OpenText Content Manager Reviews

I use the product mainly for archiving documents.

The product can be integrated with different solutions. There aren’t many products in the market that provide such integrations. We are integrating the product with SharePoint. It is important in content management.

The product could improve its scalability.

I have been using the solution for the last six months.

I rate the tool’s stability a nine out of ten. It is quite stable.

I rate the tool’s scalability a six or seven out of ten.

The initial setup was not difficult, but we needed a little bit of background knowledge to deploy the solution.

I am an end user. My peers guide me whenever I face issues with the solution. People wanting to use the solution must go through the demo and try to understand the software before deploying. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

On-premises

The most valuable feature is the ability to search, sort and retrieve using metadata; in particular, the ability to create custom reports using the print merge functionality as per the requests that are issued from clients.

Official records are managed, thereby being able to identify information that cannot be disposed; managing the lifecycle; and locating our records.

The space management functionality, whilst incredibly useful to locate records, lacks the ability to perform a census of records. As a result, reports have to be printed and reconciliation of records on shelves conducted, which is incredibly laborious and time-intensive.

Also, the triggers and workflows could be improved upon. The system is difficult to navigate and understand the full scope of functionality available for end users to appreciate the value.

It is also challenging for end users to manage digital information in HPE CM, as physical records management practices and processes do not always translate to a digital environment.

Our organisation has been using HPE EDRMS solutions for well over 10 years. We introduced managing information in a digital format seven years ago but have since lost executive support for this to be our primary document management solution.

Our organisation uses VDIs instead of hard drives. Our experience has been that conducting simple tasks such as sorting by columns results in latency in the system, to the point of stalling it, despite having minimum people using the software.

The customer service and technical support is certainly better than going through a third-party vendor; however, there is still much to be desired. Often times when an issue is escalated to HPE, we are advised that it will be fixed in the next patch or release. However, this does not always eventuate.

The organisation did not use an EDRMS to manage records prior to implementing HPE CM. In the past, Access databases and catalogue systems have been used.

HPE CM is a highly customisable product. If it is rolled out ‘out of the box’, it is quite simple. However, like most organisations, we need it to do certain things. Defining record types, business classifications, security classifications, locations, additional fields will never be an easy task. If we were to have a do-over, I think we could have had a little more rigour around what was necessary and what was not, which could result in a much cleaner end product.

Our organisation employed a Records Manager technician to help in the design and configuration of the system. Over time, we have had upgrades to the system and engaged project staff to assist. This did have its pitfalls, however, in that the technical people were system-focused without a holistic understanding of what the Information Management specialists need to be able to perform their role.

On top of this, the technical team was a part of Information Management. As a result, they were defining the business requirements (without fully understanding them) and implementing them. Since then, the technical team have been moved into a different part of the organisation, which allows us more scope to define what the system needs to do and test it thoroughly prior to upgrades being performed.

It’s never easy to put a monetary ROI on an EDRMS. However, the value of managed information is becoming more evident to organisations and they can see the value in investing in systems such as HPE CM or Objective, for example.

It is worth doing the homework when deciding on where to purchase licences. Part of that research should include aftermarket support and any hidden additional costs that might be incurred.

I would advise any organisation to really define what their information management business requirements and end-user requirements might be, noting that they are not going to line up. Additionally, it's important to include in that assessment what the format of that information will be in. Accessibility and transfer of information are also highly important for some organisations.

Our primary use is Records Management, with a secondary push by some to use it for all document management to include all draft work and convenience copies.

We are required to have a robust Records Management system. It does this job. We had it integrated with HPRM ver 8.3, but dropped the integration when we moved to HPE-CM 9.1.  Integration was not well documented.                                                          

It has a robust search but has often been difficult for people to learn.

This is a client-side app, and a web-based app would be easier to support. 

Easier integration with SharePoint and other apps would be an improvement.

Our Organization has had it since 1999 as TRIM, by Tower. I personally, for 5 years.

