We have watched Xythos mature impressively over the years, starting as a highly usable, economical document manager through Version 6.0, then broadening its appeal with records management. Enterprise Document Management Suite (DMS) has now reached Version 7.0, and with the number bump comes some important enhancements.

The short story is that Enterprise DMS 7.0 has improved business process automation features (such as automatic event triggers and easier workflow), and it supports social networking with a new wiki and RSS subscriptions. Its fresh AJAX-based user interface means most features are just a right-click away. But perhaps the biggest change isn't visible: Xythos has further adopted open standards, including a JSR-170 repository; this potentially opens your content store to other enterprise systems, such as human resources or enterprise resource planning applications.

The installed software (Enterprise DMS is also available as a hosted service, Xythos on Demand) proved easy to set up on a Windows 2003 Server: I was done in less than 30 minutes. I was immediately stuck by how much has changed in the Web UI, yet how easy it is to use 7.0 without much training (or retraining). Gone is the left-hand navigation, replaced by context-sensitive Web 2.0 pop-up menus.

In my testing, this architecture greatly speeded my interactions with Xythos. For example, steps that I do all the time, such as sharing files with partners and vendors, now require just one click. Further, Version 7.0 eliminates the need for an e-mail client for this sharing process; you can access the system with just an Internet connection, such as at a hotel or airport kiosk.

Other conveniences include a simple form for uploading documents and direct access to any folder from your browser (called the Xythos Web View). This process worked smoothly using Internet Explorer, Firefox 2, and Safari 2. Alternatively, you can use any WevDAV client running on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

The power of wizards

Wizards represent another usability improvement, which should help both expert and casual users. The Create Folder wizard, for instance, let me specify settings such as logging, versioning, and document classification -- items that I might have overlooked in Version 6.0.

Further, with the Sharing wizard, I had no trouble creating unique permissions (read, write, and manage) for certain users, thereby increasing content security. As a side benefit, by following these standard procedures, it's easier to create a setup that meets compliance requirements; there's also an audit log. Process wizards extend to administrative tasks -- such as workspace configuration and management -- which can reduce the workload on IT staff.

Although social networking is almost a commodity these days, it makes a lot of sense to build in these features. That's what Xythos' developers did by including a wiki. This should improve collaboration where formal documents aren't involved, such as discussing research results from clinical trials or reviewing media files. Because these conversations are stored within the system, they're subject to the system-wide security and retention rules.

Besides the wiki's standard group editing of content, you can quickly link to documents in the Xythos repository. Importantly, Xythos automatically recognizes the original sharing and security rights of these documents. That is, if someone is viewing a wiki and discovers a page with a restricted document, then those items won't appear.