TrustRadius Insights
M-Files is a versatile software that is widely used across various industries and departments. Users have reported significant …
Overview
What is M‑Files?
M-Files is a platform for knowledge work automation, that helps knowledge workers to find information faster. M-Files features a metadata-driven architecture, embedded workflow engine, and advanced artificial intelligence. This helps customers to eliminate information chaos, improve process efficiency, and automate…
Recent Reviews
Awards
Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards
Pricing
N/A
Unavailable
What is M‑Files?
M-Files is a platform for knowledge work automation, that helps knowledge workers to find information faster. M-Files features a metadata-driven architecture, embedded workflow engine, and advanced artificial intelligence. This helps customers to eliminate information chaos, improve process…
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Would you like us to let the vendor know that you want pricing?
185 people also want pricing
Alternatives Pricing
What is DocuWare?
DocuWare’s document management software delivers digital workflow and document control to boost productivity without the need for IT resources. Its cloud and on-premises products are presented as a best-fit solution for companies seeking to digitize, automate and transform key processes. DocuWare…
What is Planview ProjectPlace?
Projectplace is a collaborative work management solution. The vendor says the product is built with teams of all sizes and complexity in mind, from virtual teams of five to entire global enterprises with tens of thousands of active users. It is also designed to incorporate waterfall and agile…
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is M‑Files?
M-Files is a platform for knowledge work automation, that helps knowledge workers to find information faster. M-Files features a metadata-driven architecture, embedded workflow engine, and advanced artificial intelligence. This helps customers to eliminate information chaos, improve process efficiency, and automate security and compliance.
The vendor's value proposition:
- EASE OF USE: M-Files increases productivity and improves work quality by making information easy to find and use.
- WORKFLOW AUTOMATION: M-Files increases consistency of work and reduces errors by automating workflows.
- COLLABORATION: M-Files enables superior customer experiences through a collaborative workspace.
- COMPLIANCE: M-Files reduces business risk by ensuring compliance.
M-Files is designed to improve business performance by helping people find and use information more effectively. Using artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, M-Files breaks down silos by delivering an in-context experience for accessing and leveraging information that resides in any system and repository, including network folders, SharePoint, file sharing services, ECM systems, CRM, ERP and other business systems and repositories.
M‑Files Screenshots
M‑Files Integrations
- DocuSign
- AutoCAD
- AutoCAD LT
- ChronoScan
- Microsoft 365
- Google Workspace
- Salesforce CMS
- Microsoft Dynamics 365
- Adobe Sign
- Esri ArcGIS
- SAP
- Open Text eDocs
M‑Files Competitors
M‑Files Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows |
| Mobile Application | Apple iOS, Android, Windows Phone |
| Supported Countries | M-Files is available in 100+ countries through direct support or via the company's partner network. |
| Supported Languages | M-Files is available in 30+ languages: Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified/PRC), Chinese (Traditional/Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Macedonian, Mongolian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic), Serbian (Latin), Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese |
Frequently Asked Questions
Reviewers rate Availability highest, with a score of 9.1.
The most common users of M‑Files are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
Comparisons
Compare with
Reviews and Ratings
(147)
Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Business Problems Solved
- Recommendations
M-Files is a versatile software that is widely used across various industries and departments. Users have reported significant improvements in document retention, retrieval, and collaboration. The software serves as a central repository for storing business-critical documentation, including customer data and agreements. It has helped organizations achieve a paperless office by archiving financial data and recording invitations to tender. M-Files has been instrumental in streamlining manufacturing operations, quality control systems, and corporate functions. It simplifies access to files and data from different databases and applications, improving search capabilities and facilitating workflow management. Users appreciate the high configurability of M-Files, enabling the creation of sophisticated systems for structured information. It is also utilized by individuals for managing business and personal documents, easily finding and organizing various types of files. M-Files has successfully been implemented in education institutions to organize and manage decades worth of contracts and contractual details. Risk intelligence analysts benefit from M-Files' AI support and metadata-driven properties when developing risk assessments. The software serves as a strategic DevOps platform and a main database for industrial asset management deployments. Additionally, it is relied upon for powerful workflow tools, allowing organizations to manage internal processes and support growth without additional staffing resources. Overall, M-Files provides efficient information and document management solutions across industries such as manufacturing, education, health, and social sectors.
