Exploring the M-Files

October 2, 2009:Motive Systems has announced an update to its document management software that utilises a unique Windows Explorer interface, M-Files 6.0.

It allows users to continue working the way they always have, opening and saving files directly from any Windows application. In addition, M-Files offers a "virtual local" drive that promises significant advantages in performance and reliability over purely Web-based alternatives or systems that use traditional mapped network drives.

It allows users to work from their local hard drive while a caching mechanism synchronises with the server in the background.

M-Files 6.0 significantly offers support for scanners and email, a Web interface and a flexible capability to connect to external databases and applications such as an existing CRM, ERP or billing systems.

New enhancements and features include:

-- Support for Microsoft SQL Server;

-- 64-bit M-Files Server and Windows 7 compatibility;

-- Advanced automatic properties and the ability to run scripts as event handlers; for example, document permissions can be automatically changed when the document's properties change, or documents can be automatically saved as PDFs so the PDF version is always available;

-- M-Files OCR module providing a direct interface to scanners with integrated Optical Character Recognition;-- Enhancements to workflows and assignments for precisely controlling when a document moves to or from a given state, or the ability to assign a workflow to only a particular type of document;

-- Major enhancement to Web Access;

-- Integrated preview function to view documents directly from within the M-Files interface;

-- Save As PDF and Send As PDF directly from within M-Files;

-- Expanded compatibility with MS Office products and AutoCAD, including enhancements for Outlook with support for saving an email and attachments directly as a multi-file document, and an M-Files menu and features such as "Insert Property" in PowerPoint as have been available in Word and Excel;

-- Support for multiple languages metadata structure with the ability to easily change between languages, particularly beneficial for companies with operations in more than one country.

-- Support for new language versions, including Dutch, Swedish, Turkish and Greek.