Self-hosted document management system

What most organizations use today

A classic document management system

It starts with an import. Your files go into a database or a private storage format, and from that day they can be reached only through that one program.
Leaving it becomes a project of its own.

A shared network drive

The files stay yours, but nothing records who changed them, and an overwritten document is lost.
You can search only by file name.

What makes FileRun a document management system

Every item below is a standard feature, included in every plan.

Finding a document

Search inside documents. Elasticsearch and Apache Tika read the text of your PDFs and office files, not only their names.
OCR reads scanned PDFs and photos of documents, so a paper archive becomes searchable although nobody typed the text.
Your own metadata fields: contract number, client, department, or anything else. A field can offer a fixed list of values, and each file type can have its own set of fields.
Show the fields as columns in the file list, sort on them and search on them. Set them on many files at once.
Tags, star ratings and comments on any file. The ready-made quick tags are approved, pending and rejected.
The Documents library lists your PDFs and office files from every folder, by upload date or by tag.

Keeping it under control

Versions: when a file is overwritten, the previous version is kept and can be restored. You set how many versions are kept.
Locking: a locked file cannot be edited, overwritten or deleted by anybody else until it is unlocked.
Seven roles, from Viewer to Content manager, decide what each person may do in each folder.
An activity log for every file: who uploaded it, who downloaded it, who renamed it, who commented on it. The history is kept even after the file is deleted.
Office documents open in ONLYOFFICE or Collabora on your own server, and several people can edit the same document at the same time.
Merge PDF documents into one, or split one by pages, inside the browser.

Your documents stay normal files

No import and no lock-in

Files are never stored in the database. They stay in normal folders on your own disks.
Point FileRun at the folders you already have. If you stop using it, the files are still there, exactly as they were.

The same rules on every path

The browser, desktop sync, WebDAV, the mobile apps and the API all use the same permission checks.
What is not allowed in the browser is not allowed anywhere else.

Open to your other software

The REST API reads and writes files, metadata, tags, comments and locks.
Your accounting or ERP software can file a document and fill in its fields without a person doing it.

What FileRun does not do

No approval workflow

A document can be marked approved, pending or rejected, and a comment can explain why.
FileRun does not send it from one person to the next.

No retention rules and no signatures

There are no retention rules for single documents, and no electronic signature.
If your industry requires a certified records management system, FileRun is not one.

Common questions

Do we have to move our files into FileRun?

No. Each account is given a folder that already exists on the server, and FileRun works on the files inside it. Nothing is imported and nothing is converted.

What happens to files that are added without FileRun?

They appear in FileRun like every other file. A file copied to the server over the network, over FTP or by another program is indexed when its folder is next opened, and an administrator can index a whole folder at once.

How many versions of a document are kept?

As many as you set. A new installation keeps the last two versions of each file. Versions are kept by number and not by age, so an old version is removed only when newer ones take its place.

Can we search scanned paper documents?

Yes. With OCR turned on, the text of scanned PDFs and of images is read during indexing and can then be searched. OCR makes indexing slower, so it is an option and not the default.

How long is the history of a document kept?

You decide. A new installation keeps the activity log for seven days. One setting in the control panel keeps it for any number of days, or without limit.

Try it on a copy of your own folders

Put FileRun on your own server with a free trial license, and search a folder of real documents.
Or open the live demo, where you are signed in as the administrator with no sign-up.

Document management on your own server