Extending a Document Management Platform to a Second Operating Entity

The industry and its realities

The group operates two distinct operating entities in equipment rental and distribution. The first already relied on an electronic document management platform (Laserfiche) for its accounts payable and document management processes, hosted on a dedicated server. The second entity, until then running on manual processes, needed to be brought up to the same standards.

The client’s intent and need

Leadership wanted to extend the existing document platform to the second entity without deploying separate server infrastructure, while guaranteeing that access rights and metadata (vendor, invoice, approval status) remained completely separate between the two entities. They also needed to determine whether new approval workflows had to be built from scratch, or whether existing ones could be adapted.

How Nord Numérique addressed the need

Nord Numérique conducted an architecture assessment comparing two options (a separate document repository for the second entity, or a dedicated folder structure with specific security inside the existing repository) before recommending the option simplest to operate without compromising data separation.

The steps taken to define the solution

• Validating connectivity and access for the second entity's users.
• Analyzing the identity model (shared or separate directory) and its implications for account management.
• Analyzing existing approval workflows to determine which could be reused as-is, adapted, or needed to be built specifically.
• Designing the security model and access groups dedicated to the second entity.
• Joint project plan with the technical partner responsible for the platform.

Implementing the solution

Implementation involved creating a folder and metadata structure dedicated to the second entity inside the existing repository, with distinct security groups preventing any cross-access to the other entity's documents. Existing approval workflows were analyzed one by one: some were reused unchanged, others adapted to the thresholds and organizational structure specific to the second entity. Email notifications were configured to send under the second entity's domain, and an integration was set up with its transportation management system for reference data.

Everything was validated through functional testing, then user acceptance testing performed by the second entity's teams, before going live.

Challenges encountered

Since the two entities didn't share the same identity domain, creating and managing the second entity's user accounts couldn't rely on a shared directory: a manual creation process had to be defined. Sending email notifications under the second entity's own domain also required specific outbound mail server configuration. Finally, adapting existing approval workflows without creating a parallel second version to maintain took several design iterations.

Technical, organizational, and legal impacts

The delivered solution and its added value

The second entity now has a complete document management platform (secure structure, adapted approval workflows, functional notifications, integration with its reference system) without requiring new infrastructure — which limited both the implementation timeline and long-term operating costs.

Measuring client satisfaction

Go-live occurred with no major incidents recorded during the heightened support period that followed deployment, and the second entity's teams adopted the new approval workflows without reverting to the old manual processes.