Document Management Pain Points and Challenges

Document Management Pain Points are something most of us are all too familiar with. The frustration often starts when you’re just trying to find the document you need. But even after you’ve located it, the challenges continue—you still need to make sure it’s the correct version. If you’re dealing with a paper document, the situation can get even worse. You might have to track down the right filing cabinet, and if you’re lucky, it’s nearby. But what happens if the document is stored off-site and you need it urgently?

And that’s just the beginning. The documents you find must be up to date and valid, and you need to be confident that you’re always working on the correct version.

Searching for documents take up a surprising amount of time for knowledge workers. The loss in time and productivity trying to find the document you are looking for is a huge cost to organization.

Access to documents should be immediate. A system that allows users to quickly find the right information through content and metadata searches is essential. Visit Document Management Facts and Figures to get a feel for how much is lost due to inefficiencies in searching for documents.

When documents are difficult to locate, workflows slow down, collaboration suffers, and critical decisions can be delayed. An efficient document management system can transform these processes, reducing search times and allowing employees to focus on higher-value tasks.

There are many other challanges with trying to manage documents. It is painful!

Here are many more questions and pain points we can name

• I am on the road a lot; how do I get to the latest versions of documents remotely?
• What about document security?
• I deal with confidential documents, how can I prevent unauthorized access?
• We receive digital files over e-mail and they get stuck in someone's e-mail box all the time. Is there a better way?
• All the digital assets must be secured. How?
• Who else knows about this document? Who has seen it? Is there an Audit Trail?
• I need access to my essential documents 24/7. These electronic documents need to be updated all the time.
• Everybody has a file on every server and every disk including their desktop. How can we get organized?
• I am a control freak. When things change, I want to know right then and there.
• Everybody puts documents all over the place, I want my images, documents and spreadsheets where they belong. Not just saved in any folder. We need Configuration Management.
• We are in the middle of e-discovery and we have no idea how to produce the information they are asking for. What do we do?

Document security is a significant challenge for organizations, particularly when using basic file-sharing systems. Without granular access controls, sensitive information is vulnerable to unauthorized access or accidental exposure. Inadequate security measures in file-sharing environments often lead to data breaches, causing considerable harm to an organization’s reputation and operations. These limitations make it difficult for companies to protect valuable information from both external threats and internal mishandling, creating a persistent pain point for any business dealing with sensitive data.

Maintaining proper access control is equally challenging, especially in networked environments where balancing accessibility with security is complex. Many organizations struggle to ensure that only the right people have access to mission-critical documents without overly restricting workflows. As a result, documents may be either too accessible or not accessible enough, leading to workflow inefficiencies and potential security risks.
To learn more about how infoRouter resolves these critical issues, read our resource on Granular Security and Permissions.

Trying to recover a deleted document that was on a network share? Good luck with that! Recovering deleted documents from a network drive can be a frustrating and time-consuming process. Once a document is deleted, it may be permanently lost if there isn’t an immediate backup, leaving employees scrambling to recover critical files through IT support or attempting complex restoration processes. This can result in prolonged downtime, interrupted workflows, and potential data loss.

Network drives often don’t offer an audit trail, so it’s hard to know who deleted or changed a file. This lack of accountability can lead to confusion, with team members unsure of when or how a document went missing. Without recovery tools, or advanced multi-layer recycle bin functionality, organizations risk losing important information and wasting resources trying to retrieve or recreate lost files, which slows productivity and adds to costs.