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M‑Files

M‑Files

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…

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

M-Files is a versatile software that is widely used across various industries and departments. Users have reported significant …
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Why M-Files

10 out of 10
March 01, 2023
Incentivized
As I have been consultant for M-Files, I implemented M-Files in almost 10 organizations. These organization were Manufacturing, Education, …
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Awards

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Pricing

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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

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Product Details

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

Screenshot of M-Files - SearchScreenshot of M-Files - Profile openScreenshot of M-Files - PermissionsScreenshot of M-Files - Process mapsScreenshot of M-Files - Pinned items

M‑Files Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsWindows
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android, Windows Phone
Supported CountriesM-Files is available in 100+ countries through direct support or via the company's partner network.
Supported LanguagesM-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

Laserfiche, OpenText Content Suite Platform, and Alfresco are common alternatives for M‑Files.

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).
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Comparisons

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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!

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

(1-5 of 5)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
March 03, 2023

Strong DMS

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
M-Files is used as a platform to provide document management solutions for out clients
  • The most powerful part of M-Files is workflow automation.
  • System has quite a simple interface.
  • Good integration with other applications like MS Dynamics.
  • Workflow definitions need better graphical interface.
  • M-Files API need documentation and complete samples.
  • Files upload is very slow.
  • Have to have better diagnostics and logging tools
M-Files is well suited for what it is designed for - document management. The quality of API documentation makes customization of M-files for a particular client a cumbersome task.
  • M-Files makes easy documents management and document search.
  • Using well developed documents processing workflows greatly increase productivity.
  • We tried integration with Microsoft Dynamics, but Microsoft Dynamics with SharePoint works very good as well, so there is no additional benefits for integration with M-Files
M‑Files just came first. Looks like DocuWare is a better tool for collaboration and M-files is a better tool for archiving, but at the end the better tool is the one that can be confidently used
10
They are business analysts and developers
3
Knowledge M‑Files capabilities and features, basic programming knowledge of c# and JavaScript
  • Projects lifecycle management
  • Managing employee documents and records
  • Documents approval flow
  • integration with mobile web applications
  • there is no plans to use M‑Files in some additional ways
There are too many details that are specific for a particular use of M‑Files, so it is hard to generalize them in a review
No
  • Product Features
  • Product Reputation
The evaluation need to be done by creation at a prototype solution for real business tasks, and the solution need to be assessed by business stakeholders
  • Implemented in-house
No
  • Luck of a quality documentation
Standard recommendations for any software development: keep it simple, provide quick releases, have automated testing
No, we did purchase premium support because there is no need
Support group at M‑Files knows their product very well
No
It was several time when M‑Files support group went the extra mile in providing an answer by not only clarifying the question but also by providing an additional information. It helps to understand the product better
  • Documents search
  • Document versioning
  • Workflow automation
  • User interface customization
  • Integration with other systems
Yes, but I don't use it
If quality API documentation is provided, it can be 10 out of 10
March 01, 2023

