure, where multiple people have access. In that scenario, you cannot guarantee that a document hasn't been changed.

The most valuable features of FileNet are the 

• storage mechanism
• search mechanism 
• interface through Content Navigator and 
• mobile interfaces. 

The area of migrations to new versions must be made easier. It's quite good that they have now begun to improve the API area, to modernize the interfaces, but there's always a very big investment involved in migrating from one version to another. That prohibits rolling out new functionalities to customers. It's not so easy. You can't release a new version every three months to bring in new capabilities. That is the old-fashioned, the way it worked ten or 20 years ago. That is bad. In that area, they really must improve.

We have FileNet, Content Manager, and TSM in our own installation. We migrated that installation three years ago to version 5.12. Now we have to migrate to 5.25 to bring in new facilities, and it's a big task. We have to do it in addition to our other tasks where we support customers. We need a parallel machine and to set it up there and to migrate step-by-step, then test it and roll it out. It's not so easy. That is a big area where there is much to be done to satisfy the needs of customers.

I've been using it a long time. We have been an IBM Business Partner for more than 20 years. We have been using FileNet since IBM bought it, I believe about eight years ago. We have been in the content management area since 2002. We started in the area of content systems with IBM Content Manager and then we added our support for File Net.

I have never really heard of problems with the stability because the database. IBM Db2 is never a problem. I cannot say anything about Oracle or other databases. We have avoided implementing with a non-IBM database where we can. When we do, there is no problem with stability.

In the larger installations, we use primarily TSM as the object store, and therefore we do not have problems with overrunning file space and those kinds of issues. The only thing we have seen is that when a customer's system administrator installs a new Java version on the server where FileNet is running, sometimes it can cause a big mess. FileNet doesn't come up.

We have customers with a very small user base, 50 users or so, and we have some who have a really big user base. But the scalability is primarily dependent on how long you are storing documents. The time over which documents are stored now has been extended far beyond seven years. In the past, often this was a financial necessity. But now, even though we do not have insurance companies as clients, we have customers where the stored documents are more than ten or 15 years old. The scalability is also more dependent on the count of documents than on the user-base interaction.

From my point of view, it's scalable enough. Today there are machines which are scalable, where you can put in additional processors and memory. In today's scenarios, scalability is not really an issue. FileNet can take advantage of today's technology for scaling. There are other products which cannot because the database prohibits it. When they use MS SQL Server Express, for example, there are limitations. And when you have windream and such solutions in the German market, which are also in the Austrian customer area, they show wonderful functionality and a wonderful GUI, but when it comes to the extensibility and scalability, they reach their limits relatively early.

We have not had to use technical support very often. We get technical support from Germany. There is a good support center where the response time is quite good.

When you use IBM Content Foundation as the entry point for installation, it's quite well-documented. If you have know-how in the IBM area, including the area of WebSphere Application Server, then it's not too hard to install. It's up to your partner to download the right versions which fit together, the right way, and then it's not really a big deal. In those circumstances, you can install FileNet within two or three days and have a running version.

Process automation is the main reason we created our own server: To make the interfaces easy and to automate the process of storing and adding the right attributes, and to make sure you're able to search and find the document again.

It's very hard to say what the ROI is on that automation. The goal was to make a solution for the customer where he can solve his problems. For us, the greatest part is the services part. We set it up as a vehicle through which customers are able to implement automation, and to make it easy for them to apply it to their applications.

For FileNet in general, the return in investment happens over two to three years when you take into account the license costs, the maintenance costs, and the implementation. I think that is a reasonable ROI. I have heard of products that have much longer ROI.

The licensing cost of FileNet is comparable. It costs more if you use Case Foundation or the like — if you extended it. But that is not the scale of our customers. They are too small for that.

We do the scanning part, at the moment, with other products, not the IBM scanning engine, because it's a price-sensitive area.

The problem is that the competitors' products have, in most areas, a contract with an ERP system. We now have three customers who are migrating to new ERP systems and they all have contracts with a document management solution. They bring it in with a fixed price and give them a whole document integration path.