The stability is reasonable. Although, like any software, it has areas to improve. It seams sensitive to configuration changes. Misconfiguration causes problems very quickly.

I don't know the server model enough to know if it is scalable. I have brought up the topic with a Micro Focus sales rep and did not get much of a response. 

For our organization to fully utilize HPE-CM, we'd need a more robust server farm. 

Over the earlier owners, the support was lacking and we had to use third-party vendors. We are using a third now and have had no interaction with Micro Focus directly.

We did not use another solution prior to this one.

We contracted it out to avoid problems with complexity.

We used a vendor team for implementation. They seemed reasonably well versed in the system, although there were a couple of misconfigurations that caused downstream issues. 

Hard for us to gage. We are required to have a RM program. This system eats up a lot of staff time for support, administration, and use.

I would suggest that you do a thorough evaluation of all competing products and look for support for these products in your local area.

Due to very limited use in the industry, vendor and contract support are hard to find. We are using a consultant on the East coast which is four time zones away. 

There is more call for this product in Australia. The development of the product has moved to the UK. 

US support will probably remain spotty. 

This product has changed hands twice, from Tower to HP and then to Micro Focus. This has made support more difficult for us. 

Setup within the system is important. We have many users that really dislike the system, and I believe much of that has been due to setup and training. 

Drag and drop: With users having dual screens nowadays, this functionality is used a lot by staff and is also a good way to show people who are new to TRIM (HPE Content Manager) the simplicity of how things can be done. It is also handy if your MS Outlook integration breaks or crashes; the drag and drop of an email into TRIM usually still works. Then you can fix the actual problem with the integration later, as it becomes less of a priority. It is also handy to show people how they can drag and drop from the desktop (or network share) into TRIM, as well as drag and drop internally within TRIM. When dragging and dropping multiple items at once, a TRIM Queue window is bought up, which is pretty neat.

The online audit log is part of the reason people buy and use TRIM, as there is a requirement to have an audit trail. The audit trail is very handy, though, to be able to see exactly what has occurred when there is a problem or issue. The audit trail does not lie. Also, when sending out information in emails, I attach a TRIM reference in the email to the actual information, which is in TRIM. I can then see who has actually looked at the information via the online audit log rather than wonder who has actually read it.

Simple workflows (actions/procedures) such as “Review” and “Approve” are better than multiple copies in various iterations existing within emails. The “Actions” also replaced the need for a signature (for internal documents), which means there is no printing of paper, signing, and scanning back in as a PDF.

There is no integration with social media. Functionality gets removed as new versions are released. The full client has had no new functionality since HPE bought it in 2008; only functions and features removed. (Document Assembly, Web Content Management, long-term email preservation format VMBX, all removed. The Meeting Manager was rendered useless.) A simple and important feature was to be able to default a record type at the document level. This can no longer be done with the release of HPE Content Manager. This means you now have to teach everyone about record types, and therefore records management, which they may not be interested in. So you lose them at the start, rather than just being able to keep things simple, such as default record type.

I have used the current and previous versions since 1997.

The database configuration would need to be redeployed to servers after a restart, even though everything looked OK and reported as OK. Clients could not resolve the data-source until the configuration was redeployed.

We have not encountered scalability issues.

I haven’t used technical support that much, but the times I did use it, it was OK.

We did not have a previous solution.

Initial setup was straightforward.

Try and do a deal. The prices may seem fixed, but are not really, and if you can get hold of an account manager and say “this price or nothing”, then you might be able to strike a deal, especially if you offer to pay maintenance as if you bought it for the full price.

We did not evaluate alternatives.

Know what you are doing from an information management (IM) perspective. The IT side of it is easy. If you get the IM components wrong, or not optimised, then you usually become part of the problem that the solution is trying to solve.

The product allows us to run our Notice of Destructions seamlessly and produces our annual folders with ease.

Notice of Destructions: We rely on the software to accurately identify those documents/folders/boxes that are eligible for destruction each year and segregate them into a session. The software produces a list that we in turn route around to our Notice of Destruction approvers to obtain sign off electronically. Once all approvals are obtained, the session is processed and the documents/folders/boxes are deleted from the system.

