Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Document Management Specialist

🎯 Role Definition

A Document Management Specialist owns the processes, systems, and policies that govern an organization's documents and records throughout their lifecycle. This role implements and maintains Document Management Systems (DMS), ensures accurate metadata and indexing for fast retrieval, enforces retention schedules and disposal procedures, drives compliance with regulatory and internal policies, and partners with business units to streamline document-centric workflows. The specialist is the subject-matter expert for imaging, OCR, version control, access rights, and audit support while training users and implementing continuous improvement initiatives.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Document Control Clerk / Records Clerk
Administrative Assistant with records responsibilities
Junior IT/SharePoint Administrator supporting document systems

Advancement To:

Records Manager / Document Management Lead
Information Governance Manager
Compliance Officer or Data Governance Lead

Lateral Moves:

Business Analyst (Process improvement specialization)
Quality Assurance / ISO Documentation Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Implement, configure and administer enterprise Document Management Systems (DMS) — for example SharePoint Online, OpenText, Documentum, Laserfiche or M-Files — including library structure, metadata schemas, permissions, versioning policies and retention rules to ensure consistency and system performance.
Design and maintain metadata taxonomies, controlled vocabularies and indexing standards to maximize discoverability and search relevance across structured and unstructured document repositories.
Lead document capture initiatives: manage high-volume scanning, image processing, OCR optimization, redaction workflows, and quality assurance for digitization projects to ensure accurate text recognition and indexing.
Develop, document and enforce records retention schedules and disposition processes in collaboration with Legal, Compliance and Business Unit owners to meet regulatory and corporate recordkeeping requirements (GDPR, HIPAA, SOX, etc.).
Create and maintain Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), work instructions and training materials for document handling, naming conventions, access requests and lifecycle management to promote user compliance and reduce risk.
Oversee document ingestion workflows and automation: implement and tune document intake flows, auto-classification rules, metadata enrichment logic and business process automation using tools like Power Automate, Nintex or built-in DMS workflow engines.
Control access and security: configure role-based permissions, encryption settings, audit trails and information rights management (IRM) to protect sensitive documents and ensure least-privilege access.
Conduct regular audits and reconciliations of document repositories; prepare audit-ready reports and support internal and external audits by providing evidence of retention compliance, access logs and change histories.
Execute document migration projects: plan, map, cleanse, export and validate legacy content migrations into modern DMS platforms while minimizing downtime and preserving metadata integrity.
Perform ongoing document quality control: validate metadata accuracy, detect and correct duplicate records, reconcile index fields and remediate orphan or misfiled documents.
Manage document change control and versioning processes to ensure proper approval workflows, historic version retention, and rollback capabilities where necessary.
Support legal discovery and e-disclosure requests by identifying, preserving and exporting relevant documents in legally defensible formats and maintaining chain-of-custody logs.
Coordinate cross-functional stakeholders, including Legal, Compliance, HR, Finance and IT, to align document governance policies with business needs and regulatory obligations.
Provide frontline support and triage for DMS end-users: troubleshoot document access issues, permission escalations, broken links, upload errors and search failures, and escalate platform-level incidents as needed.
Analyze usage metrics, search patterns and user feedback to identify opportunities for taxonomy improvements, training needs and performance tuning of search indexes and caching.
Design retention and archival strategies that balance business access, storage costs and legal requirements, implementing tiered storage, archival exports and secure disposal mechanisms.
Maintain records of authorization, approvals and retention decisions to create defensible business justifications for retention or disposal actions.
Develop and deliver instructor-led and e-learning training sessions on document management best practices, metadata tagging, secure document sharing and compliance responsibilities.
Lead continuous improvement and automation projects related to document workflows, using process mapping, root-cause analysis and low-code automation to reduce manual handling and accelerate approvals.
Apply information governance frameworks and standards (ISO 15489, ISO 9001, NARA guidelines) to documentation practices and advise senior leadership on governance maturity and remediation plans.
Configure and manage document lifecycle alerts, expirations, and notification workflows to ensure timely review, disposition or legal hold actions.
Maintain and monitor backup, disaster recovery and business continuity procedures for critical document repositories to ensure rapid restoration and minimal data loss.
Establish KPIs and SLAs for document turnaround times, indexing accuracy, user satisfaction and audit outcomes; produce dashboards and monthly reports for stakeholders.
Manage relationships with third-party vendors and service providers for scanning, offsite storage, encryption services and DMS platform support, including contract and SOW oversight.
Ensure accessibility and compliance with accessibility standards (WCAG) for document content and repositories where required by policy or regulation.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc document requests for audits, litigation holds and regulatory inquiries, coordinating rapid retrieval and export of evidence.
Contribute to the organization's information governance roadmap, helping prioritize DMS upgrades, migration phases and metadata modernization efforts.
Collaborate with business units to translate document-centric business requirements into technical configurations, automated workflows and retention rules.
Participate in project planning, sprint planning and agile ceremonies when document management tasks are part of larger IT or digital transformation projects.
Assist in pilot programs for new capture technologies (AI-based classification, advanced OCR, text extraction) and evaluate their impact on indexing accuracy and throughput.
Provide periodic training and coaching to business unit champions to decentralize tagging and retention tasks while preserving governance controls.
Facilitate records disposition reviews with department owners to obtain approvals and maintain disposition logs and certificates of destruction.
Help define legal hold policies and implement hold controls in the DMS to suspend normal disposition for preserved content.
Support integration efforts between DMS and other enterprise systems (ERP, CRM, HRIS) to ensure documents are linked, discoverable and synchronized across platforms.
Monitor emerging regulations and industry best practices related to recordkeeping, privacy and eDiscovery and recommend policy updates.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Proficiency administering enterprise Document Management Systems (DMS) such as Microsoft SharePoint / SharePoint Online, OpenText Content Suite, Documentum, Laserfiche or M-Files.
Strong experience with document capture technologies: high-volume scanning, image enhancement, OCR/ICR tuning and automated text extraction.
Metadata modeling and taxonomy design skills: creation of content types, managed metadata, term sets and indexing strategies for search optimization.
Hands-on experience with records retention schedule creation and lifecycle management including legal hold, disposition, and archival processes.
Knowledge of compliance and regulatory frameworks impacting records (GDPR, HIPAA, SOX, FINRA, ISO 15489) and ability to operationalize controls to meet requirements.
Workflow automation and orchestration experience using Power Automate, Nintex, K2 or DMS-native workflow engines.
Basic scripting/SQL or familiarity with APIs to support integrations, bulk exports/imports and migration tasks.
Experience with eDiscovery tools and processes, defensible data exports, and chain-of-custody preservation for legal requests.
Proficiency with Office 365 suite and SharePoint Online administration, including OneDrive, Teams integration and modern site management.
Familiarity with information security concepts: RBAC, encryption at rest/in transit, audit logging, IRM and data loss prevention (DLP) controls.
Strong data quality control skills: duplicate detection, data cleansing, index reconciliation and automated validation techniques.
Understanding of cloud storage and content lifecycle options (Azure Blob, AWS S3, archive tiers) and implications for retention and retrieval.
Experience with document formats and standards (PDF/A, TIFF, XML, OCR text layering) and redaction tools for sensitive data.
Vendor management experience for third-party scanning, offsite storage and specialized DMS support contracts.