We have one customer who, for many years, used IBM Content Manager, and now he's migrating to a new ERP system and he's throwing out the old solution because, with the new ERP system, he has document management out-of-the-box with the licensing cost. This customer has no experience with the new document management system. Nothing. The ERP seller sold him the D3 DMS system and now we have lost that content management installation.

In terms of decision-making, the problem is that most customers have IT people making the decision about which product to use and they do not have really the experience. When customers come to us, they often come in with a prepared offer from someone else with a vested interest.

This is happening more or more and it is not good. In the past, it was up to the market to have a good but independent product with interfaces to all application areas. With this new scenario, it's the IT managers, who do not have much experience — they come from university from which they only have technical knowledge — and they say: "Okay, I have one supplier who is providing me one solution. I have an all-in service contract and I don't need to take care of the solution on a technical level." That is bad for independent solutions like FileNet.

It's a stable solution. It's proven. It provides guaranteed compliance; neither the attributes nor the content itself can be modified. You can guarantee and report that. The implementation time is no more than for other products. And the product is scalable.

In creating our tools we have integrated a lot with FileNet. It's very easy to integrate because the only thing you need is a mechanism to store, a way to add and change attributes, and to retrieve. You also have to be sure that you have a good search engine when you do not have direct attributes, a full content search.

In the first years, we were not happy with the usability of the content management products. Content Manager had no value for end-user interfaces. We passed on the strong demand for that. In the last few years, with the new versions of Content Navigator, it has been much better. We have a good interface also in Notes, in the right sidebar. It's a solution from IBM, Germany, where you can drag and drop documents. The Content Navigator now also has mobile support with a good interface. It's much more useful than it was before.

The internal features haven't changed and are enough to fulfill the requirements of customers. But customers always want a beautiful GUI. It's much more necessary to sell it with a beautiful GUI than with the functionality they really need. When we sell it, the end-user interface carries a much greater weight in customer decision-making than the technical part. On the technical side, there is nothing that FileNet is missing. There are three ways things can be stored: in the database, in the filestore, or in TSM. Our larger customers have TSM as object storage for FileNet and that is a very good solution.

We have not implemented the IBM Automation Platform for Digital Business. We have looked at it. We thought that in the last two or three years it was too big, too heavy, and too expensive for our customers. We are rethinking that at the moment, looking again to see if it can help and if it makes sense. We are not sure in the moment if this automation package is really a helpful and an effective investment.

Overall I would rate FileNet at nine out of ten. What it's missing to make it to a ten is the possibility of implementing new versions and new functions easily, in smaller time intervals, without a big investment on the customer's side. That is a barrier to new functionalities. In addition, IBM doesn't market well. You do not hear anything about FileNet in the market — nothing. Nobody has promoted it over the last three years. You hear much more about all other DMS systems compared to FileNet. You hear about new facilities, about mobility, and the integration of scanning and scanning-automation processes. You don't hear anything about FileNet. And that doesn't make it easy.

We usually use it for document management in insurance or finance companies. Some of our clients are using the workflow for insurance cases. In these companies, FileNet is ingesting a lot of documents and a lot of insurance claims.

In terms of automation, we're using IBM Content Collector and we have started using RPA a bit. We're using ICC for some of our customers to ingest and automate the upload of multiple documents in bulk. We've just started using automation with RPA but not with the P8 system; rather for other functionality that customers need.

Ninety percent of our customers in the insurance industry, here in Israel, are working with FileNet.

Most of our customers use FileNet on-prem.

Filenet saves time in terms of clearance of insurance claims. Building a claim, from the customer side, is often easier as well. Not everything is perfect but it's good enough to work in most of the big insurance companies here in Israel.

Most of our customers are not using some of the most valuable features, like analytics, text search, or case or workflow features. They are generally not used by our customers because they're using other programs that are built-in to their networks. So if a customer has a workflow system already, he won't use the workflow system that is built-in to FileNet, although it's available.

