Organizations create sensitive documents. A document may be deemed sensitive for many reasons including industry regulatory compliance, government classification level, financial data, medical content, contractual stipulations, or organizational proprietary information. Sensitive documents can be difficult to author because they typically require a separate resource pool for the authoring process. The resources can include:

·         A dedicated pool of people authorized to work with sensitive information

·         A different publishing or content approval process from non-sensitive documents

·         A separate storage location or authoring application pool from non-sensitive documents

The requirement for a separate resource pool, particularly human resources, coupled with the relatively high expense of resources used to create sensitive documents relative to non-sensitive documents can also make sensitive documents much more expensive to author than non-sensitive documents.

An interesting characteristic of many sensitive documents is that portions of their content are non-sensitive. It is not uncommon for only 25% to 50% of a sensitive document to actually be sensitive. The rest of the content is non-sensitive supporting information.  The docBlock Ascend allows organizations to take advantage of this characteristic to allow organizations to greatly improve the business processes around the creation of sensitive documents by virtualizing sensitive documents.

Once a sensitive document is virtualized, an organization can apply cheaper resources towards the authoring of the non-sensitive portions of the sensitive document. This makes better use of the more expensive resources in working on the sensitive portions of sensitive documents.

The requirement for a dedicated pool of people authorized to work with sensitive information is addressed by virtualizing the sensitive document and using the granular task assignment and permissions capabilities the docBlock Ascend provides. The content manager partitions the virtual document in such a way as to segregate the sensitive content into separate document parts from the non-sensitive content. Because SharePoint sees each document part as a separate file, the content manager is able to set item-level permissions on the sensitive document parts so that only people who are authorized to work with sensitive information can see and edit those parts. The content manager also uses the docBlock document part task assignments to specify which person is to author particular document parts, so there is no confusion.

The requirement for a different publishing or content approval process from non-sensitive documents is addressed by virtualizing the sensitive document and using the granular workflow capabilities the docBlock Ascend enables. Because SharePoint sees each document part as a separate file, each document part can run a distinct workflow for content approval. Workflow can now be written in a simpler, more secure, and more modular fashion. Only the people who have the rights to work with sensitive information will participate in the review of the sensitive document parts.

The requirement for separate storage locations is addressed by creating mirrored corresponding instanced of a virtual document on both the non-sensitive and sensitive storage locations. The virtual document at the non-sensitive storage location contains only non-sensitive document parts and can be authored by a broad range of people. The organization defines a business process to periodically publish the non-sensitive document parts from the non-sensitive storage location to the sensitive storage location. The instance of the virtual document on the sensitive storage location contains both the non-sensitive and sensitive content. The docBlock Ascend ensures that both the sensitive and non-sensitive instances of the virtual document are always kept up to date with the changes to their respective document parts.

The docBlock Ascend’s virtual document task management capabilities allow content managers to track which tasks are assigned to which people and on which storage location, providing task management and visibility across both non-sensitive and sensitive document storage locations. Freeing the more expensive resources to work on the sensitive portions of sensitive documents leads to more cost effective business processes for authoring sensitive documents and to shorter calendar times for those business processes.

Read more about advanced document management usage scenarios that docBlock Ascend virtual documents enables on the SharePoint 2007 and 2010 platforms:

Download the Enhancing SharePoint Document Management with Virtual Documents black paper (registration required). The black paper discusses several key document management usage scenarios enabled through docBlock Ascend's virtual document enhancements to the SharePoint platform.

Ready to bring the power of docBlock Ascend to your document management experience? Get pricing and a no-obligation quote today.

For more information on the docBlock Ascend, please download the docBlock Ascend product brochure or contact sales@blackbladeinc.com / +1-703-260-1111. See the docBlock Ascend in action by scheduling a live web demo, or attend a public webinar, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 2pm EST.