Why M-Files

Zakir Hussain | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As I have been consultant for M-Files, I implemented M-Files in almost 10 organizations. These organization were Manufacturing, Education, health, Social Sector, Public Sector, Oil and Gas Sector, etc. There were different problems in different organizations, but the main one was with Oil and Gas Sector, who were using Documentum and they wanted to replace with M-Files. The organization is now using M-Files in Operations Department, Engineering Dept. and 8 other Departments. Due to COVID situation they are not fully dependent on M-Files and also now SAP integration has been done which is also favoring in Organizational Operations from remote. The main difference in Documentum and M-Files was that Documentum they used to implement on 4-5 Server Machines and when they require an other implementation they were to replica these exercise and again need 4-5 serve Machines where in M-Files there is Vault concept which reduce Hardware and Maintenance Cost with Minimum Administrative Support can manage different organization of one company in Single Installation by creating Separate Vaults.
  • The import tool is the best tool for data migration from other repositories. It helps a lot in migration from Documentum to M-Files.
  • The API enables to add additional customized features which made M-Files different from other solutions where they won't be able to provide solution.
  • User License Model with combined vaults makes organization very affordable like if one company has different organization and they are using concurrent licenses, they can they share those licenses within vaults if there is no load on other organization.
  • There is need of text editor to be built in as currently MS Word is being used for adding more text and drawing features.
  • Some views base reports would be with graphical presentation as to add reporting module, every organization can't always afford that.
  • Regional Languages Support.
M-Files is best for companies who have multiple sub companies they can manage whole the operations from one single machine. Companies who only want to get DMS for archiving M-Files is not considered suitable as the it has many features and cost is becoming high.
  • As I said in a company it saved 400% hardware cost and 20% human resource reduction after M-Files implementation.
  • For archiving only is not beneficial.
  • Helped Originations in COVID to run their operations remotely.
  • MS Teams.
  • Now operations are controlled remotely.
As there is SAP module available so it was not so difficult.
M-Files is with totally unique features from these solutions, one of major is all these solutions have folder structure where M-Files has content based structure. Secondly one of major features is that it enables integration with filters to search within Drawing Documents, most solutions do not offer this feature.
30
Its Educational University, where All student Record are maintained on M-files including Supporting Departments like HR, FInance Procurement so on, Futher we are planning to use for Library Management and Research Material Management.
3
As i my self is the only certified person in country for M-files, infact i brought m-files in Pakistan. with me there are 2 other guys whom i have trained on it.
  • Maintaining Core Business of University means Student Record
  • Maintaining Supporting Depts Documents and Workflows
  • Geeting Paperless Enviroments by using M-files in all areas
  • Direct Scanning of Documents in M-files
  • Controlling All Stages Scanning, contenting & QC through M-files
  • Concurrent Users Licensing is benefiting organization when using in shifts same licenses are used for other shift it saves the cost.
  • By integration other Solutions Like SharePoint, GoogleDirve, Local folders etc
  • Integration Online Forms
M-files meets our almost all needs, we dont have other option to replace m-files. it saves lots, like Hardware because of Vault Feature means we can create many vaults (mini-servers) in m-files in other solutions we need more hardware for more installations.
No
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
A Single product with Multi-features
The only factor that will affect it will be COST. as in Pakistan there should more Service Providers who can be competitors to lower the product cost, and that will provide more coverage.
  • Implemented in-house
  • Third-party professional services
we implemented with Ourselves and support company as well. Starting form requirements gathering, Requirements document Development, Configuratio and Implmentaiton and further Integration with Other Solution using API
Yes
first was to implement basic version with required needs and then integration in 2nd phase
Change management was a minor issue with the implementation
As usual user resistance was there but that was handled by involving top management.
  • Support as current implementation is in Lahore where implementation team was coming from Karachi man 1000 km away and in COVID it was delayed because of limited implementation sources in country. There should more Serive Providers in Pakistan
Local Support team's limitation in coverage in other major cities laking.
Not because of Cost and usuually all problem are solved.
Overall support is good but some times due to busy scheduled of support team reponse is delayed and client also need quick response
No
Yes, when i was with implementation team, there was many projects where extra support was required and M-files team supported fully by providing out of way support by developing some additional integration features. that helped us to WIN the big project in our country.
  • Document Importing like from Drag & Drop, Ms-Office, folders etc
  • Integrated Workflow Module
  • Multi-vault Feature
  • Not difficult but need training using Kit.
Yes
With all possible feature which are required in mobile module
Easy, convivence, Less problematic, Less Error Chances
As there is only 1 vendor in Pakistan thats why Costing factors are too high and restricting M-files to spread.
As due to being in other city the support is costly.
No any because we dont have other option.
There should be more vendors to make competition
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
All our business agreements are in M-files. Problems: Search capabilities within M-files are unclear. There's too much metadata to use it user-friendly.
  • Always available (Saas)
  • No lost of data (Backups are done)
  • Performance (Saas and desktop)
  • Search functionalities and complexity
  • Tailored datamodel per customer
  • Difficulty understanding the product and its functions
  • Consideration of customer feedback in product development
Good:It is stable, Bad: difficult to use for search purposes and duplicate information via meta data.
  • We only use M-files as a contract archive.
  • M-files could be more proactive with other and new features.
Nextway Next MultiArchive
100
All business areas and legal, ICT, Purchase
1
Add new people.
  • Add new persons
  • Delete persons
  • manage licences
  • Only Contracts
  • Documents and version management
Too expensive to our limited use at the moment (only contract archive)
No
  • Product Reputation
Security and reputation
We don't use full capability of M-files, and then the value for price of M-files is too high.
  • Third-party professional services
DOC, I think
  • It was'n easy
Not know issue, I was'n work for company at that time. I heard from colleagues that was not easy.
NO.
It takes too much time to get answers.
No
This has never happened.
  • Login
  • Seach funtionality
  • Metadata and own metadata attributes
For End-users, it is difficult to use. We have to persons to support our users. It seems, that this is the work of engineers.
Yrjö Tolvanen | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized

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.
Any data management application where data content, workflows and integrations are needed, combined with document management are well suited for M-Files. Examples like service request & delivery management with technical documentation, sales activities management with quotations & contracts, marketing material and customer presentation material management, project status reporting with project documentation management. M-Files is not suited for heavy transaction requirements or reporting needing lots of calculation.
  • Structured and unified reporting of service activities.
  • Structured and unified reporting of sales activities.
  • One tool, several business applications.
  • ERP integration for work numbers and work hour reporting, invoicing and salaries.
  • AD integration for employee information and access rights
  • Email integration for customer correspondence.
Integrations have been quite flexible to implement. Integrations are never easy but with M-Files they are not so complex.
M-Files is considered as document management system. However, we started with M-Files using it as application and data management platform. We planned the meta data structures well and now we benefit from it as we start using M-Files as document management system. We considered using SharePoint but found M-Files far more suited for our needs.
200
Field service, sales, project managers, controllers, ICT
4
There is no one who only supports M-Files but they are super key users with M-Files admin skills. They support end users but are able to also develop their business area implementation. These people also run their basic tasks in the company.
  • Field service tasks & management
  • Quotation management
  • Project management
  • We have not started to use M-Files as document management system but as an application platform. We utilize metadata, workflows and integrations.
  • CRM
  • Project document management
We will continue to use M-Files and expand it to be used globally in all company units
Yes
M-Files replaced the previous field service application and MS Project Online
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
We were looking for field service solution. We found out that it can be realized with M-Files and we will get a platform for other solution areas as well.
We were and are happy with the selection process.
  • Third-party professional services
M-Files consultants performed the first application for field service. We have internally continued development and created also new application areas. Currently we are using M-Files consultants for architecture design and Laavu Consulting for technical implementation.
Yes
Very basic phases in development of field service: internal workshops with support from M-FIles to define business scope, design workshops for defining solution, implementation, testing and fixing, training and go-live.
Change management was a big part of the implementation and was well-handled
Field service experts had to change the way they were used to work. Field service line management was in a key role in change management.
  • End user involvement as small details emerged and the feedback was slow
  • Work hour integration to payroll was cumbersome because of the payroll system
  • Off-line preparation was time consuming
Although getting additional features by programming "macros" is possible avoid programming if you don't really need them. It makes further development of solution easier and minimizes dependency on individuals.
Yes
With Premium support we have a capacity reservation for nominated people who know our environment
All our support request have been resolved. Support is provided by M-Files and their partner company. With one difficult case M-Files provided contact to CDO of M-Files.
Yes
It took its time but CDO of M-Files was involved and the issue was resolved.
M-Files had used Microsoft software in a specific feature and Microsoft ended support of that software. As the feature was important to us CDO of M-Files explained the issue to us from their R&D point of view and finally we found the solution for the case.
  • Metadata, or creating data sets for any business objects you might need
  • Workflows, e.g. creating quotation and getting approval for it
  • Integrations
  • Connecting metadata content to Office documents
  • Views to metadata, or business objects
  • Calculations like in excel or in reporting.
  • Complex views connecting data from different meta data cards
Yes
Mobile interface works excellent, direct and safe access to database and views are well designed for mobile phone. Field service can report core actions easily.
UI is very simple and quite easy to learn. However, it lacks tabs which several other modern UIs provide.
September 28, 2018