It's the same with the content analytics. If the client has Kibana and Elasticsearch for searching text, they won't use that feature that comes with the FileNet P8 because it's only for the P8 system and not for the whole network.

The analytics in FileNet are too complicated and they consume too much infrastructure, memory, and CPU. They're too expensive to work with.

The usability, with the addition of Content Navigator, is not good enough. We're building our own interface, doing a facelift of the product, to satisfy our customers. People here in Israel are generally more Microsoft-oriented. They're used to the SharePoint look and feel, the Outlook look and feel. When they see Content Navigator and its features, it's a bit different for them. It's hard for them to get used to it.

Most of our customers and users are asking for features with a file-system-type look and feel. For example, when they open a folder in their file system they want to see the hierarchy of the folders. If IBM built something like other products, like M-Files for example, with a file-browsing feature, into P8, it would be a very good feature. Most customers around the world would use it.

That is what we're trying to build on our own. It would be easier for the customer to work with, in the same way IBM did with the Content Navigator Office Integration. There, you can browse through Office, the folders, and find things. You can drag and drop documents from Word, from Outlook, straight into the file folder in FileNet. If they would bring these kinds of features into the file system itself, without Office, it would be a killer feature.

I have been using FileNet for 20 years.

We have been working with it for a long time. It's one of the older versions. Both it and the new version are probably very stable.

We generally don't have any issues with the stability of the system. That could be because we are too small. In Israel we have small companies and they don't have very complicated systems, like in the United States or Europe. We have medium-size customers, compared to companies around the world. We don't have 500 users at a customer's site so these are not huge systems. And they're usually in the same geographical area. It's not like there is a site in New York and another one in Chicago or Philadelphia.

There are no issues with scaling. It's based on WebSphere Application Server so it's very easy to scale up.

I've contacted tech support many times. I don't have very much good to say about it. The people in support are changing often so most of the people there aren't familiar with the product. They are always asking for the basic information about the system, even though we've worked with finance customers for many years and we know the product. We try to provide the actual error to customer support and to get an answer about it. But until they forward it to first-level support or engineering, we lose time. We are not usually satisfied with customer support.

We used to use M-Files and we are a little familiar with Alfresco and Documentum. Generally, the biggest difference between those solutions and FileNet is the price. The others are much cheaper but most of them are less robust and less stable than FileNet. Programming and manipulating other programs to work with FileNet is easier than in Documentum, as far as I know. Each one has its own best features. It depends on the use case.

The initial setup depends. If we're talking about a Windows-based installation, it's very easy. For other operating systems, like Linux, it's a bit complex. If we're talking about the whole P8 suite, it's very complicated. Documentation on how-to, screenshots, or step-by-step instructions are missing in all of IBM's P8 finance products.

Unlike Apple or with other vendors, where you've got to book, you can install it without any understanding of the underlying system. In finance, with P8, if you are not familiar with bits and bytes you won't end up completing the installation.

In terms of how long it takes, if we're talking about only Content Navigator and FileNet P8, a basic system, just the installation could take three to five days. And that's not talking about the implementation. It depends on the customer's site, on the operating system, on the database vendor. Sometimes the version doesn't support it. It also depends on the network. It depends on a lot of things that are not straightforward.

We have a standard implementation strategy that we use for our customers. We're usually asking for Microsoft Windows operating system and either a SQL or Oracle Database, and we are not doing any other complex installation configurations like a very sophisticated single sign-on. That's because it doesn't work very smoothly.

The ROI on the automation aspect of FileNet is a big question. I don't have specific numbers. We're dealing with between 30 and 40 customers here in Israel, and every customer is different.

Within the IBM DBA (Digital Business Automation) portfolio we use Datacap and we do see a return on investment from that. The automated document scanning and email scanning show a very good return on investment.

