This leading U.S. university educates thousands of undergraduate and graduate students each year in the liberal arts, languages, and sciences as well as conducting and publishing research across many disciplines.

The university generates huge volumes of documents, from research papers and admissions records to student transcripts, HR files, and medical records. To facilitate access to information for faculty, administrators, and students, the university must manage documents in a systematic and structured way—creating unique challenges around information management.

A spokesperson for the university explained, “When I joined the organization, I quickly realized document management in higher education is very different from the world of business. For example, 95% of our documents are archived in perpetuity, rather than expiring after a set period. That means we need an exceptionally scalable content management platform.”

Furthermore, the university must ensure compliance with a wide range of federal information security and privacy standards, which require that documents are always protected against unauthorized access and other cyber threats.

“Safeguarding personal information and confidential research is a huge responsibility that we take extremely seriously,” added the spokesperson. “It means that we need to implement much stronger security measures than standard document management systems offer. Instead, we need granular levels of protection to control access to individual files.”

University students writing on notebook and using their laptop

OpenText Documentum shines when it comes to information security, enabling us to implement the highest levels of data encryption.

Spokesperson
U.S. university

Solution

For almost two decades, the university has used OpenText Documentum for document management to manage, structure, and access millions of research, academic, administrative, and HR documents while enforcing rigorous data governance standards.

Products deployed

OpenText™ Documentum™

Organize, preserve, and make information easily accessible while ensuring it adheres to all privacy and security protocols
OpenText™ Intelligent Capture

Automate manual content processes, such as back-file conversion and onboarding, and transform paper and digital content into actionable data

Services provided

OpenText™ Consulting Services

Get expert help aligning solutions to your organization through a people-centric approach offering strategic advice, support, and solutions

Organizing, managing, and controlling millions of documents

Within Documentum, the university organizes content using electronic cabinets and folders for each department and use case. To upload, access, and export documents, users can sign in from within the internal campus network or remotely via secure VPN. Researchers have confidence they can quickly and easily find the documents they need using Documentum. In addition, the research community leverages the document storage system to collaborate with researchers from outside organizations.

“We manage millions of documents in Documentum,” explained the spokesperson. “The OpenText solution offers a lot of flexibility, so every department can adopt its own folder structure and file naming conventions. Plus, we can track every time a user checks out and modifies a document before they upload it back into Documentum.”

Learning and sharing best practices with fellow users

Over the years, the university has completed many upgrades of Documentum and is currently evaluating adopting the latest 23.2 version. The university is also an enthusiastic member of the OpenText Documentum user group and takes advantage of the open forum to pick up innovative ideas and share best practices with other higher education institutions.

“Being part of the Documentum user group has been a huge advantage,” continued the spokesperson. “The solution has always been very reliable and we receive great support whenever we reach out to OpenText. The OpenText support portal is especially useful, too, allowing us to search the comprehensive knowledge base and download new features.”

He added, “Most document management systems are straightforward out-of-the-box solutions with standard functionality. Documentum is different; it is improving all the time, and OpenText is always looking to take it to the next level.”

Moving document management workloads to the cloud

Having used an on-premises version of Documentum since the initial deployment, the university is now considering a move to the cloud. Currently, the university is evaluating potential cloud providers and ensuring that all security requirements are met before it starts to plan the migration process.

The spokesperson explained, “With OpenText, we have the flexibility to use whichever cloud provider is best for us, whether it’s AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft® Azure. The move will make life much easier for our IT teams, and mean we spend less time managing servers and worrying about keeping the lights on in our data centers.”

OpenText Documentum is a great platform: scalable, secure, and flexible.

Spokesperson
U.S. university

Results

With Documentum at the center of its information and document management strategy, the university is providing safe, controlled access to information—helping administrators and faculty work efficiently and supporting first-class teaching and research.

Archived huge volumes of content for the long term

Using Documentum, the university has a highly scalable repository to archive growing volumes of research and administrative documents today and for the future. In a major project, the university is using OpenText™ Intelligent Capture to digitize historical student records using artificial intelligence before loading them into the main document store.

“We have been working to scan and convert card and paper-based records into electronic versions,” continued the spokesperson. “Today, we have everything archived in a cabinet in Documentum, where users can quickly find and extract specific documents.”

Enhanced the user experience with seamless integrations

The university has also integrated Documentum with other key systems, including its ERP solution. This step enables users to view documents stored in the OpenText solution alongside corresponding metadata in the other systems on the same screen—removing the complexity and hassle of toggling between interfaces.

The spokesperson noted, “Documentum makes life very easy for our users. When importing a new document, for instance, they simply add relevant category tags and details on the date and type of item, before the solution archives it in the relevant cabinet and folder.”

Enforced rigorous information security measures

Crucially, the university is also meeting stringent information security requirements with Documentum. Using the OpenText Documentum Trusted Content Services add-on, the university has configured extra layers of protection, helping to minimize the risk of data breaches and prevent unauthorized users from accessing sensitive information.

“OpenText Documentum shines when it comes to information security, enabling us to implement the highest levels of data encryption,” added the spokesperson. “We use Access Control Lists to manage permissions at department, user, folder, and file levels to ensure that we meet required standards. That is a level of granularity that we don’t see with other solutions.”

He concluded, “OpenText Documentum is a great platform: scalable, secure, and flexible. When I speak to other users, they express the same levels of confidence. That’s a great endorsement for OpenText.”