Controlled Printing and Copy Prevention in a Quality Management System
Virmo, Kristian (2014)
2014
Tietotekniikan koulutusohjelma
Tieto- ja sähkötekniikan tiedekunta - Faculty of Computing and Electrical Engineering
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2014-03-05
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-201402201084
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-201402201084
Tiivistelmä
Verification of process related documentation is an important factor when implementing a Quality Management System (QMS) in any organization. The verification ensures that documents are stored in a reliable location, audited, and corrected in cases where inconsistencies are found. A popular customer request for the M-Files Corporation’s M-Files QMS application is the ability to identify and dispose printouts of obsolete versions. This is made possible with metadata based watermarks and tracking objects. These document control characteristics are called controlled printing, and they aim at ensuring that quality documents serve their intended purpose, to verify that all circulated documents are up-to-date and that printouts are generated from the same source files. Copy prevention of documents ensures that only one instance of each document exists in the Quality Management System for printing purposes and that sensitive information does not leave organizational boundaries, copying must also be regulated.
This thesis investigates functional and non-functional customer requirements for controlled printing and copy prevention of quality documents stored in M-Files QMS. The goal is to compare several suitable solutions, select the most fitting option, and design an implementation that is based on it. It is imperative that the solution does not deteriorate the usability and cost-efficiency of the M-Files QMS product, and also that the resulting design is extensible for future upgrades.
The most versatile option was found to be the extension of M-Files QMS with the help of the M-Files API, User Interface Extensibility Framework and references to 3rd party frameworks, while using the built-in metadata structure customization features of M-Files QMS to store the complex variations needed for the implementations. The listed tools are used to apply metadata based watermarks to printed documents and restrict the copying of documents while the built-in metadata handles the storage of tracking objects that enable the tracing of circulated printouts. Based on the evaluation of the selected solution, implementing the required controlled printing and copy prevention features will be worthwhile to the M-Files Corporation as all of the requirements can be met with a minimal extra cost. Also the implemented watermarking features can be reused with other M-Files QMS functionalities. The implementation project has been planned to be included in the development cycle of M-Files QMS version 3.0, which is scheduled to be released in the fourth quarter of 2014.
This thesis investigates functional and non-functional customer requirements for controlled printing and copy prevention of quality documents stored in M-Files QMS. The goal is to compare several suitable solutions, select the most fitting option, and design an implementation that is based on it. It is imperative that the solution does not deteriorate the usability and cost-efficiency of the M-Files QMS product, and also that the resulting design is extensible for future upgrades.
The most versatile option was found to be the extension of M-Files QMS with the help of the M-Files API, User Interface Extensibility Framework and references to 3rd party frameworks, while using the built-in metadata structure customization features of M-Files QMS to store the complex variations needed for the implementations. The listed tools are used to apply metadata based watermarks to printed documents and restrict the copying of documents while the built-in metadata handles the storage of tracking objects that enable the tracing of circulated printouts. Based on the evaluation of the selected solution, implementing the required controlled printing and copy prevention features will be worthwhile to the M-Files Corporation as all of the requirements can be met with a minimal extra cost. Also the implemented watermarking features can be reused with other M-Files QMS functionalities. The implementation project has been planned to be included in the development cycle of M-Files QMS version 3.0, which is scheduled to be released in the fourth quarter of 2014.