Users commonly recommend M-Files for its security and affordability. They suggest trying it out and learning all its features to transform the way organizations operate. M-Files is recommended to organizations of all sizes and resources. Users appreciate the convenience of file sharing and the high-level security system provided by M-Files. They also recommend creating specific folders for each topic to enhance organization. Additionally, new users are encouraged to try M-Files.
Another common recommendation is due to M-Files being a next-generation intelligent content management platform. It is highly recommended by users, including business concerns and friends. They find it easy to use and almost bug-free, making it suitable for companies dealing with numerous files and documents. Suggestions include setting up low-hanging fruit in M-Files and utilizing online training materials. Effort should be put into information and document management models and architecture.
Furthermore, users highly recommend M-Files without second thought. They advise allocating sufficient time and resources for training and persuading colleagues for successful implementation. Users suggest trialing the M-Files solution before partnering with another Enterprise Content Management (ECM) vendor as adoption rate is critical for successful implementation. An improvement suggestion is to make the product OS and platform agnostic while implementing optional features into the standard version for a competitive advantage.
Overall, users recommend M-Files for its secure and affordable nature, its convenience in sharing files, its high-level security system, and its next-generation intelligent content management platform capabilities.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-25 of 28)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
February 09, 2023
M-Files...Use It Or Lose It
I am a Power Initiator. I create, review, and update Safety Policies, Procedures, and Work Instructions. Train and Re-train employees on the above by Creating and Managing Learning Rules. Troubleshoot and correct user error. Train and Re-train M-Files users. The product helps achieve my work tasks by keeping all our documents organized and in one place.
- Decent document search engine
- Notifies when action is needed
- Recently accessed history
- Search finds retired or superseded documents leading to potential confusion.
- Would like to be notified when employee completes Learning Rule I created.
- Hard to master as a beginner
September 02, 2022
2 thumbs up
We use this for Enterprise Content Management.
- Content Management
- Support of Processes
- GUI configuration - Consistency of Architecture between metadata card positions
- Limitations on counts in vaults and associated Non-Doc objects
M-Files is used to save and find all information that is relevant for more than one employee in the company. The M-Files solution has ensured that risk intelligence analysts have access to all relevant internal information when developing a risk assessment. The M-Files AI support makes it easy to add the relevant metadata to documents. M-Files has been used by all employees since 2019.
- Makes it quite easy to save documents that includes relevant metadata.
- Makes it quite easy to find relevant information and be sure that all relevant information is found.
- Possible to show documents in different views to ensure that it is shown where it is relevant.
- M-Files can be used as the interface for all relevant information in a company using APIs to access information saved in other applications and in folders.
- Improve the user interface.
June 07, 2022
Getting excited about document management
I'm a key user at my location. I maintain metadata and views. I train other users to use M-Files and help them solve problems. I'm in a supportive role to make the document management system better. I enjoy using and M-Files to meet our needs at work. The amount of information we have is currently enormous; Thanks to M-Files I can find data systematically and fast.
- It's easy to adjust. You can modify the system to better meet your needs.
- User-friendly.
- Metadata structure is systematic and easy understand and/or to modify.
- Photo archive properties.
- I would like to have pictograms in reporting.
March 15, 2022
M-FIles as metadata machine and efficiency producer
We use M-Files in multiple use cases from a base document management solution to dedicated build workflow and business automatization in different business processes. M-Files is for us a strategic DevOps platform in addition to its normal DMS capabilities.
- Free metadata is the key
- Capability to integrate to all sorts of solutions
- Agility in implementation
- User experience and user interface - however, now with the web interface we are on the right track
March 14, 2022
MPS: Measurable time savings enabled by document and information management with M-Files
MPS has been working with M-Files since 2012 and has realized significant improvements in information and document management. M-Files' best-in-class document management functionalities have enabled more efficient work, freed up employees' time to serve customers, and increased data security.
