H. Cherifi, J.M. Zain, and E. El-Qawasmeh (Eds.): DICTAP 2011, Part I, CCIS 166, pp. 83–92, 2011. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011 DocFlow: A Document Workflow Management System for Small Office Boonsit Yimwadsana, Chalalai Chaihirunkarn, Apichaya Jaichoom, and Apichaya Thawornchak Faculty of Information and Communication Technology, Mahidol University 999 Phuttamonthon 4 Road, Salaya, Phuttamonthon Nakhon Pathom 73170, Thailand {itbyw,itcch}@mahidol.ac.th, {picha_nat,apichayat}@hotmail.com Abstract. Document management and workflow management systems have been widely used in large business enterprises to improve productivity. How- ever, they still do not gain large acceptance in small and medium-sized busi- nesses due to their cost and complexity. In addition, document management and workflow management concepts are often separated from each other. We com- bine the two concepts together and simplify the management of both document and workflow to fit small and medium business users. Our application, DocFlow, is designed with simplicity in mind while still maintaining necessary workflow and document management standard concepts including security. Approval mechanism is also considered. A group of actors can be assigned to a task, while only one of the team members is sufficient to make the group's decision. A case study of news publishing process is shown to demonstrate how DocFlow can be used to create a workflow that fits the news publishing process. Keywords: Document Management, Workflow Management. 1 Introduction Today's business organizations must employ rapid decision making process in order to cope with global competition. Rapid decision making process allows organizations to quickly drive the company forward according to the ever-changing business envi- ronment. Organizations must constantly reconsider and optimize the way they do business and bring in information systems to support business processes. Each organization usually makes strategic decisions by first defining each division's per- formance and result matrices, measure the matrices, analyze the matrices and finally intelligently report the matrices to the strategic teams consisting of the organization's leaders. Typically, each department or division can autonomously make a business decision that has to support the overall direction of the organization. It is also obvious that an organization must make a large number of small decisions to support a strate- gic decision. In another perspective, a decision makes by the board of executives will result in several small decisions made by various divisions of each organization. In the case of small and medium size businesses (SMBs) including small branch offices, decisions and orders are usually confirmed by documents signed by heads at