If you are a small or medium-sized company, I would advise working with other programs before you put money into FileNet, even though I've worked with it for a long time. If we're talking about a large company, for the robustness, stability, performance, and the growth — that you can grow it within seconds — I would advise using FileNet, without any doubt.

The performance is dependent on the database. Issues with performance are usually associated with databases issues. And, as I mentioned, the GUI of IBM Content Navigator caused a lot of issues with performance, but it's working well with our GUI.

I would rate FileNet at eight out of ten. It's not a ten because of issues like the flexibility of the system, the ease of working with or manipulating or programming and enlarging it. It needs to be more flexible to work with, not hard-coded and not closed like it is now.

We had several use cases. We used it for all of our loan processing and we took a 21-day manual process down to three. We also used it for all of our credit applications, and that took a 45-day process down to two. It housed about 4TB of data.

Performance was great. It was our system of record.

No one was wondering where a document was. They could all go and find out exactly what they needed, when they needed. It wasn't, "Who's got this and who's got that?"

The most valuable features are the interconnectivity and the collaboration. No longer do I have to wonder what system I need to go to for the data I need. I know it's in FileNet.

We wrote several custom applications for the users to dive in and be able to find the data they need. 

If there was more AI capability, into Watson, that would be a benefit.

Also, where are the users going to find the documents? Because that's a path we don't see. We know that they're looking at documents, but we don't know what documents they're actually going and finding the most, or where the bottlenecks might be. It would be nice if there was some interconnectivity back into Bluemix to say, "Ok, you've got a workflow problem here." That would be a neat feature moving forward because we've got a lot of users that would just say, "The system is not working." We had a few threads would get hung up because they were just constantly banging on these few documents. If that were the case, if we knew that ahead of time, then we could fix that, change the search sequences to make it more efficient. But we were blind to that until the users said it's not working.

It's extremely stable. The only time it ever had a problem was if we lost power to the servers. It never really went down.

It was very scalable. If we needed to add more processing power we could just add another server, turn it on, and then we had more power. We didn't have any scalability problems.

We did use technical support for a while. enChoice was one of the partners we used with IBM. They're a great partner. Eventually, I was able to hire enough of our own staff that we did much of our own support.

My experience with technical support was good. Any time we needed them they were right there for us.

We were all manual before and we knew we needed something.

The most important criteria when selecting a vendor are

• commitment
• partnership - we're in this together.

IBM doesn't succeed if I don't succeed, and I can't succeed if the product doesn't work well. If there isn't that mutual give and take, then no one succeeds. It's more about: Any solution can be thought of and fixed and made to work, but you have to be able to work together. If I just sign up and give you a check and then you walk away, that doesn't help me. I need to sign up and then you be there with me, through the process.

I was not involved in the initial setup. From what I understand, when they first set it up it was rather complex. They had some hurdles to jump through. It took about two years to really iron out all the kinks. We had a vendor prior to enChoice that we weren't successful with. When we found enChoice, things started to turn around. So it's important to pick the right partner.

They evaluated Documentum, they evaluated FileNet, they evaluated a few other tools. The company actually bought FileNet before IBM bought FileNet, so we had a contract with FileNet and then IBM came in and bought it. That was a good thing because of the innovation that IBM did bring to the platform. We were also a heavy C|MAN user and the content management on-demand system integrates well with FileNet too. With the new Content Navigator, it allowed for one pane of glass. So what IBM is doing in that area is just going to keep getting better.

I would give the solution a nine out of 10. If it were free I would give it a 10.

Go find an industry that is the same as yours, that is using the tools you want to buy, and find out if they're successful. If they're not, don't go with those tools. For example, I'm in energy now and I'm looking for people who are using Maximo, who are using the other tools from IBM, and I want to talk to them: Are you successful using these tools?

Don't do it in a vacuum, you've got to talk to people.

FileNet gives a lot of flexibility to the different problems we run into within our environment. It gives us flexibilities for ingest in multiple different ways of different products in order to store the content in FileNet P8, as well as flexibility of where we want to store it; the flexibility of creating metadata associated with your documents. It helps in the metadata, as well the security aspects as well. The flexibility is really the biggest advantage, I feel.