Annual Folders: We rely on the software to identify those folders need to be duplicated for the following year. The software produces a list which we review before we produce the next year’s folders. We use the Duplicate functionality to produce 3,000+ folders each year during our Annual Folder process.

It helps us manage records more easily and allows users to search for information without leaving their desk.

Many users have expressed that it is too hard to find what they are looking for. I’m not sure that the functionality can be improved. Most of this issue is due to user training and the users not using the system every day. Enhancing the full content searching capabilities by including some refiners could possibly help.

We purchased MDY FileSurf back in 2007, went through the acquisitions of CA, Autonomy, and HPE. We are currently using Autonomy 12.6.2.2 and are in the process of upgrading to HPE CM 9.1.

We have not really had any stability issues.

We have not had any scalability issues.

Technical support was phenomenal when we were with MDY because we had more of a connection with the help desk. Through the acquisitions, the technical help has been OK, but less personal. Technical support for Autonomy Records Manager 12.6.2.2 will cease as of February 2017.

We previously used a custom “in-house” solution, which did not allow us to manage “electronic items” as records.

Setup was complex because we were migrating from a custom “in-house” product to an “off-the-shelf” product.

Research and understand pricing and licensing, especially the consulting services needed to implement the software.

At the time, we evaluated TRIM and others that I can’t remember.

It always takes more time and money.

HPE Content Manager is a complex product with a great deal of functionality for managing paper and electronic records on a very large scale. The security model is excellent, the locations management is extensive, records options are abundant and metadata search is very efficient and allows for precision searching. Functions to modify records en-masse are handy and powerful, integration with other products is better established these days and the ability for HPE Content Manager to manage large amounts of content is integral to many organizations. Not only does it handle large amounts of content, but if configured and structured properly, it can manage content for you over the long- to very long-term and in accordance with legislation, many international standards and other compliance requirements.

HPE Content Manager provides organizations with a reliable system for managing massive amounts of information. It does so in a structured, compliant and secure way. This is not easy to achieve. I have seen custom-built systems and other systems used to try and manage various types of content, and I can say that none of the ones I have seen provide the same level of functionality and reliability as Content Manager does. It just works. All organizations I have worked with use Content Manager in a different way, because each organization functions in a different way. This flexibility to set up a structure that works for us has been vital to managing our records properly. When it comes to organizing information at the organizational level or the organizational-unit level, Content Manager has no match.

Many government (and other) organizations struggle to find a system balance between user requirements and records requirements, and HPE Content Manager is no different. Users are intimidated by the Content Manager client application, especially when it comes to searching and managing content at an individual’s level. The “tray” system, the limited “favourites” options and the inability to “share” content in an effective way (at the user level) means that users are confused about how to find content and manage content for themselves. This means that the power inherent in the product, particularly with the “trays” and metadata searches, is lost on users. Extensive training is required for users to get the most out of the product The good news is that if you train users to a certain level of competence, they tend to love using it.

Other feedback regarding the client suggests that the check-in/check-out requirement for records is cumbersome. It does not allow for concurrent editing of documents. Document preview and search-word highlighting could be improved.

Integration with Outlook could be improved, and a more-intuitive and less-intimidating search function could be implemented.

I have used Content Manager for 13 years; from TRIM Context versions 5 and 6 to HPE TRIM 7 and HPE Records Manager 8. I am now working on HPE Content Manager 9.

Considering the complexity/range of functionality, and the sheer amount of content it can handle, the stability of the product is impressive. The database side is excellent. The document store is reliable, as well as the workgroup and event services. Most user problems occur because of network connectivity issues or issues with client applications such as Word or Outlook and are not related to Content Manager directly. Outlook integration and, in versions 7 and before, content index searching has been a little flaky (it may have improved since they changed to IDOL searching). Other than that, I’ve seen the HPE developers continually improving the product and resolving any issues that arise (most of which are not significant).

