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M-Files is a versatile software that is widely used across various industries and departments. Users have reported significant …
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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 efficiency, and automate…
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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…
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Product Details
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- 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).
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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
(26-50 of 68)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
- Document version history
- Global sharing of documents
- Structured storing and fast finding of relevant information and documents
- GUI is a bit over complicated these days
- After updates to software, I need to select my offline views again
- No search in offline mode
- Searching - M-Files can search both the tagged metadata and document content.
- Integration with ChronoScan (auto-indexing software) - many of our files are sent to M-Files directly from our ERP and tagged with metadata with no human intervention.
- Stability - We use the M-Files hosted solutions (our vault is in the M-Files cloud), uptime has not been an issue.
- Previews during the 'create' process do not always work. I cannot preview .msg files until I save those files. Others have this problem too... and others do not.
- It would be nice to have some simple "functions"... maybe in the compliance kit. What I am thinking would be similar to Excel functions allowing me to modify text strings. Sticking with the Excel example, =LEFT, =RIGHT, =MID, etc... maybe that functionality is there - I have only been using M-Files for a short period of time.
- 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.
- Version control and history tracking on documents.
- Search ability to filter content for a team, creator, or another property.
- Permission control, limit access to documents to read or edit, or only specific workflow states.
- Administrative control to access all content.
- Administrative control to restore deleted content.
- Administrative control to audit and retag content when needed.
- Robust workflow capabilities.
- Sharing content externally requires organizational efforts involving information governance, risk management, and IT strategies. There are options the administrators need to consider to permit external sharing. External collaboration requires other IT infrastructure solutions to incorporate M-Files. External facing content can be done, but not easily done without first planning workflows and permission configurations.
- Configurations are determined by the customer primarily. The creation of properties and classes are at the discretion of the customer administrator. An organization needs to understand information governance and enlist collaboration with M-Files, IT, Records Management, Risk Management, and Legal. This is not so much a downfall of M-Files, but it is a consideration that embarking in the adoption of an ECM is a significant investment for an organization, both financially and human resources management, but the benefits with best practice configuration will ensure success.
- There are features that are advertised, but further investigation is available with an additional purchase of an add-on. Unfortunately, not entirely unusual in this business
May 13, 2020
Make it easier and safer
- Metadata classification helps to find the correct document or all equivalent items.
- Version method of one document helps to get rid of different documents that are hard to recognise ("final. FINAL").
- Documents can be defined by different Permissions and confidentiality level. Well appreciated feature by our customers.
- Interface (API) from our CRM system produces the metadata structure to M-Files.
- Scanning settings from multiprinter directly to M-Files should exist by default.
- The number of documents grow hard to manage. I have not found assisting feature to pack or separate historical data.
March 18, 2020
M-Files Review
- Document updating, workflows, and reminders.
- Document metadata and detailed information.
- Views for specific needs based on extensive metadata.
- Possibilities to tailor M-Files according to user's own needs.
- Search.
- Visuality.
- Self-direction.
March 18, 2020
Flexible tool for document and metadata management
- Combines document and metadata management well in one package.
- Flexible and easy to configure.
- Good support for the use over Internet, no VPN connection needed.
- Good data replication tools over data vaults.
- Opening of a metadata card is a bit too slow on average.
- Offline use features are too limited.
- Mobile phone client user interface needs improvement.
- There are still many things to improve in the everyday use in M-Files client.
- It is easy to use (good user experience).
- Possibilities to develop features, which creates an effective performance for the whole organization.
- Good possibilities to integrate into the other systems.
- In a views could have more advanced filtering capabilities. (Users could filter directly from columns).
December 30, 2019
Superb Document Management System
- 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.
October 16, 2019
Good for file management and security; but not user friendly due to file view system
- Ease of use. It does not require (or requires limited) user training. You can easily get used to the interface.
- File organization - but once file systematic (or the views) is being copied by the users.
- Compatibility - add-Ins with other MS Office products.
- Mobile platform integration.
- Folder views have to be created by each user. Otherwise you're not able to view the created folders by the other users by default.
- While saving files, it has to be done by using keywords - otherwise later on document cannot be easily found.
August 09, 2019
An affordable and underestimated ECM platform
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
June 26, 2019
M-File and Quality Management
- Save and share files
- Workflows
- Finding files
- Metadata card: more options on pre-filled data.
- Workflow designs for in-house applications (does not require a consultant).
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
April 04, 2019
M-Files review
- Object & document relations
- Finding documents & objects
- Workflows for classes
- Metadata behind documents & objects (is the key to search & discover documents)
- After sales customerS accounting could be done more professionally.
- There could be more "ready-made" models for different types of usage and these could be included in the main product.
- For example: A company can have more than one Vault and when implementing the customer could choose from a base structure to implement on a vault (HR, Sales, Quality, logistics...). This should all be included in the main product.
October 15, 2018
Empower yourself with content, information and process
- Workflows are powerful; they notify personnel of the status and details of a project. Routines, tasks, and checklists are assigned automatically via email or views based on roles or process.
- We can track and inform on anything, from customer requests, formal internal communications, requests, audits, and risk. When a teammate is assigned a request, it brings instant visibility and accountability. Colleagues receive reminders on task deadlines, and tasks escalate when not completed on time, resulting in stronger communication and faster result all around.
- I often say, “If we track it on a spreadsheet today, the process needs to be moved to M-Files tomorrow." There are many micro processes within a team where an individual manages an important procedure in a homegrown manner often on a spreadsheet with date, check boxes, and reminders. Finding these and deploying their methods in M-Files can ease the task and share responsibility among the team.
- I would like to see M-Files implement spellcheck in the user interface and the administration module. It seems like a no-brainer improvement for the end user.
- A web-based template tool or integration would be also wonderful enhancement .
- Enhancement of the Intelligent Metadata Layer (IML) to ease migration of documents from Network Folders.
October 12, 2018
M-Files is great!
- Ease of use for both technical and non-technical staff.
- Ability to search within M-Files as well as other repositories.
- Support and service of the software.
- The M-Files software has very few areas for improvement.
October 12, 2018
Pleasantly pleased couldn't be happier with program
- 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
- 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
October 08, 2018
M-Files is the Document Management Solution We Needed
- M-Files offers fantastic document management capabilities that solve virtually all of the issues associated with managing document libraries in a traditional folder structure. Version control and document history, the ability to classify documents such that they appear in multiple views, and the excellent access control are all tools we can no longer live without.
- M-Files is extremely customizable without requiring a deep technical background. Basic administrative functions can be learned with relative ease.
- User support for M-Files is top notch.
- M-Files lacks the ability to audit for users who have never accessed it.
September 28, 2018
M-Files Rocks!!!!
- 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 25, 2018
M-Files review
- Ease of use. Familiar user interface.
- Search of documents.
- Easy to configure and administer.
- Annotations seem clumsy to work with. On large documents annotations are hard to find. Multiple annotations can overlay each other.
- Would like the ability to setup pre-defined queries where user can enter a values for certain metadata fields.
- Workflow can be more intuitive.
- Web client currently does not match the desktop client.