Before You Sign: 10 Critical Requirements to Demand from any DMS Vendor

Before You Sign:

10 Critical Requirements to Demand from any DMS Vendor

A practitioner's non-negotiable checklist; what you need them to prove, show, and guarantee before you commit.

You have sat through the demo. The sales team was charming. The platform looked clean. The case studies featured names you recognise. And now you are being asked to sign a multi-year contract for an Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) that will sit at the heart of your project and operational information for the next decade or more.

This is exactly the moment where organisations get it wrong.

A DMS is not a commodity IT purchase. It is infrastructure. The wrong choice means years of workarounds, a shadow filing system in SharePoint, and an operations team that can't find what it needs when it matters most. The right choice, implemented well, with the right governance, becomes invisible in the best possible way: information is simply where it should be, when you need it.

So, before you say yes, here are the 10 things you should demand that any vendor, tender company, or IT supplier prove to you. Not describe. Not promise. Prove.

The 10 Non-Negotiable DMS Requirements

These apply whether you are evaluating:

• A dedicated engineering EDMS platform
• An IT systems integrator
• A SharePoint-based build
• A cloud document control solution
• An asset information management system

01: Native Asset Linking (RDS / ISO 81346 Compliance)

If your DMS cannot structurally link documents to physical assets, it is a filing cabinet.

In engineering and energy environments, documents must connect to systems, equipment, and tags using structured metadata, ideally aligned with ISO 81346 Reference Designation System (RDS) standards.

Ask them to show you:

• "Filter all documents for system code =X= and show me every drawing, manual, and datasheet associated with it."
• "If I change the RDS code for an asset, what happens to the documents linked to it?"
• "Can a single document be linked to multiple RDS codes, for example, one document mentioning multiple systems or assets?"

🚩 Walk away if: They show you how to type the RDS code into a comments field and call it 'tagged'. That is not tagging. That is a notes field with extra steps.

02: Prove the Contractor Submission Workflow End to End

Most of your document volume will come from contractors and subcontractors. They should not need a full platform licence to submit documents, receive review comments, and respond to transmittals. If they do, they will use email. You will lose control of the process immediately.

Ask them to show you:

• "Create a test contractor account and show me the submission workflow from their side, with no admin privileges."
• "What happens when a contractor submits a document with non-compliant naming, does the system reject it automatically?"
• "Can I configure different submission requirements for different contractors or discipline packages?"

🚩 Walk away if: Contractor access requires purchasing additional user licences. Your submissions will happen in email within a month.

03: Demonstrate a Configurable Review Workflow; Your Way, Not Their Template

Review control failure destroys project schedules. A serious DMS gives you a fully configurable review engine: different workflows for different document types, escalation paths when deadlines are missed, automatic reminders, and a complete audit trail of every comment, response, and status change.

Ask them to show you:

• "Set up a two-stage review workflow for a Vendor Data Item, first engineering, then document control, with automatic escalation after 5 days."
• "Show me what a reviewer sees when they have 40 documents in their queue, and how they manage priorities."
• "If a review deadline expires without action, what happens? Show me the escalation path."

🚩 Walk away if: The review workflow is fixed and cannot be modified without a paid customisation project. You will be adapting your process to fit their template.

04: Show Me the Metadata Model; and That I Can Change It

Your documents will have attributes that no out-of-the-box system anticipates: RDS codes, discipline codes, system tags, area classifications, safety criticality ratings, commissioning status. A rigid metadata model forces you to store project-critical information outside the system, usually in a spreadsheet which immediately creates a parallel information universe that nobody maintains properly.

Ask them to show you:

• "Add a custom metadata field for 'Commissioning Package Number' to all Mechanical document types, show me how long that takes."
• "Can metadata fields be mandatory for certain document categories?"
• "Can I run a report showing all documents where a specific metadata field is blank?"

🚩 Walk away if: Metadata schema changes require a service request and a 2-week lead time. You are not in control of your own data structure.

05: Open Data Export (Prove I Can Leave)

This is the most important question in DMS procurement. Your documents will outlive your vendor relationship.

Ask them to show you:

• "Export everything; documents, metadata, transmittal history, revision log, to a clean folder structure right now. Show me what I get."
• "What format does the export use? Is it a proprietary format or open XML/CSV?"
• "If I wanted to migrate to a different system tomorrow, what would that process look like and what would it cost?"

