Document management software: features and how to choose

Search for "document management software" in Vietnamese and most results are lists of ten or fifteen product names. Such lists show who is on the market, but they do not answer the more useful question: which kind of software does your organization actually need? A fifty-person company, a multi-branch corporation and a provincial government department all "manage documents", yet their requirements differ so much that one product rarely serves all three well.

This article works the other way round. It starts from what document management really involves, groups the market by need, then lists the features an evaluation team should agree on before sitting through any demo.

What document management software is

Documents in an organization move along three flows. Incoming documents are the letters, invitations and requests sent by agencies, partners and customers. Outgoing documents are what the organization issues externally. Internal documents are decisions, policies, procedures, proposals, notices and minutes that circulate inside.

Document management software tracks all three flows from the moment a document appears until it is filed: who received it, who was assigned to handle it, when it is due, whether it has been approved and signed, which version is in force and which has been superseded.

Not a shared drive. Google Drive, SharePoint or a network folder can store files, but they keep no register, assign no document numbers and cannot tell you which step a document is at. A shared drive answers "where is the file"; document management software answers "where is the work".

Not only official correspondence. Official-correspondence software in Vietnam focuses on incoming and outgoing documents under Decree 30/2020/ND-CP on clerical work. Document management is usually broader, covering internal documents, versions of policies and procedures, reference material and case files. For government agencies the two overlap almost completely; for businesses, internal documents are often the larger share. Correspondence-specific requirements are covered in official correspondence software under Decree 30.

Not a spreadsheet. A spreadsheet of incoming and outgoing numbers only records reference numbers. It does not route documents to the people handling them, send reminders, sign, exchange documents with other systems, or show whether anything has been answered.

Five kinds of solutions

Rather than comparing product names, first decide which group of needs your organization falls into. Vendors by group are listed in our comparison of correspondence software.

Shared document storage. Drive, SharePoint, NAS. Cheap and familiar, but no workflow and almost no clerical control. Fits very small teams or a short stopgap.
Packaged subscription software. Quick to roll out, friendly interface, many bundled office tools. In exchange, workflows are fairly fixed and data sits on the vendor's infrastructure. Fits mid-sized private companies with simple approvals.
Public-sector document and administration systems. Built around Decree 30/2020 and the rules for electronic document exchange, with ready connections to the national document exchange backbone. Fits government bodies, but is rigid when applied to businesses.
Customizable digital office and workflow (BPM) platforms deployed on the organization's own infrastructure. Approval flows are designed around each unit's structure, integrated with existing systems, and data stays in-house. Rollout takes months and upfront cost is higher. Fits corporations, state-owned enterprises and agencies with specific security requirements.
The document module of an ERP or all-in-one suite. Convenient if you already run that suite for accounting and HR, but the document side is usually thinner than a dedicated product.

No group is best for everyone. The right questions are whether your processes are stable and simple, whether data may live outside your own infrastructure, and whether you must exchange documents with government agencies.

Must-have features

Use the list below as an evaluation frame. Not every organization needs all of it, but it is better to decide deliberately what to drop than to discover the gap after go-live.

Registering incoming documents. Automatic registration and numbering, scanning paper documents and extracting fields such as number, date, issuer and summary so clerks do not retype them.
Drafting, approving and issuing outgoing documents. Multi-level approval, comments directly on drafts, automatic numbering at issue, and dispatch through the system instead of printing and hand delivery.
Digital signatures. Signing inside the approval flow, support for remote signing services from licensed certificate providers, multiple signers per document, and a log of every signature. The legal standing of signed electronic documents is covered in digital signing under Decree 23/2025.
Internal document control. Tracking which decisions, policies and procedures are in force, which have been amended or replaced, with full version history.
Assignment and deadlines. Lead and supporting handlers, due dates, reminders and overdue reports by unit.
Search. Search by field and within document text, including scanned paper. Newer systems add semantic search so users can ask in plain language instead of guessing exact keywords.
Permissions and security. Access by unit, role and classification level, with an access log of who viewed, edited or downloaded what.
Case files. Grouping the documents of one matter into a file, assigning a retention period and transferring it to the archive. Many systems handle this poorly, yet it is mandatory for government bodies. See electronic case file management software.
Reports. Incoming and outgoing volumes by period, on-time handling rates, workload by unit and person.
Integration. Single sign-on with your existing directory, email, HR and ERP connections, and for the public sector the ability to connect to inter-agency document exchange; see conditions for connecting to the government document exchange.

How enterprises and government bodies choose differently

Government bodies are tightly bound by rules on document format, registers, case files and inter-agency exchange. The first test is compliance with those rules; user experience comes second. Systems also typically need to meet tiered information security requirements, which directly shapes the choice between on-premise deployment and a hosted service.

Businesses have more freedom over format but more complex approvals: a purchase request may pass through a department head, accounting, legal and management, with approval thresholds by value. What matters most is configuring approval flows without custom code, and connecting to the accounting and HR systems already in place.

State-owned enterprises sit in between: they exchange documents with their supervising agency to public-sector standards while running internal approvals as complex as any private company.

Questions to ask vendors

Where is document data stored, and when the contract ends, in what format can all documents, files and handling history be exported?
Can an administrator change an approval flow or add a document type, or does it require the vendor to write code?
Which certificate providers does signing support, and is it remote signing or a device attached to the computer?
What does total cost over three to five years include: licenses, implementation, customization, infrastructure, support? See eOffice implementation cost.
How will years of paper backlog be digitized and brought into the system?

Where to start

Before any demo, do three things: list your document types and approval flows, decide which documents must stay in-house, and pick one unit as a pilot. With those done, the demo runs on your scenarios rather than the vendor's sample data. Later phases are described in the on-premise eOffice rollout roadmap.

Conclusion

The value of document management software is knowing where each piece of work is and who owns it, not how many files it can hold. Choosing the right group of solutions first, then comparing products within it, saves more time than reading another list of fifteen names.

Tetra eOffice belongs to the customizable digital office group, deployed on the organization's own infrastructure: incoming, outgoing and internal documents, approval flows designed around each unit, remote digital signing and case files. If you are building evaluation criteria for a selection, book a consultation to test them against your own processes.