It helps put structure around unstructured content. Having the structure there makes it easier for people to find their content, in many different ways, whether it's in a mortgage space or some sort of other space. It gives us the ability to unify all the content and makes it easier to find.

Over the years, it's actually improved quite a bit. I do like what they are putting into the product itself. Previously, your process engines and all these different components were outside of the actual FileNet Content Manager product and now more of that is coming internal to it; that makes it easier to deploy. I like the fact that it's easier to deploy; upgrades are much easier.

From an improvement perspective, one of the things we often have challenges with is, within the FileNet product, changing properties or just general configurations within the product to support a business. That's been one of our biggest challenges, to automate that and make that an automated deployment, rather than somebody having to go in all of the time and click on the button to make that configuration. More automation in that area would probably be one area I would like to see.

I've worked with the FileNet product for over eight years.

I feel it's very stable. I've never had any real challenges with it.

It gives us flexibility to expand it and grow it and scale it really simply.

I've always had a great experience with technical support. I've used them enough that I know most of the tech support people by name. The good feeling is, yes, they recognize you as well and they understand your experience and where you are coming from. They are easy to work with, to get on the phone. Having that phone conversation usually speeds up the resolution time quite a bit.

We were previously using an earlier version of FileNet.

We were looking for the next generation, where we were. We had used FileNet Image Services, and we still use FileNet Image Services, but we were trying to move on, grow and get into newer technologies. That's part of the decision to do that as our strategy to move forward.

The product itself, I wouldn't say it was complex to set up. It was to integrate it within our environment’s current systems. Not every environment was ready to go or integrate into a FileNet product like that when we first implemented it. Eventually, we worked with IBM, we found the right solutions, had to make some product changes at the time and it worked out just fine.

We reviewed different vendors that we had worked with. Our organization is quite large, so we had multiple, different types of products where we are. Everything was analyzed, and we came to the decision to move on with FileNet. I think it has to do with the supportability. With our organization being large and IBM being large, they are able to support the types of volumes and types of challenges that we have. That played a lot into it, along with the fact that we do have some other IBM products already. That worked out well.

The most important criteria for me when selecting a vendor to work with is having that ability to contact them easily and communicate our challenges because you always have to have that open dialogue and collaborate and understand our challenges so they can suggest improvements for us. There might be something we have to change as a client of IBM but we have to have that collaboration in there so that we can get that done.

It was probably a year-long decision-making process, to fully go through it, because of the size of our environment. One of the key factors to actually move forward was the fact that IBM was able to change some of their connectors that work with our environment. If that wouldn't have happened, it might have been a different decision. Knowing that they were able to make some adjustments to the product; that helped.

In the content management space, we probably did not think too much about building a solution in house. That’s not something that we would typically do in our environment. If there is a product that does it, we tend to lean towards the product.

You have to look at the requirements you have for your business. Then, based on those requirements, look at your options. Look at the different vendors and different products and make sure you are making the right decision for your requirements in your organization, because the skillset of your organization is key, too. You have to have the support within your organization to have support for the product, whether it's the FileNet solution or some other solution.

My rating reflects the fact that there is always room for improvement. The product is very good; its stable; its served us very well for 8+ years, but there is always room for improvement. The technologies and the industry changes; having that flexibility. As long as the product keeps improving, it will continue to be a great product. I’m not sure I would give anything a perfect rating because there is always room for improvement. As far as what might earn it a perfect rating, I would almost have to use Watson to think into the future to tell me what I don't already know.

We've been looking at ways to analyze content that’s at rest or been sitting on file shares, SharePoint sites and different areas within the bank that people might not be aware of or don't really know how to classify it, and using different IBM tools in order to do that.

As far as existing services that we are now able to provide better than before, in general, it’s the find-ability for our content; exposing more of our web services to different applications that we support with our environment; give them that flexibility so they can actually find the content.