- more efficient work
- increased data security
- user interface
We used M-Files as a general backend for multiple completely custom deployments aimed at delivering value to our customers, specifically in the industrial asset management segment. M-Files supports our custom product via its advanced document search and sharing capabilities, and acts as the main database for most of the data that is being handled in our deployments.
- Any and all search across all objects
- Access management capabilities
- Accessibility across multiple device types
- User interface definitely needs improvements
- Speed could be much faster especially with large amounts of objects
- Administrative interface needs improvements
- API documentation needs improvements
May 19, 2021
Decreased dependency on paper based processes.
M-Files is used as our major document management tool. It is being used in our organization to store large amount[s] of data to provide a central repository for all our interlinked departments to access data whenever they need it. It is automating all our workflows and eliminating the need for a paper-based system. And the management of complex data is efficient.
- Quick access of information with up to date data.
- Easy to use interface that makes using the features and functionalities simple.
- Integrates seamlessly with our existing systems.
- High speed in upload and download of files.
- I found the set up complex, but once it was complete it is a powerful product.
November 14, 2020
M-Files did not work for our law firm
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
After a long and exhaustive search, our law firm decided to purchase and use M-Files to manage our case files back in 2017. It was a long three years. Although M-Files is a capable document management system that presumably works well for some industries, it did not work well for our firm. We wound up deciding to eat our investment and abandon the product this month. We did so for several reasons, but the deal-breakers were
- the inability to easily and intuitively store large batches of documents, such as multiple document production sets, in the system
- the total lack of support from M-Files.
- Good integration with Microsoft Office applications
- It is relatively fast
- Metadata structure can be adapted to fit each company's unique environment
- Customer support
- Customer support
- Customer support
June 09, 2020
M-Files is Great and Reliable for Our Hospital System's Policies and Forms. See What They Can Do for You!
M-Files holds the policies and forms for our hospital system. It is used by all associates/manager's/physicians within Catholic Health. Our M-Files account was created and designed for the needs of our hospital system. It is a very reliable system with easy access for our users. The search capability is extremely fast and reliable. When an associate needs immediate access to a policy or form, it is readily available. This is critical since we have surgery consents on this system as well as many other policies and forms and our five hospitals rely on these documents to function.
From an administrator's view, this system was created by working with M-Files so we have everything that is required, such as the documented date and time stamps for pathologists approvals on our policies, easy access to all versions of each policy, more than one version of a policy visible at a time for training purposes, and excellent customer service.
- Reliable: Our M-Files system has only gone down one time (for a very short period of time) at the beginning of the two years that we have been with M-Files. Our previous vendor's system had so many downtimes that our IT Department had to assign an associate to work with me for sending out notifications to associates etc. With our last vendor, one day I came to work and only 60 of the 260 consent for surgery forms were available to our end users although they were visible to me as the Administrator but weren't showing up for the end-users!
- Our M-Files system was created for us. It was created by working with developers to only have on our system what we required, and I must say, there were so many extra features that M-Files offered in our program that weren't available with our previous vendor. As mentioned previously, we can have two policies or forms visible to the end-user so one can be listed as "draft" or "training only" so our end users can read and use for training as we get ready to roll out a new medical record system. I can also preload policies and leave them in the working stage until they are approved and go back and publish them the day they are approved. The list goes on with so many great features.
- Our end users would say the greatest asset of this product is the search function. It's amazing how fast it is. There are many ways to search out a form or policy which makes it a true asset for our associates.
- When our account was first live, shortly after that we had our one and only downtime. When I called for assistance, I was told that I needed to work with Strickland Solutions, who created our vault for M-Files. When I called my contacts there, they told me I needed to contact M-Files. It was frustrating and did get to the bottom of it. There are now account reps that I can work with if I need to but I would recommend (and I had already suggested) that the support team is well aware of what level of support each customer has for their account. My account rep does call to check in with me periodically, but seriously, we aren't having issues and are a very satisfied customer.
