DSE Oil & Gas - Extracting more from ERP

“We’re a young company. Both my partner and I
come from larger companies with large data
systems. We know from our past experience that
we needed a bit more control than the ERP alone,”
says Eelman. “For example, it was very difficult for
us to keep track of documents and their version
numbers when you just store everything in project
folders on a hard drive. If you were looking for
specific documents a year later because you now
have a similar project, finding them was sometimes
difficult and inefficient. It was also very hard to
determine the status of the documents found ‐‐
where exactly in the revision process a drawing or
contract document was."
Ideally, DSE wanted version tracking for AutoCAD,
ePlan (for electric schematics), Word, and Excel
files. And they also wanted to attach basic
metadata to every document they produced for
fast file searching. Metadata would include not
only a project number, but a basic set of
descriptive attributes, like client name and contact
information, document type, dates, revision status,
and so on.

Attaching ERP data to Windows files through database links

The solution came with the addition of M‐Files document management software, which offers a
simple and flexible database‐driven platform. M‐Files attaches metadata to documents created with
any Windows application and integrates directly into the operating system’s Windows Explorer and
common Open… and Save/Save as… interfaces.

"With the help of the people from Host Access Solutions, the M‐Files distributor in The Netherlands,
we have been able to directly link M‐Files to our ERP application," says Eelman.
“Every new item in M‐Files is associated with a project number generated in the ERP system. The
linkage automatically supplies new projects and contact information from the ERP to the M‐Files
database. When saving any type of document through M‐Files, employees simply choose the project
number from a drop down list, and the rest of the descriptive search terms populate from the
database.

“All the documents we work on ‐‐ every single item ‐‐ is securely stored in M‐Files,” says Eelman.
Even incoming email or hard copies from clients are indexed digitally. “If we get an invoice from a
vendor, we scan it into the system, and M‐Files automatically includes the vendor info in the
associated metadata and processes the invoice according a customized workflow.”
Creating self‐populating Templates

DSE went even further to create templates that display the project attributes in the page header on
many common documents in several different applications, like Word, Excel, or AutoCAD.
“M‐Files‐driven templates save us an enormous amount of time. For example, we generate a project
completion file with all our final work. Previously, we had to open all the documents, open all the
headers, change the headers, and save the documents. M‐Files can update the headers
automatically, so what would have taken us half a day before, we can now do in M‐Files in half an
hour.”

“It all comes down to a major time saver. A formalized workflow structure, quick document searches,
and automatic templates all keep our projects moving forward,” says Eelman. “We are actually
ahead of our customers. We will get something from our client and we tell them, ‘no actually, that’s
not the right version. We already received this other one.’”
“We’re ecstatic about the new system,” Eelman says. “Everyone – not just the partners who chose it
and set it up, but all our employees ‐‐ have picked it up very quickly and they’re happy using it as
well.”
 

About DSE Oil and Gas
Dutch Separation Engineering Oil and Gas brings together a team of experienced engineers, fully
qualified to undertake all aspects of system integration, and project management, onshore and
offshore. Operating globally, DSE also offers Power Quality core analysis for oil and gas installations
through the revolutionary DSE EPAQ system view (www.dse‐epaq.com), as well as oil and gas
installation equipment sales, rental, and service. For more company information, please visit:
www.dseog.com.

DSE Oil & Gas - Extracting more from ERP