Soft Skills

Exceptional attention to detail and accuracy when handling metadata, indexing and records retention tasks.
Strong communication skills for cross-functional stakeholder engagement, training delivery and policy enforcement.
Analytical mindset with the ability to translate business needs into technical configurations and continuous improvement initiatives.
Project management and prioritization skills to manage concurrent migration, compliance and capture projects.
Proven ability to maintain confidentiality and exercise sound judgment when handling sensitive or legally privileged documents.
Collaborative team player who can influence business owners and IT partners to adopt governance best practices.
Customer service orientation with patience and responsiveness to user support requests and change-management challenges.
Adaptability to evolving technologies and regulatory environments, including willingness to pilot and adopt AI-enhanced capture tools.
Problem-solving skills and initiative to design pragmatic solutions that reduce manual work and increase compliance.
Training and coaching capability to upskill end-users and departmental champions.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Associate degree in Information Management, Library Science, Records Management, Business Administration or related field.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Information Science, Records/Archives Management, Library & Information Studies, IT, Paralegal Studies or Business Administration.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Information Management / Records Management
Library and Information Science
Computer Science / Information Technology
Business Administration / Operations Management
Paralegal / Legal Studies

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

2 to 5 years of progressive experience in document management, records management, records control or DMS administration.

Preferred:

3 to 7 years experience administering enterprise DMS platforms (SharePoint, OpenText, Documentum or Laserfiche), leading digitization/migration projects, and operationalizing retention schedules and legal hold processes.
Demonstrable experience supporting audits, eDiscovery requests, and cross-functional governance initiatives.