M-Files is our internal document management solution. With the recent move to working from home as organizations deal with the current pandemic, we have been able to migrate paper processes to digital workflows. This has increased our productivity and reduced our dependence on legacy systems. Documents get a full history attached to them for tracking and auditing purposes which older systems never offered.
- Infinitely versatile. We have created non-document objects that documents can relate to. These NDOs can be leveraged to find relationships between documents to present versatile views, automated permissions and workflows. No more WHERE is my document, but WHAT is my document!
- Intelligent Metadata is a great ability to capture what you need to properly categorize your documents and the system will scan the documents to capture that data for you. Users still accept the presented data to ensure accuracy.
- Customization of notifications is exceptionally useful when monitoring adoption of M-Files. In real time you are able to capture if a user is struggling with a process.
- Using assignments with workflows means users are not troubled with finding what needs to be done, they simply get the assignment, carry out the work and move on.
- Integrating with fully custom systems can be a breeze also with several ways to import content and even an API to build your own integrations. The API documentation is thorough!
- If you are new to Electronic Document Management, this can be a really difficult product to roll out. Since it is infinitely versatile, there are infinite ways to configure it wrong. I highly recommend the M-Files admin training offered by M-Files as it will set you in the right direction.
- Many options are paid add-ons. So while you are not paying for what you don't need, many great features will come at a cost.
- If you don't have a technical person on staff, this will be tricky to maintain. Not impossible. If your processes do not change, once setup it will be fine.
December 30, 2019
Superb Document Management System
Today M-Files is being used worldwide inside my company to handle files and another similar kind of documents, like control revision, file storage, and workflow for approvals. It is a very important application for Engineering areas, because this area needs to be conforming to many legal compliances.
- Great workflow.
- Works with metadata, which makes files easy to be found.
- It has excellent versioning control.
- It has integration with other applications, like Office 365.
- It could have more CAD integrations.
- Has the possibility to have online revision, inside the application.
- It could have a better documentation transmitter section.
August 09, 2019
An affordable and underestimated ECM platform
We implemented M-Files for various customers after looking for a more cost-effective ECM platform than OnBase or Perceptive for some of our leaner customers. M-Files was relatively new to us but after evaluating the software and the direction it was headed we decided to implement it and it had the functionality we were looking for at a fraction of the cost of the competitors. As an ECM platform, it helped reduce the number of shared folders, spreadsheets, inconsistent Sharepoint usage, and other things that often come from a company trying to collaborate and share information while making it easy to recall and find that information in the future.
- Very easy to recall, identify, and locate related information.
- The interface is modern and slick, making the learning curve much lower for new users.
- Installation and support are top-notch and administrating the platform will be familiar to regular system administrators.
- The workflow engine, while powerful, does not contain many advanced features but they are in the roadmap.
- This is nothing against M-Files, but it is a relatively new ECM platform so adoption and user community is not where more mature platforms are.
- The interface is nice looking and easy to use but could use a bit more polish so it does not feel like too "new" of a product.
July 12, 2019
Happy M-Files Review
M-Files is being using by the whole organization to store, retrieve, revise and approve documentation. The system uses metadata properties allowing users to search and view documents quickly and easily, eliminating chaotic network folders; users are no longer required to remember where a file or folder is stored. Workflow capabilities allow users to route documents for review and sign-off, keeping content in one system vs. multiple databases. Creating assignments in M-Files provides traceability for routing and reviewing of documents, eliminating email attachments and uncontrolled paper files. Permission settings within the system allows only authorized persons to access certain files. The Check In/Check Out system creates automated version control and leaves a history trail, leaving a structured audit trail.
- Metadata drive - searches through metadata and throughout the document itself to retrieve what the user is looking for. Finds documents fast and easily using the search bar. Additional filters can be added if needed to filter further.
- Advanced automated workflows. Assignments are automatically generated once a workflow state is reached and emails notifications are sent to assignees. Automation ensures smooth transitions and eliminates manual triggers.
- Traceability and version control. M-Files tracks each change to the document itself and to the metadata. This is important for audits and having the version history at your fingertips.