It is difficult to backdate the separation of your document store and the database. So, if you wanted to split your document store and then transfer older (and less used) content on cheaper storage, it is quite difficult to do so. This means planning document store/data tiers is advisable prior to implementation.

Support has improved over the years, and the online forum and support content resolves most of the issues I cannot troubleshoot myself. The support desk is generally quick and will endeavor to help you as much as they can. The complexity and uniqueness of each organization’s infrastructure, standard operating environment and third-party applications make it difficult in some cases to get the help required. Also, many organizations I have dealt with have customizations of their own, which complicates matters.

I have used custom and integrated SharePoint systems that were not able to handle large amounts of content as easily as HPE Content Manager. Managing the moving of content was particularly difficult and SharePoint’s security model doesn’t allow for security classifications to be added to content to restrict access. The long-term management (applying retention schedules) of content for archiving was much more difficult to implement.

Technical side: Initial software setup would benefit from specialist involvement. The documentation is comprehensive, so it’s not absolutely necessary to engage a specialist as long as all the documentation is read and understood. For experienced installers, the setup is actually very straightforward and can be done anywhere from a half a day to a few weeks (depending on existing infrastructure, database access and complexity of system). I would recommend specialist knowledge for software/schema upgrades to prevent potential loss of data.

Content structure and administration: A successful implementation requires an experienced Content Manager business analyst and administrator. Planning the management of content before you start is integral, and a good business analyst will be able to identify the functions and activities of your organization and structure your Content Manager environment accordingly. Setting up appropriate security classifications, security caveats, business classifications schemes, record types and locations structure would benefit from a Content Manager administration expert.

Ensure you have enough licenses for all your users. Invest in more intuitive search modules if available/required.

We have seen several SharePoint-based products and other custom-built systems; however, I am not an authority on these.

Firstly, plan, plan, plan: Hire a good business analyst and assess how your users work, what type of content they create and how you want it structured. Planning your content structure is integral to a successful implementation. Ask yourselves the questions: How do users want to search for content? How do users create content? How do users collaborate/share content? Then ensure you have a good migration plan to transfer content from your current system to your new one.

Secondly, training: Training your users comprehensively, to the point of confidence, will see a much larger user uptake. If they are unsure of themselves, they will not use the product.

Thirdly, infrastructure: Make sure you have good, reliable hardware for your Content Manager servers and database servers, and that your network is stable and fast.

Fourthly, change management: Different things could work for you here. Examples of things that I see work are constant, positive communication prior to implementation; lock down shared drives and easy migration to new system; top level-down migration. Management buy-in is integral and they need to use the product. If they do, then their staff will follow.

Currently, we are just using the full client version of the application without using workflow or the web client. We do not use the desktop application (HPE Desktop) due to its limitations.

Our primary application has an embedded workflow, so we do not use the workflow capabilities of Records Manager.

There many ways that this application has improved our organization. The most significant is the reduction in paper generation and the ability to electronically annotate and manage all our documents.

Our approval process for claim invoices uses a manual workflow and utilizes the annotation capabilities of HPE Records Manager.

Along with our primary documents required for our insureds, we also store licensing and other departmental information in department-specific folders. This has significantly reduced the number of file cabinets and our reliance on paper. We have even extended the life of our printers from an estimated end-of-life in 2010.

Drag-and-drop in a Windows 10 environment has been an issue, but 9.01 resolves that issue.

Another resolution in 9.01 will be the removal of the custom email format. Currently, we must manually extract email messages when we want to distribute claim files on a CD.

There is no direct link from Adobe into HPE Records Manager. Since we work with a lot of PDFs, users must save to the desktop and then drag-and-drop into HPE Records Manager.

We currently use 8.x as our production client of Records Manager. That version does not support dragging and dropping of documents into Records Manager when your operating system is Windows 10 (It gives you an OLE error). This is a known issue by HP and they have no plans to upgrade and fix this in the 8.x clients. To resolve this issue we install a 9.x client on our Windows 10 machines. But this introduces another error. Now the Windows 10 users cannot edit custom properties on the records. This is due to a change between the 8.x security model and the 9.x security model. The 9.x client is not fully backwards compatible to the 8.x server. The solution is to upgrade our server to version 9.x (and all of our clients) and we have that scheduled for the spring.

