Pueblo Film
How DocMoto ensures professional document management for Apple Mac needn’t be a drama.
Switching from Windows to Apple Mac was the start of a document and file management revolution for Swiss-based company, Pueblo Film AG.
And at the centre of bringing a new and more sophisticated level of organisation to the firm’s electronic filing system – with the ability to tag and retrieve documents more easily was DocMoto.
Pueblo Film, which provides a broad range of administrative and financial services to the independent film industry, including the buying and selling of film rights, originally based its IT infrastructure around the Windows small business server system. But, with a staff of up to only eight people, it made economic sense to change to Apple Mac computers.
Robin Hoefler, involved in managing the company’s IT for more than 6 years, facilitated the wholesale switch to Mac:
“As is the case with many small companies, we had been dealing with an inconsistent way of organising our folder system and I wanted to build a structure that would serve our needs - and those of our clients - much better.”
“Our staff had been accustomed to using the Windows system and, for the past four years, a PC-based software for document management called Laserfiche. But after the switch to Macs we were virtualising Windows on the Macs using VMware, which was complicated and confusing for the users and resulted in us no longer scanning and archiving our documents, which was supposed to be the whole point behind it!”
Robin Hoefler
Though changing to a document management system for Mac presented a major challenge, Robin found that DocMoto was the solution to a range of Pueblo Film’s IT problems:
Robin said: “It did everything we needed, looked great and was completely native to the Mac. But, moreover, I was completely convinced that the people at DocMoto would get the job done, including a number of extra tasks that had to be completed for the switch.”
That included the DocMoto team co-ordinating the transfer of 12,000-plus files from the previous Laserfiche system: “Transferring the files from Laserfiche to DocMoto was as easy as dragging and dropping. As for the thousands of metadata tags that I had extracted from Laserfiche, the DocMoto team wrote the necessary script to retrospectively tag every single file with up to 10 individual tags.”
“In a second step, they helped us auto-build and auto-complete our standardised folder structures for each department in the company. This included setting all the folder properties on each folder level according to our requirements, allowing our staff to start working with a fully standardised database from day one and ensuring that every user is asked to enter the relevant metadata when filing documents.”
“There were literally no problems or mistakes during all this. It was absolutely mind blowing!” Robin added.
Since installation, the Pueblo Film team is getting into its stride with DocMoto; using it to store every document including invoices, correspondence (both paper and electronic) and agreements. The files are stored by client and tagged, which has already made a dramatic change in staff being able to locate files simply and quickly.
Robin added: “The most enjoyable feature of DocMoto is its user-friendliness, being stripped of unnecessarily complicated features and so easy to use that you can add and adjust metadata tags quickly and reliably.”
“Also, the permission problems when accessing files that we had in the Mac’s Finder with a number of old files don’t exist with DocMoto; the software allows users to check files in and out and that’s a huge advantage.”
Robin believes that chaotic file and document management is a perennial small business problem and now relies on DocMoto to manage it.
“It’s about streamlining the electronic document structure and retrieve-ability of documents and having the facility to do so with a very sleek and clean system that is user-friendly and lets you easily apply changes.”
“Perhaps most importantly, I’ve always had a very secure feeling working with the DocMoto team. Their customer service is unbelievable - and this is critical when a company is adapting new IT and systems solutions. And the way they achieve this is by being always available to answer questions.”
“The only reason I was able to stand in front of our managing director and say that our company was going to be fine with this new software was because of the people behind DocMoto. It’s mind boggling how responsive and professional they are.”