M-Files is just another Enterprise Content Management system, yeah? Why not just use SharePoint? It comes “free” with all of the rest of Microsoft stuff. It is a valid argument so why would you invest in M-Files?

When it comes to managing and storing documents, the approach taken can significantly impact efficiency and accessibility. M-Files and SharePoint are two popular document management systems, each with its own strengths. However, when it comes to storing a single document in multiple locations, M-Files’ metadata-driven approach offers distinct advantages over SharePoint’s traditional folder-based system.

SharePoint does not have a built-in feature to store a single document in multiple locations simultaneously. However, there are a few ways to handle this situation:

  1. Copying Documents: You can store the document in one library and then copy it to another library. This means that any updates to the document in the original library will not be reflected in the copied version 1.
  2. Using Power Automate: You can create a flow using Power Automate to sync files and folders between different SharePoint sites. This way, whenever a file is added, modified, or deleted in one library, the changes will be reflected in the other library 2.
  3. OneDrive Sync: You can keep both document libraries synced to OneDrive for Business and create flows for OneDrive for Business to trigger when a file is created, modified, or deleted in one folder 3.

These methods are cumbersome and will over time lead to inconsistencies and version integrity

In contrast, M-Files leverages metadata to classify and organize documents, allowing a single document to be referenced in multiple contexts without duplication. This not only ensures consistency but also enhances searchability and access control, making it a more efficient solution for managing documents across various locations.

What Not Where

Let’s look at a pretty common business scenario. Let’s say your organisation has a sales team (customer focussed) and a finance team (contract focus). Who is the custodian of the sales contract for a particular customer? Where does the actual contract and the six versions it needed to get to its final form reside? On top of that the sales team is split based on geography so the New York team don’t need to be able to see the Chicago team sales contracts (in fact, your organisation may actively not want differing sales teams browsing through other customers’ contracts). So, in SharePoint you need to decide whether the contract resides in the Customer or Finance document library. If it is in the Customer library and if any of your finance team need to access it, they have to navigate through to that Library to retrieve it. They also need access to all Customer contracts (not just the ones for New York) so they will need access to potentially more document libraries, or you get more accountants (and who wants that!) and split their workload by geography. How then do you get the accountants sharing best practice on budget issues etc.? The temptation to just email a copy becomes too great and heaven forbid if one of your customers moves their head office from Chicago to New York!! Your SharePoint administrator will be on stress leave in no time.
M Files image blog 2

M Files image blog 2

All of this can be done in M-Files without duplicating the content but setting up Views (think of it like a Genre playlist in your favourite music streaming service) as in the diagram above. This allows users to find the sales contract by looking at the Agreements by Customers View or Agreements by Project or Agreements by Month Signed Views. The Views can then be restricted using the metadata-based access (below).

M Files blog 1

Also access permissions can be based on multiple properties so that in the above diagram John is able to access the Chicago budget and sales agreement because he is part of the Chicago and Finance groups. Andy can see budgets and sales agreements but only for the New York operations.

Enterprise Content

M-Files also caters for the fact that not all content resides within M-Files. The connector framework allows disparate silos of content to be incorporated into the Search and metadata model of M-Files without being moved or disrupted in any way. Ironically, M-Files can now also search and manage the multiple disparate SharePoint document libraries that Microsoft Teams has proliferated within the organisation

Several UI Options

M-Files has fully functioning Desktop and Mobile applications as well as browser. One of the major business benefits with this is the caching and offline capabilities that they provide allowing users to quickly access content regardless of whether they have internet connectivity or not. No need to download to OneDrive and then remember to put it back in the right SharePoint document library.

SharePoint may have its place in your organisation but if information is key to your employees and they don’t work in isolated silos then you can give their productivity a real boost with M-Files