A firm signs with iManage or NetDocuments, gets a number for the implementation, and assumes that number is the project. Then six months after go-live the attorneys are saving to the desktop again, nobody can find anything, and the managing partner is asking whether they bought the wrong system.
They almost never bought the wrong system.
I’ve been doing NetDocuments migrations since 2010, and the pattern I see is that firms underestimate two things about a legal DMS migration: how much of it isn’t the software, and how much of the outcome rides on who does the work. This post is about both.
Fair warning up front: Optiable is a NetDocuments shop. I don’t sell or implement iManage. Some of what’s below compares the two, so weigh it accordingly — and I’ll show you how to check every claim I make.
The Software Is the Smaller Half
Whichever platform you pick, somebody has to design a Cabinet structure, decide your Profile Attributes and Doc Types, build the Workspaces, sort out security and ethical walls, clean and code the data, move it, wire up your practice management system, deploy client software, and train everybody.
Neither vendor does that for you. iManage support and NetDocuments support both troubleshoot their own product — they will not design your filing structure or run your migration. A firm of 10 to 150 users doesn’t have the staff to do it internally on top of everyone’s day job either. So you’re hiring a consultant. That’s not an upsell, it’s just how this works.
What’s worth understanding before you collect quotes is that these two platforms are not the same amount of work.
How Many Products Is Your DMS?
This is the thing consultants who work in both systems bring up first, and you won’t find it in either vendor’s marketing.
With iManage, a lot of ordinary administrative work gets done with third-party tools you buy separately.
Go look at GDSi’s iManage product line. GDSi is an independent software company that’s partnered with iManage for years, and they sell nine products for it. Bulk exporting documents out of iManage. Importing documents in. Moving content between workspaces. Creating workspaces from templates. Getting metadata into SQL so you can report on it. Letting non-IT staff perform basic tasks without opening a ticket.
Now compare that list to NetDocuments, where most of it is in the box:
- Bulk export — the Mass Export Tool ships with the platform. It’s listed on the public NetDocuments status page as a monitored component, which tells you it’s a platform service and not an add-on.
- Bulk import — the Folder Import Tool and ndImport, same story.
- Moving content between Workspaces — native.
- Workspace creation from templates — native.
- Delegating admin tasks to non-IT staff — that’s what the Admin Console is for.
And GDSi isn’t alone. RBRO Solutions, Tiger Eye, and UC Logic all sell iManage utilities. There’s a company running a blog post that compares iManage export tools to each other — which tells you there are enough competing products in that one niche to justify a comparison chart.
I want to be careful here, because this is easy to overstate. iManage can export documents. None of these tools exist because iManage is broken. But a third-party market this developed, around functions this basic, tells you something real: with iManage you are assembling a system from several vendors, and somebody at your firm has to own that.
At 500 users with a systems team, that’s ordinary enterprise procurement and the flexibility is worth something. At 35 users, every additional vendor is another contract, another renewal, another support number, and another thing that breaks when one of them ships an update.
Configuration, or Configuration Plus Integration
That difference shows up directly in the size of the project.
A NetDocuments migration is a configuration project. You design the Cabinet, set up Profile Attributes and Doc Types, build the Workspaces, code and load the data, and train everybody. The tooling to move documents in and out is part of the platform.
An iManage migration is a configuration project plus an integration project. You’re deploying a desktop client to every machine instead of pointing people at a browser. You’re deciding which of iManage’s two cloud endpoints you land on, and they aren’t feature-identical. And the bulk import and export tooling is frequently a third-party product that has to be licensed, learned, and wired in before you move a single file.
More moving parts means more hours, and hours are what a migration costs. In competitive situations, iManage migrations quote higher than NetDocuments migrations, and it’s usually not the hourly rate — it’s the hour count.
Now, fair warning on that one: I’m a NetDocuments consultant telling you NetDocuments consultants come in cheaper. Weigh it accordingly. But it’s a claim you can test in about ten minutes.
Get a scope of work from each side, and don’t compare the bottom line — compare the task lists. Ask each one what software has to be purchased beyond the DMS itself to complete the migration. Ask how many hours go to moving data versus configuring the system. If the two scopes come back the same size, ignore everything I just said.
Who Does It Matters More Than Which One You Buy
Here’s the thing I believe most strongly, and it has nothing to do with iManage or NetDocuments.
I’ve seen firms on both of these systems that are miserable. I’ve also seen firms on both of these systems that love them. Same software, opposite experiences.
When I dig into why, it is almost never the product. It’s that the Cabinet was designed badly. Or the Profile Attributes don’t match how the firm actually works, so every save is a small argument. Or the data came across in a mess that everyone has been working around ever since. Or — most often — nobody got trained properly, so half the firm is using a document management system as an expensive network drive.
You live with those decisions for a decade. They get made in the first six weeks, by whoever you hired.
The Question to Ask
So vet that person harder than you vet the software.
Ask your consultant, straight out: “How many NetDocuments migrations have you done?” Or “How many iManage migrations have you done?”
You want a number, and you want it to be a big one. There are firms that will happily take your project and learn how to do this on your data. You do not want to be somebody’s training exercise — and you will not find out that you were until about four months after go-live, when the workarounds have already calcified into how your firm does things.
Ask that question of me, too. If you’re talking to several consultants and one of them gets uncomfortable answering it, that’s your answer.
Four More Worth Asking
- “What does the Cabinet structure you’re proposing look like, and why?” — If they can’t explain the filing design before the project starts, they’re going to improvise it on your data.
- “Who does the training, and how much of it is there?” — Training is the line item that gets cut to win the bid, and it’s the one that determines adoption.
- “What happens to documents that don’t fit the structure?” — Every firm has a decade of files that don’t map cleanly. A consultant who hasn’t thought about that hasn’t done many of these.
- “Who do I call after go-live?” — Neither vendor’s support desk will do your administration. Find out now whether your consultant sticks around.
The Bottom Line
The platform decision gets all the attention, and it matters — I’ve written a full comparison of iManage and NetDocuments if that’s the decision in front of you. But it’s the smaller of the two decisions you’re making.
Buy the platform that fits your firm. Then spend real effort on who implements it, because that’s the part your attorneys will actually feel every day for the next ten years.
Need Help Scoping Your Migration?
If you have a scope of work in front of you and want somebody to read it who isn’t bidding on it, I’m happy to look. I’ll tell you what’s missing, what’s priced optimistically, and what questions I’d ask before signing.
Schedule a free consultation at go.oncehub.com/optconsult.
Optiable has rolled out NetDocuments for over 600 law firms since 2010, specializing in firms with 10 to 150 users.
CONNECT WITH CRAIG — https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigbayer/