My name is Vaughan Spooner and I am an information manager in a turn key
contractor operation on a fast-track rail project in South Africa.

The big picture - we currently use a proprietary Documentum system
called eDoc to manage all our information (correspondence, tecdocs,
manuals, quality records & transmittals totalling about 100 000 items
and still counting with 3 years to go), our client uses Bentley
ProjectWise for all info (will be implementing geo spatial functionality
on tecdocs), our partners use DocWise for correspondence (comes with a
permanent developer?) and will be implementing an eB/MAXIMO solution in
conjunction with the Operator (asset breakdown structure will be created
in eB and exported to MAXIMO) and the concession company have
implemented SharePoint mainly for non-technical info (also comes with a
permanent consultant?) - however they seem to believe that it can be
used as an EDMS because they have "implemented" a database solution what
ever that may mean. 

Despite advising our Concessionaire that they need to manage a huge
volume of live technical items in the future they believe that
SharePoint is the right option - tecdocs will need
transmittal/version/revision/cross-referencing/linking/native file
viewing/multiple format functionality, as well as extensive indexing (6
compulsory & 12 optional fields) and full text retrieval.

In effect a full ECM, much like the eB option by the Operator.

Although I am somewhat out of the loop in the broader SA business
environment working on this project, I am not aware of any pure
stand-alone SharePoint EDMS solutions other than SharePoint plus
Documentum or Open Text or X or Y or Z.

Do I understand correctly that SharePoint on its own is purely, what I
would for want of better term call, a collaboration/workgroup forum
(Intranet?) for simple small or medium sized solutions? For example, it
doesn't have vanilla ability to create transmittal within SharePoint on
an item (add-on available?); it doesn't have a differentiation between
versions and revisions; it doesn't have automatic OCR on scanned
information once an item is "saved" into SharePoint; "indexing' is done
via the creation of columns (that must be standard on all info types)
not in index fields in a database like a Documentum or FileNet;
"linking" is done by saving the item in the same folder or a
sub-folder?; folder limitation of 2000 items?; etc              

I would be very interested in hearing from anyone who has implemented a
solution that consists of a large technical/non-technical body of
information and understanding what is vanilla SharePoint and what is
add-on and what % of customisation is required.

Many thanx

Vaughan Spooner   

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