What is an EDMS and How Can it Help Your School?

How an electronic document management system (EDMS) is a technology system can help your school run smoothly.

EDMS

It’s no secret that schools use a lot of paper, and paper is easily lost. If you have spent too much time looking for forms and documents, or ended up losing them all together, you may have figured there has to be a better way to manage all of your school district’s paperwork. 

Luckily, there is! There are tools out there that allow you to securely store your documents while providing easy access to the people who need to see them. One of the most important tools is an Electronic Document Management System (EDMS). 

What is EDMS?

An electronic document management system, or EDMS, is a technology system that allows you to  digitally create, edit, distribute and store all of your important documents and forms. 

Systems like this come in all shapes and sizes with different levels of sophistication, from network folders on your district website to a more robust system like LINQ, which allows for instant collaboration between all the members of your team that are working through your processes. 

Benefits of using EDMS

Every school has a room dedicated to filing cabinets that hold a seemingly endless amount of paperwork. Getting rid of that room – or rather, freeing it up for a better use – is just one of the benefits of implementing an EDMS in your district. Let’s look at some of the others. 

Ease of Use

As you already know, dealing with paperwork can be time-consuming and frustrating. The simple task of tracking down a form that you need can become an hour-long event if it’s something that isn’t stored at your site, or worse — it’s outdated and needs to be edited. 

An electronic document management system eliminates the need to track down a form, and even cuts down the time needed to edit one for your particular needs. You can do all of that and even distribute the form to the appropriate people, collect the signatures and information you need, and store it all in one, digital place. 

Does learning how to use a new software sound like a headache? We get it. That’s why LINQ, which was built from the ground up for K‑12 schools, has forms that are user-ready and editable with just a few clicks. It sounds too good to be true, but our team of experts has been in your shoes and has designed systems that are easy to use, allowing you to get valuable time back in your day. 

Frees Up Space

Even if you have worked out a successful filing system for all of your school’s paperwork, we know those forms are taking up a lot of space (there is that file cabinet room again). In working with our partner districts, we’ve seen everything from that famous filing cabinet room to basements that serve the sole purpose of housing outdated documents.

 Imagine if all of those documents vanished into thin air (or in LINQ’s case, a cloud-based storage system). Don’t you already feel the relief that comes from eliminating clutter?

It can be easy to miss some of the indicators that your school is in over its head with paperwork. We put together a list of signs to look out for and get an idea of where your district stands. 

Security

District forms often hold your school community members’ confidential information, and the sad truth is that security simply can’t be added to paperwork. An EDMS is the best way to ensure that information is safe from data corruption and unintended use. 

With a system in place, authorization measures can be implemented to give document access only to the people who need it, and no one else. 

LINQ Forms and Workflows

LINQ offers an electronic document management system built for school administrators, by school administrators. The best part is, you don’t have to be a tech wizard to digitize your district (No need to bother your IT colleagues, either!). 

Creating electronic documents is easy, and we’ve even put together a Form Gallery that simplifies the form creation process, making it a breeze to create new forms that are always in compliance. 

From there, index and reference your documents in any way you would like and find the right forms in seconds. You can even automate your forms and processes all in the same system.

Want to learn more about LINQ EDMS? Schedule a demo of LINQ today.