We’ve Gamified Document Management Systems

It’s true, document management systems sometimes seem very boring for users.

Any document management project involves significant effort in consulting, definitions, analysis, management of changes, automation, and testing. It’s truly exciting work for those of us who dedicate ourselves to it.

We solve very significant challenges because we always have to reach a high level of automation so that users are satisfied and really save time at work.

A large part of this effort results in better quality of life for users, making their job simpler and more automatic.

It’s surprising how the classic, boring, and archaic world of ECMs has brushed aside one of the most important innovations in usability—gamification. One of the few articles in this regard, “The Gamification of ECM and the Role SharePoint Plays”, is quite old and offers few results.

At Athento, we understand that users who work in document management systems deserve to view their work in another way. For this reason, we’ve added several elements of gamification. Some examples are:

• Ranking of users by speed in managing documents. In general, a user has to perform a series of “processes” on documents: validate them, perform a task on them, etc. What we have done is display the ranking and inform users of the record times. Companies can use these rankings to reward the fastest users or those who complete more processes.
• Fun animations. Users generally spend hours and hours performing operations on documents. When a user completes a process faster than usual, they are notified with a fun animation.

These improvements in usability in document management systems spur a change in users’ attitudes towards their processes, increasing productivity and making them a bit happier.