Step One - review of suppliers
There are approximately 175 suppliers listed in the Cimtech yearbook offering EDM or ERM or EDRM or Enterprise Content Management solutions. How do you select a shortlist of suppliers or at least a list of suppliers to visit to see a representative sample of the solutions on offer? There are various approaches you can take.
If you opt to go for an OJEC procurement there is strictly speaking no need to shortlist the suppliers. You could just place your Notice and wait to see who responds. This is a perfectly reasonable approach to take contractually but in practice most education organisations want to reassure themselves that there are suppliers in the marketplace who can meet their requirements.
It is also a good way of educating yourself to schedule some demonstrations of software and solutions. However, we would recommend that you go through stages one to four before you start talking to too many suppliers. If you have not scoped your requirements you will simply get confused if you talk to a lot of suppliers, many of whom will be offering totally different solutions.
One approach would be to simply ask a consultancy to provide you with a review of the market and then draw up a shortlist based on their advice. A second approach is to draw up a set of criteria that could include the following:
Functions required (see checklist in stage one, step one (link to stage 1 - Checklist of functions))
Technical requirements
Services required (system integrator, reseller or supplier)
Size of supplier required (annual report, turnover, number of staff)
Relevant references (experience of education organisations or public sector as a whole)
Has product been approved by TNA - is product compliant with TNA requirements?
If we assume that you need a full set of document and records management functions and you want the product to have been approved by the National Archives, or at least to be compliant with TNA requirements and awaiting approval, then we can narrow the list somewhat.
As of June 2004 there were six products listed on the TNA website as compliant with the 2002 requirements. They were:
| Product | Supplier | Website | Comments |
| Trim Context 5.1 | Tower Software | http://www.towersoft.co.uk/ | Approved against core functions plus options B.2 and B.3 |
| T2 e-records(Trim Context 5.1 with Tower IDM repository) | Tower Technology | http://www.towertech.com/ | Approved against core functions plus options B.2 and B.3Since gaining approval Tower Technology has been acquired by Vignette so see also www.vignette.com |
| R/KYV v 9.1 | Valid Information Systems | http://www.valinf.com/ | Approved against core functions plus options B.2 and B.3Since gaining approval Valid has been acquired by Hummingbird so see also www.hummingbird.com |
| Wisdom v 5 (5.0.1.1) | Diagonal Solutions Ltd | http://www.diagonal-solutions.co.uk/ | Approved against core functions plus options B.2 and B.3 |
| Meridio Records Manager v 4.1 | Meridio Ltd | http://www.meridio.com/ | Approved against core functions plus options B.2 and B.3 |
| Fabasoft e-Gov Suite v 5.0 | Fabasoft Ltd | http://www.fabasoft.com/ | Approved against core functions plus options B.2 and B.3 |
Following on from this core list we can add a supplementary list. Suppliers have been added to this list because of one or more of the following criteria:
Suppliers who were approved against the older 1999 TNA requirements
Suppliers who claim to have applied to be approved under the 2002 requirements
Suppliers known to be targeting the education community
Leading suppliers of EDRM or Enterprise Content Management solutions as cited in user surveys
| Product | Supplier | Website | Comments |
| KnowPro | Dexmar | http://www.dexmar.com/ | Approved against 1999 requirements. Based on Lotus Domino |
| Documentum Enterprise Records Manager | Documentum | http://www.documentum.co.uk/ | DOD 5105-2 certified adds RM to Documentum's content management facilities |
| Records Manager | FileNet | http://www.filenet.com/ | Adds records management to FileNet's content management facilities.Solutions in Universities |
| Hummingbird Enterprise | Hummingbird | http://www.hummingbird.com/ | Hummingbird's Enterprise Content Management suite. Hummingbird also now own Valid (see above) |
| IBM DB2 | IBM Records Manager | http://www.ibm.com/ | Adds e-records management to business applications |
| IDOX software | i-documentsystems | http://www.i-doxplc.com/ | Adding RM to EDM facilities |
| Objective 6i | Objective Corporation | http://www.objective.com/ | Approved against 1999 requirements |
| DocFinity | OITUK Ltd | http://www.oituk.com/ | Adding RM to EDM facilities |
| Livelink | Open Text | http://www.opentext.com/ | Approved against 1999 requirement - add RM to Enterprise Content Management suite.Solutions in Universities |
| e-intranet | Serengeti Systems Ltd | http://www.serengeti-systems.com/ | Adding RM to content management facilities - solutions in Universities |
| RecFind Corporate | Team Logic Systems Ltd | http://www.teamlogic.co.uk/ | Physical and electronic records management |
If you do find several suppliers that meet your requirements then do not be tempted to use this as an excuse to skimp on the stages in this toolkit. You should be driving the process and hence you need to define your requirements, manage the project and go through a formal procurement. Just make sure that all the suppliers you have met are fully aware of the approach you are taking and are looking out for the Notice when it comes out.