- Extremely customizable. Users can create their own views for themselves or common views for the whole company to view a group of documents. These options can be customized based on the metadata properties. Administrators can create the properties and structure in the Admin tool.
- Notifications could be improved. Once an assignment has met the deadline date, it will no longer notify the assignee of an overdue assignment every day after the deadline. The assignee will only see the overdue assignment by opening up M-Files and seeing it on their home screen or referring to the email last received.
- Once an action has been taken within the system, the page needs to be refreshed frequently. Improvements could be made to reduce the refreshing required to see the changes that were made.
- M-Files acts like a library - in order to edit a document it must be checked out by a user. Once changes are made the document should automatically check itself in by default. When exiting out of a document, sometimes it does not automatically check in and requires manual check in. Consistency of automatic actions could be improved.
- The M-Files Admin customization and workflows could be explained or assisted more at initial setup. Since the system is out of the box, trying to setup the system to cater to the company's needs can be time consuming and a confusing process. It took a lot of trial and error to get the metadata properties and values setup properly. It something that we still struggle with at times since M-Files support doesn't know how our company operates and how we want to use the system.
We have implemented M-Files as a service management system for service business and quotation management system for capex projects. This solution covers service agreements, service work management and reporting of service activities for customers and invoicing. Customers' install base of service agreement lines is included. All capex quotations are included with classification information. Already decided further development includes project document management and customer document distribution.
- Defining and implementing data requirements with business people is very flexible
- Defining and implementing business workflows is very flexible
- Document management is efficient
- Creating simple views in M-Files is easy but with increasing data complexity also creation of views becomes complex.
- M-Files has competent people but their support processes can be enhanced.
- User interface could be more user friendly.
M-files is used across the whole organization and it is used for all business related documents. Also, it is used for reporting returns and claims.
- Integration: Reads data from other systems.
- Easy to force data to be organized.
- If the built in functionality isn't enough, you can easily script additional functionality into M-Files.
- Performance. Feels slow.
- Metadata integration is limited. Only database connections with a single SQL query. No JSON/XML/etc. Database connections only pull mode. No possibility to push data into M-Files and constantly pulling large data sets from the database is slow.
- OCR module broken for years without a fix.
- Logs everything to Windows event log which is not very searchable.
- Mobile app is virtually unusable. Slow and buggy. Randomly fails to follow customized metadata cards, eg. default data ignored.
Used across the entire organization. Eliminates paper documents, for the most part, reducing clutter and filing. Searching for and retrieving documents is now much simpler. Overall, the office function is more efficient.
- Centralized store of purchasing documents.
- Centralized store of quality and safety documents.
- Sales process has been streamlined.
- Initial set-up was rather complex, but not impossible.
- Metadata card customization could be simplified.
- Search function returns too few results at times.
June 01, 2019
M‑Files Review
M-Files helps our company manage the paperwork involved in transporting hazardous materials, and to streamline their invoice processing procedures. As a company that regularly handles hazardous material and works with safety in mind, we’ve always had comprehensive requirements. Because M-Files is able to do so many things, we've molded a lot of our operations around it.
- Provides quick and easy access to the right content.
- Provides higher levels of user adoption.
- M-Files is accessible on desktop, cloud, and mobile devices.
- We would like to see the ability to automatically resize pictures, so they don't take up so much storage.
October 12, 2018
Pleasantly pleased couldn't be happier with program
We use M-files to manage our QA documentation.
- Very user friendly
- You can easily locate your documents within moments by using the search
- We were able to bring information from other databases to retrieve information so lessen manual input of metadata within M-files.
- Very nice reporting feature - we use to create an index tracing material to part.
- I have not seen any issues that affect our use
October 12, 2018
M-Files
It is being used by the legal department as a database to store contracts. We put in ticklers to let us know when an agreement is coming up for auto-renewal, termination, etc.
- User interface is easy to understand and learn for new users.
- The functionality is great once contracts are loaded into the system.
- Customer service. We experienced some difficulty with our account this year and the service wasn't the most responsive. We rely on M-Files to run our department and without prompt responses/clear resolutions, it became fairly frustrating.