In 8.x and earlier, Records Manager stored emails in a VBX format and the native format (optional). When you do a super-copy of the folder, for distribution on a cd, it extracted the emails always in the VBX format. Most people do not have VBX readers installed on their machines so our customers (or the lawyers who request the CDs) could not read any of the emails. Today we have a process of super-copying all of the appropriate records and then manually opening up and re-saving all of the email messages in an Outlook format.

It would be nice if Records Manager had a way to extract for offline reading and distribution, like ImageWrite, but we have managed to work around that requirement.

We initially went into production in June 2008. We are currently running 8.30 in production but have validated and scheduled migration to 9.01 (HPE Content Manager) in spring of 2017.

Microsoft Office disabling the HPE Records Manager integration is an issue.

As our document stores have increased in size, we have a desire to split a document store into multiple stores. This has not been successfully tested with our current version. While this is not a pure scalability issue at this time, it does make it difficult to manage large document stores.

I would rate technical support as fair, as we have retained a consulting firm to supplement the support from HPE.

I am not aware of any previous solutions.

The initial setup was somewhat straightforward. Our only major issue was that the guidelines for setting up our document stores were not geared to scalability.

We have not had any issues with the pricing and licensing of this product.

When we were evaluating this product, it was just being purchased by HP. This product was not very well known in the insurance industry and we located it through a general document management search. We also evaluated a number of standard insurance document management solutions including ImageRight and ImageNow.

One advantage of this product is that it allows us to determine our own structure. Some insurance document management solutions require you to follow their structure. This has advantages and disadvantages, and you really need to understand and plan how you want to organize your data.

Organize your information in a way that makes sense for daily activities and working with documents. Do not fall into the trap of organizing data for searching. We have a few structures that have grown difficult for day-to-day work because they are optimized for searches that rarely occur.

The most valuable features are primarily the record web services interface and SharePoint Integration, although there is a lot that can be worked upon in the integration space.

Integration helps organizations build internal relationships with other products and communicate effectively. No wonder sole EDRMs like Objective, etc., are losing their charm as they remain into their own space without considering the overall enterprise paradigm. Look at SharePoint. It is good, but cannot replace HPE CM, as it doesn’t handle a large capacity of storage units.

RM 8.3.9365 or patch 3 is still under development. I myself have suggested a lot of improvements and defects, and they are being addressed. Although it is user friendly, it needs work to be at it’s best.

IDOL integration: With as much as 180 million records and 80 TB of data and 18,000 users, I can see IDOL not behaving as expected, and I work with IDOL experts to seek workarounds to issues. IDOL is a good product, but more careful planning could have been done to see some more robust outcomes. Performance across 40 content engines is poor, as some CE’s don’t work compared to others in the engine layer.

I have used Records Manager 8 for about a year now, but TRIM for many years.

We had stability issues primarily with performance, where title searches slowed down compared to previous versions. TRIM was stable with DCI itself, although it had its own bottlenecks.

We now have 2 proxies, 5 distribution servers and about 40 IDOL engines with tons of data on CEs. It is a scalable solution, but we see performance degradation and maintenance nightmares. Design could be improved to allow vertical build up as opposed to the horizontal approach, which is what HPE proposes now.

Technical staff/support is good. Some of them whom I deal with are pretty good and some of them are just smart spokespersonnel who could just confuse rather than convince.

Support staff overall rating in my view is 4/5.

TRIM is a reliable solution and has EDRMS compatibility, which others products lack. Hence, we never really looked at other products.

Initial setup was straightforward and clear.

It is expensive, especially the CM versions. But if you need it, you pay for it.

We evaluated Objective and SharePoint mostly.

Go for it. It works reliably for average-sized organizational structures.