PowerDMS

Commentaires: For our agency, we have 6 facilities across the country that operate under one police department managed out of Washington DC. It is critical that all the facility police departments operate under one method of operations and control. PowerDMS assists our agency in maintaining consistent best practices across the various geographical locations and gives us the mechanism to evaluate and substantiate each facility is operating correctly under the written directives and standards of the department. The system provides all the required standards necessary to maintain accreditation at my finger tips. This eliminates having to got to other links or even maintaining volumes of paper documents searching for specific standards. The functionality of PowerDMS is incredibly easy. Uploading and highlighting documents necessary for each standard is extremely simple and efficient. PowerDMS allow you to search for specific documents using word search and tags that you can attach to each document. For instance, if I needed to find documents pertaining to training, it is a simple matter of typing in "Training" in the search bar and all relevant documents are listed. PowerDMS has eliminated or significantly reduced, substantial amounts of administrative supplies, such as, paper, files, storage, and postage. It has significantly reduced the number of personnel hours working to maintain accreditation standards.
Overall, PowerDMS has saved the agency a lot of money in supplies and personnel costs; money that can be spent elsewhere!!

Avantages: The system provides all the required standards necessary to maintain accreditation at my finger tips. This eliminates having to got to other links or even maintaining volumes of paper documents searching for specific standards. The functionality of PowerDMS is incredibly easy. Uploading and highlighting documents necessary for each standard is extremely simple and efficient. PowerDMS allow you to search for specific documents using word search and tags that you can attach to each document. For instance, if I needed to find documents pertaining to training, it is a simple matter of typing in "Training" in the search bar and all relevant documents are listed.

Inconvénients: The highlighting feature would be better served if it had line item by line item or word by word, capability. It currently is some what limited to bulk highlighting. Easier access to training videos so refresher information is more readily available for adding users, setting permissions, etc. Setting permissions is always a daunting task and I usually have to call into customer support for assistance. Giving the user the ability to "backup" the data that is in the system with the ability to restore the data would give the user a little piece of mind of continuity.

Commentaires: This software got us better organized, especially in the area of our policy manual. Prior to discovering PowerDMS, we used a printed policy manual for each officer. When policies were updated or added, copies had to be printed for every officer and they were responsible to remove the old policy from their manual and replace it with the new copy. Nobody every knew if they had the most current version. Same with forms as they seem to constantly change and everyone had their own electronic copy of the forms but are they using the current forms. With PowerDMS, there is only one copy of each policy / form, and it is always the most current, and the old forms are archived. PowerDMS is very user friendly and you can search by simply typing a key word. The search not only looks at the title of the document, but also searches the content of that document which is very beneficial.

Avantages: PowerDMS is a very powerful program that saves time. It is easy to search for and find exactly what you are looking for. I would recommend this to any law enforcement agency looking to better manage their policy manual, forms, and track their training. We even use PowerDMS to conduct training in certain areas. They system can be set up to annually send out a reminder that training is needed in a particular area, the user can enroll at their own convenience to take the course. The testing can be scored automatically by the software and the training record logged all without an instructor having to lecture or record anything. The officers love it because they don't have to come in on their time off to take a class, and can complete it while they are on-duty, which also saves the agency in paying overtime. PowerDMS solicits input from users to further improve upon the program.

Commentaires: Quicker and way more efficient than the "paper" document control system.

Avantages: 1. The efficiency. Procedures are getting approved and released quicker than our old (paper document control system).
2. Instead of guessing who's desk the paper ECR is sitting on.. now we can figure out who is slacking and still needs to approve the document by checking out the approval workflow.
3. PowerDMS is very user friendly.
4. When our Sales Reps are traveling they can use the PowerDMS Mobile App to sign off on procedures.
5. The "Review" tab in "Manage Document" comes in handy especially when you have annual procedures that need to be reviewed.
6. Since I am the training coordinator (as well as the Document Control Specialist) I love having the "Reports" option so I can figure out who has completed training/who still needs to complete.
7. In the "Revisions" tab in "Manage Document", I like how you can set a date to have the training (signatures) due by as we have a 30 day policy to complete training.

Inconvénients: 1. When a procedure is released, has all the required approvals and training is required.. associates who have to train to the document can't pull up "Compare to Current Publication." It wouldn't make sense to have that button since the new revision is current but it would be nice to have a "Compare to Last Publication" button. This way the associates would be able to see what was added/revised. I have to manually type in the "Discuss" tab what was changed and sometimes that can take a LONG time.
2. The 20 minute timeout that will log you out if you're away from your computer. I understand why this is in place (for security reasons) but I have received lots of negative feedback on this.

Commentaires: The benefits gained through using PowerDMS is the ability to store all training documents in one place... no more digging through files to find requested documents. It is also easy to track who has attended training and who hasn't. PowerDMS is great for policy sign-off and being able to see who has sign-off on their policies and when for in-house and litigation purposes. Our agency also uses this system for accreditation tracking and training purposes. Another benefit is the ability to create our own online training courses for employees to complete at their convenience, freeing up time for hands-on training.

Avantages: Ability to track policy sign-offs, training completion, and create reports. I also like being able to upload all of our training documents to each employees' files for ease of finding later. PowerDMS is great for creating training courses, tests & surveys.

Inconvénients: The inability to add additional tabs for personalized purposes (such as a transfer history tab). The inability to assign rights for who can view the files tab, where we store employees' training documents. The inability for users to have a print button to print their own training certificates (options: PDF, Excel, Word and they don't look great). Currently, a supervisor can print his employees' certificate history, but not their own. The inability for supervisors to be able to enroll their employees in training. Employees must enroll themselves, which doesn't go over well with our agency.

Commentaires: Using the PowerDMS system has made communication about policy changes so much more efficient. Now, instead of passing information through layers of management, we can connect directly with our employees. It also has allowed us to distribute documents that are unique to certain groups of employees - all with no paper filing to personnel files! This system has been very well received in our company. It gives managers and employees the ability to keep up to date & find information easily.

Avantages: The user interface is simple and easy to understand; the system allows for multi-state document management (state specific policies/notices can be distributed easily); a paperless solution means no filing; it allows for easy collaboration on policy changes; and the ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC customer support!!

Inconvénients: I wish there were clearer distinctions for document security between front line managers/admin users and policy developers. In order to run reports on whether an employee has signed a currently published version of a policy, your security also allows you the ability to see current draft versions.