Regarding usability, I hesitate to describe it as simplistic, but it is simplistic, yet it can be complex if you need it to be. You can keep it simple if you need to keep it simple but yet, if you need a little bit more complexity in your business requirements, it's there and it's available.

For internal customers, I think the experience has changed a lot. FileNet has made it much simpler for our clients to get to their content. They understand that it's one place, now they know how to find it and it's more repetitive, rather than trying to search this way here and another way somewhere else. It's improved from a time perspective for clients, with our basically internal associates, to find content. It’s a great time saver.

We are not considering using or employing IBM on cloud, hybrid or box solutions at this time.

We do not have any plans to include mobile at this time.

The most valuable feature of FileNet is that it's a secure location for us to store our documentation, where we can put some rigor around it so people can find it and use it for an archiving type system.

Before, we would have things on server stores, hard drives, SharePoint. It allows us to have a central place that everyone knows that it's the official copy of something that they can go and access. FileNet has given both internal and external customers a way to access central data that they might not have had access to before. It allows access out in the field to documents that, before, they would have to get a paper copy of, sometimes.

That makes us more efficient, and saves us time and space.

We have Content Navigator and it seems like we still need to do a level of our own coding for plug-ins and so on. I'd like to see something a little bit more out of box, where there are plug-ins that we can get to do some of what we need to do, instead of having to build it ourselves, to make it simpler. Faster time to market is important and we're not really there.

I still think it's kind of expensive. I didn't notice that the cloud offerings were going to be any cheaper. Expense is probably another area with room for improvement.

Also, when I attend conferences, activities are shown that sound very easy. "Oh, look at this bright, shiny thing." But then, when you really start digging, it takes a lot more work to implement the bright, shiny thing. It's a nicer on a PowerPoint.

We have a lot of content stored on server shared drives, and because there is often no naming or filing standards, or metadata, users find it difficult to locate documents. Also, users tend not to go back and delete items per our records retention policy (which can be decades depending on the document), and content can continue to clog up servers. It is helpful to setup automation of records retention.

Users also keep documents on their computer drives making it difficult to share. We also have a lot of legacy documentation in file drawers that could be digital for easier sharing.

We have an enterprise license. We've been able to scale it up to large groups, as well as very small independent areas.

I don't actually put in tickets; my dev team does. Sometimes they've been a little frustrated with response times, especially for production systems. It’s hit and miss.

I was consulted during the decision process as well to invest in FileNet.

We were starting to acquire a lot of little, home-built document management systems. It didn't make sense to build something when we could buy a package that already had a lot of capabilities. We had already built, I think, three or four little scanning applications. It just didn't make sense to keep building. We had a hodge podge of stuff.

We acquired FileNet back when it was owned by FileNet, and it was much more complex then. You had to hire them to come in and do all the installation. Now, we can do our own installation. That’s because of the steps IBM has taken. Before, you had to hire them, you had to hire FileNet to come do it; you couldn't do it yourself.

Usability all depends on how it is set-up. FileNet itself is good, but it relies on just how complex does the business want to get.

We had an external consultant group that was coming in to do a significant amount of work for us. They were bringing in new technologies and they were the deciders of bringing in FileNet.

Nonetheless, when I select a vendor to work with, cost is very important and a level of expertise in a similar type of industry is helpful, peer experiences. If they've worked with a company that is similar to ours, it seems like there is faster ramp-up time for them.

Really understand your use case and capabilities that you're going to need, especially because we start out thinking it's just document management or content management, but then there's always all this other stuff. Does the product or product line have the ability to expand to the other stuff that the business wants?

I think Box has potential for us because of our interaction with external consultants, but not at this time.

As far as any pre-existing services that we're now able to provide better than we did before, we’re now able to provide better centralized access by using FileNet; that's where we're at, at this point and time.

We have plans to include mobile. We have folks out in the field, so we want them to have access to electronic documentation via a tablet or other mobile device.