A Simpler Solution for Content-intensive Documentation: Profile of DocTech

Some well-established content trends over the last decade include reducing complexity, saving money through reuse, and moving to user-centered, online distribution channels. And while nearly every industry embraces these elements, some sectors remain challenged by factors not easily addressed by traditional authoring and management tools—those where the content is vast, deeply technical, highly regulated and frequently updated, such as airplane manufacturing.

Aeronautics companies typically manage hundreds of thousands of pages of documentation across multiple functional areas, such as contracts and other legal documents, testing and compliance, work procedures, assembly instructions, SOPs, and submissions for certifications and approvals. Their workflows encompass multiple revision, validation, and approval checkpoints with varying levels of review and retention requirements.

In 2008, Alexandre Loukakos, of Magellan Aviation Services looked at the content management issues his aeronautics clients faced, and determined that current toolsets simply didn’t address the needs of these organizations and their content teams, so he founded DocTech to create the solution he needed.

“DocTech is an all-in-one, flexible, cost-effective user-friendly document and content management System,” Alexandre claims. “It was first created in order to answer our internal content and document management needs as we were unable to find an answer to our needs on the market.”

Alexandre and his team understood that they and their clients had long-term investments in their teams, and processes and tools that ranged from word-processing and email validations through relatively modern content management systems, as well as longstanding challenges in maintaining audit trails and retention records for compliance. They spent four years creating the specifications that address these needs, and completed development of the initial platform in 2016.

DocTech provides value to high-volume content producing organizations in several key ways:

  • Simple, intuitive, totally complete end-to-end solution
  • Fully traceable content
  • Content import from and export to multiple formats including HTML and PDF
  • Streamlined process to link content updates to automated propagation
  • Continuous audit compliance

According to Alexandre, they demonstrated DocTech to an increasing number of companies ranging from small- to medium-sized businesses (SMB) to top global firms, many of them outside aeronautics, generated significant interest, and the company released a version to the broader business market in early 2017.

“End users appreciate the simplicity of the user interface”, says Alexandre, but “the features that produce the most ROI are its ability to search and reuse/recycle content, along with its built-in tools to audit, update, revise, approve, publish and archive content.” In particular, the real-time traceability built into DocTech results in an extremely low maintenance continuous compliance. Organizations that go through audits will also see significant savings from the reduction in preparation time and effort.

The DocTech solution is ideal for companies that have recognized the risks and potential losses from cobbled-together processes utilizing legacy word processing and email tools, and for those searching for continued productivity growth or managing increased regulatory compliance where headcount remains flat. Companies searching for a tool that builds and automates consistency of content production and delivery without the need for human intervention in formatting and output.

Although DocTech is not designed as a Cloud storage solution it easily integrates with numerous third-party file management and Cloud applications such as Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and Dropbox. And because it is designed to optimize formal document workflows with a clear audit trail, it’s not adapted for authors wanting to work concurrently at the text block level.

The DocTech team offers three packages for its solution, based on the budget and functional requirements of the organization. Shared Package: a “starter package” ($149.99 USD per month) with several moderately priced optional add-ons. The Shared Package includes three user licenses and one project, located on a dedicated server with several other Shared Package customers.

Dedicated “Pro” Package ($2100 USD per month) and the Enterprise Package (pricing upon request) both feature unlimited user licenses and projects located on a dedicated server with backup, maintenance, monitoring and customized set up included. The Enterprise Package also allows for additional customization and integration. All packages require a minimum 12-month contract.

For more information or to schedule a demo, visit https://www.thedoctech.com/ or https://www.facebook.com/MagellanDocTech/.

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