OpenText Content Manager Reviews

I'm an administrator at the moment. I normally work with staff to structure different BCSs (Business Content Services). I've been working on BCS restructuring and, in another project, on the disposal of records - basically archival and destruction of documents and folders. 

Lately, I've been working on the data governance regarding the migration and move to SharePoint. So I've been writing instruction publications on it, and I've also been training on Content Manager. It's a daily work, mainly digital.

There's barely any physical work at this stage. Basically, I try to improve the information management maturity of the organization I work in.

I came into this organization two years ago for the archival and destruction project. I saw that the information management maturity was poor and needed to change. That's how the BCS project started, to restructure the way people use document collections within the system. But there's very little interest from the agency itself in improving, unfortunately, apart from a couple of people who are responsible for line records management. 

Otherwise, it's been a struggle to get staff interested in improving how they work with information, their record-keeping, and so on. It's been a little bit tough from that perspective. It still is.

And that's because, before I started working here, the people working on the system were not qualified records and information managers. They caused enough damage that people became uninterested in the process of information governance. This includes the executive. So, basically, everyone's looking forward to moving out of Content Manager and into SharePoint.

Probably the disposal management and retention management are the most useful things I use. I would also like to mention the security architecture. The only problem with that is it's a little bit complex and too torturous at times. So it could be improved a little bit, but it is regarded as a very good system in Australia. It's probably overly subscribed. 

Many public service organizations have committed themselves to Content Manager over the years when it wasn't being managed very well by either HP or, later on, Micro Focus. But now that it's in OpenText's hands, they're saying it's promising, but I don't know. I think a lot of people have lost patience and are moving to SharePoint.

The search and retrieval functionalities are quite good. Search and retrieval are quite effective functions on Content Manager. So, that's worked quite well. I'm not aware that people have trouble finding things they need.

The security architecture is the only problem as it's a little bit complex and too torturous at times. So it could be improved a little bit, but it is regarded as a very good system in Australia. It's probably overly subscribed.

Also, what's missing is what people would like, which is basically online collaboration. That's a problem. But it has so many other things to offer that SharePoint, I'm sure, will not have. So, that will be an interesting issue to come up.

It's not very good at providing stable and robust add-ins to Microsoft. That's a bit of a problem with Content Manager. They're kind of very volatile. So, that's been definitely something that could be improved.

I have experience with Content Manager, but we are just moving over from Content Manager to SharePoint. 

I have been using it on and off for a number of years now. Probably since about 2009. And I've been working on and off since then. Now a little bit more actively as an administrator. I work with version 10. It is hardly the latest. 

I would rate the stability of Content Manager a seven out of ten, where one is low and ten is high. I've had quite a few issues myself with stability lately—actually, all throughout last year.

I would rate the scalability a six out of ten, with one bein low and ten being high scalability. I'd expect SharePoint to be a lot easier for people.

I am the only administrator. So everybody's a user, but I'm the administrator. There are around 35 end users. 

It's being used by everybody. They have to use it. It's our official repository. But, admittedly, many people try to avoid it as much as possible, and they will save documents in unapproved repositories, or even in SharePoint. They're already using SharePoint, or anywhere else, whether it's the file explorer, the desktop, or their Outlook inbox.

We do not plan to increase the usage of Content Manager. We've decided to switch to SharePoint.

We outsource our IT. They're not familiar with Content Manager. Even though they've heard about it from us for so long, they don't really have any qualified people specifically for Content Manager. But I liaise with both the information management consultants and the outsourced IT to get technical issues resolved. 

So I'm usually quite successful doing that, but now there is someone who has come in expressly for IT at the organization I work for. So they've just sort of taken over that technical side of resolving any issues that are of an IT nature rather than an information management nature.

So, I just work with third-party support.

I have used something called RecFind and another one called Worksite.  Although I have worked with SharePoint too when I was in the UK. So, I've worked with different systems, but I think Content Manager is probably the one that I've worked with the most.

It wasn't a conscious decision for me to pick a particular solution. I went to work somewhere where they were using it, and most organizations at the time were using Content Manager. It's quite widespread here in Australia.

I haven't actually ever worked anywhere where I've had to set up Content Manager from scratch, apart from changing the way it was.

I'm the only person here who does all the maintenance and everything else. But, admittedly, I do work closely with an information management company. They provide all sorts of advice with regards to how to set up things and how to implement things. It's been very good. If I or any staff have any issues, they usually send them to me, and I relay that to the company, and they're usually very good at getting back to me.

It's a pretty good system, even though I seem to be a little bit philosophical about it. It's definitely good value in any organization because it's a very good, solid system compared to many others that I know of, apart from its sometimes technical side. 

But then again, I know that it's not particularly, how could I put it, very contemporary anymore. A lot of things are online now, and they're a little bit more integrated. Content Manager fails quite a bit in that regard. It's a bit of a system you have to go to rather than an integratable system.

It's probably not as cheap as many others. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with ten being expensive, and one being cheap. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten. Comparing it with the other systems that I've used from memory, it's pretty good. From the administrator perspective, from the functionality, I would rate it an eight out of ten.

It's still a pretty good system. If they've had trouble or if they're having trouble with SharePoint in terms of its records management capabilities, or if SharePoint hasn't been developed properly, Content Manager fares well in comparison. 

But at the same time, I'm aware that a lot of people in Australia have adopted both, so they're working with both. SharePoint may be the interface, but Content Manager sits behind the disposal management functionality. They've kept that. We are planning not to because I don't see any reason to keep another system if we are able to develop SharePoint to the point where we can structure our disposal functionality ourselves. It would be expensive and probably not worth it.

At the same time, a lot of people are quite happy with that arrangement. So, if they don't have any need to collaborate or they collaborate just through SharePoint, I think for a records management system, Content Manager is a really good system.