- Problem resolution. We were shut out of our account for a month or so this year which really set us back as a company. Not sure why it took so long to resolve, but again, it was a significant hinderance.
- We have a backlog of contracts that need to be uploaded. Anything that allows the contracts to be input into the system in a quicker, more efficient manner would be helpful
September 28, 2018
M-Files Rocks!!!!
Being and end user of M-Files, I am in the Sales Dept and use it daily. I create Proposals using the templates and love it. I use it to look up customer contract information which is done very easily. All correspondence done with my customers is stored in M-Files so I am able to easily retrieve it.
Bottom line... "It makes my job that much easier!"
Bottom line... "It makes my job that much easier!"
- Creating Proposals: I use the templates in Word and Excel to create Pricing and Proposals on a daily basis.
- Archiving Customer Information: I use the Outlook Plug in and archive all emails related to my customers and projects I am working on.
- Retrieving Customer Information: The SEARCH feature makes life easy and I can easily find my customer information with a quick search.
- I don't see any areas that need improvement. However, M-Files seams to find them and put them in the new releases before I even thought I needed them. For instance the highlighting of the search words.. very nice and makes it easy to find at a quick glance what I am looking for.
September 24, 2018
M-Files saved us from a document conversion nightmare
It is being used by specific departments for two different companies that we support. Converting documents to electronic format using ChronoScan, attaching tags and descriptions to make documents searchable, and adding destroy dates for make sure documents are being destroyed for legal reasons.
- Using ChronoScan makes it very easy to get hard copies to be converted to electronic copies, and automatically added to M-Files, once ChronoScan is setup. The setup of ChronoScan took some time, as its very specific to a template being used.
- Adding tags, metadata, and descriptions to the M-Files properties for each documents makes it very easy to find those documents, or group of documents in the future.
- Having the ability to set destroy dates in the properties gives us the confidence to know that document has been destroyed and can no longer be accessed forever.
- Workflows allow for automatic document loading vs approved document loading. Making any part of the workflow a place to place verification and approval if desired.
- The only long-standing issue we have at the moment is a slowness issue, but working through the issue we are discovering our two vault instances are at two different locations. Maybe do a better job at determining the best datacenter location for the vault to reside at depending on the customers locations?
September 21, 2018
A wonderful document management system.
M-Files is used in several departments. We scan in various documents, tag them and retain them as historical records. It is easier to find the file in M-Files than search through paper files.
- It indexes a wide range of documents easily.
- It allows for custom designed tags.
- It is easy for me to use.
- When tagging an Excel spreadsheet of names, I add the person to the tag. If the person is new, M-Files wants to add the new person. The new user window pops up in the middle of the screen every single time. I have to move it out of the way to see the data behind it. M-Files needs to be able to retain the location of where I move a window so that it opens where I want it to, and not right in the middle of the screen, right on top of the data that I need to enter.
- Wish it had an OCR option.
September 05, 2018
M-Files - Allows you to search for what you need wihout knowing where it's located.
M-Files is being Piloted by a few NC Board of Nursing departments prior to being used organization-wide. M-Files is simplifying access to files, data, etc., located in several different databases and applications. We're also combining the implementation of M-Files with the OCR conversion of 10+ years of graphic files into electronically searchable files, which will dramatically improve accessibility and drastically reduce search time.
- M-Files simplifies access to files, data, etc., located in several different databases and applications. You just need to know what you're looking for not where it's located.
- M-Files Intelligent Metadata Layer (IML) tool can search several different databases and applications simultaneously, including but not limited to Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive, and shared drives. The IML results of your search criteria are displayed on a single page, which simplifies review, access and storage.
- M-Files automatically tracks file/document versions to simplify management and version control, as well as prevent duplicates.
- Searching specific files using the IML Tool is streamlined by displaying company/customer names, document types, contacts etc.
- None so far, since we're early in our implementation.
September 03, 2018
Great value
We resell M-Files. We provide the M-Files platform to our customers/prospects here in Canada.
- Great feature set
- Cost effective
- Easy to deploy
- Ability for free trials