M-Files

Go-to application for any Digitization Project

Opmerkingen: M-files is a must for any company seeking to implement digital transformation initiatives in their company. I love best is its extensive feature set and seamless integration with Microsoft products (e.g., office, IIS server, MS SQL, Windows, etc.) The workflow feature is easy to customize, setup, and implement. It will change the way you deal with paper documents once you experience how easy it is to digitize, and manage your documents. The OCR functionality is a beast! Just like having Google on your local repository, reading through the very contents of your digital documents.

Pluspunten:

The thing I like the most is the seamless integration with Microsoft products. This made it easy for implementing the use of M-files into our office workflow (it works well from within Outlook, Microsoft Office, even Windows Explorer). The creation of a Workflow is made very easy via a graphical workflow editor. Just a little learning curve and we are able to setup the different manual processes into a solid digital workflow for the office (e.g., filing for leave, routing of papers for approval, storing scanned copies of contracts and any kind of document in the office).

Minpunten:

When implementing on a large scale (e.g., company-wide) we really had to sit down and plan out our licensing arrangement. Note that M-Files comes in a variety of licensing options (e.g., read-only, named user, concurrent user). Some offices can possibly share licenses (but number of active sessions will be limited). Planning out the best license option is quite a task since we were woking on a limited buget and we had to optimize the value-for-money setup we can have. It can also be a bit overwhelming for new users. We had a bit of difficulty in the deployment since we had to train all the users (who found it not so intuitive at first). But then, after the training, it has then been integrated well for our daily use.

ISO Optimized DMS Software

Pluspunten:

With our company looking to become ISO certified, we knew that a proper DMS/QMS system would be required within our company. After multiple meetings, we decided on M-Files as it provided the easiest integration into our current system, and increased our security control for all documents within our company. We now have the ability to control change management, document approval process, SOP reviews, etc. efficiently and effectively

Minpunten:

It can be confusing at first with having to 'check out' a document from M-Files to review and/or edit. Once complete, you check it back in which will change the version number of the file. Once figured out, all of our documents are now properly maintained.

Expensive, bad documentation, no debugging capability and bad support from the vendor

Opmerkingen: We are a german company that uses M-Files for some years. I'm the poor guy that has to configure the backend/server side.
The basic functions are easy to setup, once installed, the server and client side runs well. The basic idea is easy to understand, documents belongs to classes ans has class-specific metadata attributes like "telephone number". Attributes can be linked to other objects... fine!
What makes me sleepless nights is, that if the implementation of a little bit more complex things like right structures, workflows with many steps e.g., you're totally lost with M-Files.
There are some different documentation pdfs, describing just the basic functionality - WITHOUT CLEAR EXAMPLES.
There's the possibility to submit tickets (if you have a support contract). This tickets are answered after some days by (asian?) supporters. There's a lot of mail-overhead just to desribe the problem. In most cases the supporters does not respond to the concrete problem. The do'n offer, for example, a short teamviewer session to solve the problem on the customers system. That's can not be calles good support!
M-Files provides the possibility to write own (visual basic) code, triggered by event handlers. This code can be written to a empty white editor (without any debug possibilities, or any kind of help to the programmer) on the server side. Notepad.exe provides more features! No Breapoints, no debug log output, the only way to debug own code is to rise exceptions that blows the script. That is 1983, not 2017! The API functions are not nice encapsulated, it's a nightmare to wirte own code...but required often - to customize and build workarounds for missing functionality.
Logging in general...not nice. There's a "event log" on the server side. Some basic events are logged here, for example login, logout, document checkout... But it's not very detailed! If somethin went wrong, it's not written there. Maaan!
The user frontend (windows client) looks nice and works well. The server side looks also nice on the first view, but many "nice" features are not implemented. Lists of 300+ Users... no search field, no possibility to select 5 people and delete them, you have to do tis one by one... I hope this (view from the administration part) gives you a small impression of the daily work. M-Files seems to spend a lot of money in marketing an nice small videos to bring the CEO to buy the product, but where are the videos describing the rights structure from the technical side? Nope!

Pluspunten:

- Usefull user interface on the client side - Good basic structure

Minpunten:

- Expensive - Very bad support - Bad documentation - No usefull examples - Not self-explaining to the adminsitrator

The best and online data storage repository

Opmerkingen: The M-files tool is more costly. The pricing model must be modified; we're still hoping to secure more funding. What I don't like about the M-Files is how difficult it is to get used to the user interface: it must be improved. Anyone who needs to collaborate with others on documents and provide information should have M-files software on hand. M-files is an excellent tool for consolidating online storage, sharing, and retrieval of papers and digital content.

Pluspunten:

The seamless interaction with Microsoft programs is the best-ever feature. This made incorporating the use of M-files into our office routine a breeze. A simple and intuitive graphical workflow designer is also my favorite which makes creating a workflow a little simpler. We were able to set up procedures for modification management and new data management with M-Files.

Minpunten:

We experienced some challenges with the rollout because we had to coach all of the customers, especially those who found it not so easy to use and clean at first.

One Place for All Document Types

Opmerkingen: M-files was a great tool to create one common space for us to store, share, and retrieve documents and digital assets online. Workflow are next, but we're still securing more funding given the new pricing model.

Pluspunten:

Our office being limited with space has decided to keep tidy and lean by going digital. We tried M-files because it has good reviews, good recommendations from industry partners, and it has been receiving awards as well. So far, so good. After manual scanning, we upload our files into the M-files vault and everything is securely stored and easily accessible in one place. Searching for the file you need is easy because M-Files makes searching via metadata, and also not by location logic, but by what the document you're looking for is. Workflows is another reason we took M-Files in. We played around with it and it really is easy to create workflows via the graphical logic setup screen. Even the non-technical staff understands how the design works because it is pretty intuitive and straight-forward.

Minpunten:

M-Files has changed its delivery and pricing model. We have a perpetual license for 2018, but it turns out we need to upgrade into the subscription model for M-Files 2019 in order to continue receiving the updates, upgrades, and customer support. Since we have not yet upgraded, we are put on hold in terms of implementing our digital workflows. Now we're just waiting for the next budget season and release to upgrade.