M-Files Rocks!!!!

Tim Goetz | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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!"
  • 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.
M-Files seams to have every area covered.. at least from my perspective. I can see where every dept at our company can use it.
  • I have nothing to do with the ROI of things.. I just know that I can quickly get a proposal out to a customer using the templates much faster than ever before. It fills in the customer information from our ERP System, saving me time in looking all that information up and retyping it in the proposal. Faster quotes means I have more time to move on to the next.. so Sales are ultimately increased. So bottom line.. more money for me and my company by making me more efficient.
  • Microsoft office integration - with Word-Excel-Outlook... I use these for saving to M-Files. or to create templates for proposals
I didn't do the integration.. but the end user part is simple.
  • none
There are no similar products that I have used. M-Files is one of a kind!
200
Human Resources keeps track of personal records, Contract department uses the Work flows, Sales dept uses it for quoting, Leasing dept uses it for keeping track of leases and workflow. Payroll dept uses it to keep track of commissions and uses the work flow for that as well. pretty much every area.
Software support specialists and IT dept staff
  • Workflow
  • Document Management
  • CRM
  • Proposal templates
  • Workflows for commission approvals
  • not sure
we could not live with out it.. M-Files has become a integral part of our day to day operation.
No
  • Product Features
  • Product Reputation
  • Vendor Reputation
  • Existing Relationship with the Vendor
  • Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor
Support is the key to a good purchase. If your vendor does not support the product, and you have to communicate with someone in a different country and can't understand them then it is not a product that I want.
wouldn't change a thing.
  • Implemented in-house
No
Change management was minimal
none
  • there were none
no
  • Online training
  • Self-taught
lots of information for using this.. the You Tube videos helped much as well.
depends on the type of person. I tend to jump in with both feet and push buttons to see what they do. but a general overview is helpful to get started.
I have not found anything that can't be configured. It suits all of our needs.
It is best to configure it to your needs or else it will not be adapted well by the staff.
Work with a specialist from M-Files or your dealer to make sure you are asking the correct questions.
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
No - we have not done any custom code
Again, work with M-Files or the dealership to make sure you have asked all the correct questions to configure/customize it.
Yes
it is worth it for the support and updates as they come out.
the software does everything we need and then some. Even stuff we didn't even know we needed.
No
The support from our Vendor is always exceptional. Fast Response, quick resolutions.
  • Templates
  • Outlook integration
  • Search features
  • CRM
  • None
Yes, but I don't use it
Easy to use. simple. Does everything I need it to do. Makes my job easier and saves me much time in generating proposals. It helps me keep track of those proposals as well as being able to look up contact information on an account and contract agreements at the click of a button.
do so much more than we need but has all the stuff we do need.
always there.
I noticed some lagging with the integration with Microsoft Office but not so much that I would not use it. It has gotten better with updates. to be fair the issues were when Office 2013 first came out.
  • No
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
They knew what they were talking about.
They are always there to answer questions when needed.
Unlimited support of the software with updates
Let them do their job. They should know what they are doing.
Yes
went smother than i could imagine. didn't notice a thing other than the new features.
  • New features
  • not sure
No
No
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