🚩 Walk away if: Data export is available 'on request' or requires a professional services engagement. Your data is effectively held hostage.

06: Test the Search and Filtering; Under Real Conditions

Search is the entire point of a Document Management System. Most demos use 200 clean files. You will have 50,000–250,000.

Ask them to show you:

• "Load a sample dataset of 10,000 documents and find every current-revision drawing for a specific RDS system code, filtered by discipline and status."
• "What is the typical search response time with 100,000 documents in the system?"
• "Can I build and save custom filter sets for frequent searches?"

🚩 Walk away if: The demo uses a clean, minimal dataset. Ask to see it under production-scale data before you commit.

07: Require a Handover and Operations Mode; Not Just a Project Mode

Many EDMS platforms are built for project document control. Few are built for 20-year operations and maintenance. These are not the same use cases.

Ask them to show you:

• "Show me how this system looks to a maintenance technician searching for the correct wiring diagram for a specific relay, using only the equipment tag."
• "How does the system handle the project-to-operations transition; is there a formal handover workflow?"
• "Can documents be tagged with maintenance-relevant attributes like 'Safety Critical' or 'Regulatory Required' for O&M filtering?"

🚩 Walk away if: The vendor's entire demo is built around the project use case. Operations are mentioned as a feature, not demonstrated as one.

08: Verify Integration with Your Asset Register, CMMS, and GIS

A DMS that lives in isolation is a filing system. A DMS connected to your asset register, Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS), and Geographic Information System (GIS) is an information model. Documents, assets, maintenance records, and spatial data should all reference the same master objects. If a document is updated, the CMMS should know. If an asset is decommissioned, its documents should be flagged. This level of integration does not happen by accident; it requires a real API and real connectors.

Ask them to show you:

• "Show me the existing integration with (your specific CMMS or asset register platform). How does document status sync to the asset record?"
• "What does the API look like; REST? GraphQL? What is the documentation standard?"
• "If I update an RDS code in the asset register, how does that change propagate to the documents linked to it?"

🚩 Walk away if: Integration is described as 'possible via API' with no existing connectors built. That means your team builds and maintains it at your cost.

09: Test Offline and Mobile Access; In the Field, Not the Boardroom

Offshore platforms. Substations. Remote wind farms. Connectivity is not guaranteed.

Ask them to show you:

• "How a field technician marks up and syncs a document when offline. What happens to the markup when connectivity is restored?"
• "Can an operations team pre-download a defined document package for a planned maintenance job?"
• "What is the minimum connectivity requirement for core read-access functions?"

🚩 Walk away if: Mobile access is a web browser view that requires full connectivity. There is no offline mode.

10: Demand a Reference, From a Project Like Yours

Brand logos are irrelevant. What you need is a reference from an organisation running a similar project, similar document volumes, similar contractor complexity, similar asset type, similar handover requirements. And not just a name: a real conversation with a real user, without the vendor in the room.

Ask them to show you:

• "Provide two references from organisations using this system for offshore energy projects with more than 20,000 documents and multi-contractor environments."
• "Can we speak to those references without a vendor representative present?"
• "Ask the reference: What would you do differently if you were implementing this system again?"

🚩 Walk away if: The only references available are either confidential, from completely different industries, or will only speak with a vendor representative present.

The Quick Verdict Table

Use this as your go/no-go filter before any final decision:

The Uncomfortable Reality: Governance Is Not a Feature

No Document Management System fixes poor governance. If you do not have:

• Enforced naming conventions
• Contractual submission standards
• Defined review timelines
• Executive accountability for information quality

Your EDMS will be bypassed within six months.

The system is infrastructure. Governance is discipline. You need both.

The Final Word

Most EDMS platforms look excellent in controlled demonstrations. You are not buying the demo.

You are buying:

• 15 contractors submitting simultaneously
• A review backlog under pressure
• 100,000 documents in the system if not more
• Offshore engineers searching during an outage

If a vendor cannot demonstrate live capability against these realities, the answer is already clear.

At SøDera we help organisations define DMS requirements, run structured vendor evaluations, and implement information management frameworks that hold up under real project and operational conditions. If you are about to make a DMS decision or have already made one and it is not working, then get in touch.