The 3 Main Types of Content Services: Collaborative, Archival and Transactional
Over the past few years, content services have fallen into one of two different categories: transactional or collaborative. Transactional content, as the name suggests, directly relates to the case management content that businesses are working with on a daily basis. Collaborative content, on the other hand, has to do with all of those project-related documents that people are tracking to actively do their jobs.
In the past, both of these would have been handled by way of an enterprise content management system, otherwise known as an ECM for short. Unfortunately, this had led people to attempt to divide up their workflows based on which technologies help to solve their content problems. In reality, things would be much more productive if efforts were divided up based on the content type they were working with.
To that end, there are three main content types that any modern enterprise needs to be aware of: collaborative content, archival content and transactional content.
The Building Blocks of Collaborative Content
As stated, the first main type of content that most enterprises work with has to do with collaborative content. That is, the type of content that exists in the types of systems that people use to more efficiently work with one another on projects. Examples of these systems include but are not limited to ones like Slack, Teams and even “old school” email collaboration.
The purpose of these systems is clear: they’re supposed to optimize the way people work together.
The issue is that especially in the fast-paced modern era we’re currently living through, collaborative content is the type that is most likely to get “lost” over time. People are collaborating on so many different documents across so many systems that organizations don’t really have a sense of what they have – let alone where it happens to be.
Their collaborative content is growing faster than they realize and, coupled with a lack of efficient storage and effective categorization, means that most businesses are soon left with a large stockpile of content and no real way to make sense of it all.
Archival (Read: Old) Content
This segues directly into the next most common type of content: archival content. This refers to those documents or other materials that may not have a pressing short-term need, but that businesses still don’t want to just get rid of.
Usually, archival content is either that which has been retired from an ECM solution or that which has been gleaned from file shares, collaborative solutions and other areas where people just get overloaded with content.
To successfully manage an archival system, people need to be able to identify and categorize content, all so that they can determine when it is best to permanently dispose of it. Automatic metadata classification tools are essential to that end, as they not only help sort high quality data from its low quality counterparts, but they can also help remove duplicate content and solve other challenges.
The Era of Transactional Content
Finally, we arrive at the idea of transactional content: that is, content services that are built to support all of these different content systems. Solutions like M-Files bring the best of CRM, ERP and even custom case management systems together, all in a way that breaks down data silos and makes sure that businesses have complete visibility over their enterprise at all times.
The main benefit here is that employees can work within just a single system and have access to all of the critical data they need, regardless of where that data is housed. Not only do you still maintain the benefit of allowing people to better work together, but they can do so remotely from literally any device on Earth with an active Internet connection. Here, data is stored externally from the moment of its creation – meaning that anytime, anywhere access to key insights and other important documents is all but a forgone conclusion.
In the end, it’s important to understand your options when picking the right content services and solutions to meet the ever-changing needs of your business. When executed properly, most employees shouldn’t be interacting with content services directly. They shouldn’t have to use seven different systems just to get work done on a single file.
They should have access to a single point that gives them everything they need to interact with their content and conduct business, all while staying in sync with the rest of the enterprise as well. That’s why solutions like M-Files are so essential: they go a long way towards guaranteeing precisely that.