Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Documentation Administrator

🎯 Role Definition

We are seeking a proactive Documentation Administrator to manage and maintain the organization's controlled and uncontrolled documents, records, and content repositories. The Documentation Administrator is responsible for ensuring accurate version control, regulatory compliance, efficient document workflows, searchable metadata and taxonomy, and audit-ready records across the document lifecycle. This role requires hands-on experience with document management systems (DMS), strong attention to detail, stakeholder coordination, and a continuous improvement mindset to optimize documentation processes for quality and efficiency.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Documentation Specialist / Document Control Clerk
Administrative Assistant with records responsibilities
Junior Technical Writer or Publishing Coordinator

Advancement To:

Documentation Manager / Document Control Manager
Records Manager / Records & Information Management (RIM) Lead
Quality Assurance Manager (document compliance focus)
Regulatory Affairs Specialist (document control heavy roles)

Lateral Moves:

Technical Writer / Content Developer
Content or Knowledge Manager
Compliance Analyst (records & audit specialization)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Manage the full document lifecycle for controlled and uncontrolled documents — creation, review, approval, publishing, distribution, revision, archival and disposition — ensuring adherence to company SOPs, naming conventions, document numbering schemes, and retention schedules.
Administer and configure the enterprise Document Management System (DMS) and related repositories (e.g., SharePoint, OpenText, Documentum, Confluence), including library structures, metadata schemas, permissions, and document classification to maximize findability and compliance.
Enforce and maintain version control and audit trails for controlled documents; produce and maintain a clear history of revisions, approvals, change requests, and reviewer comments for audit readiness and traceability.
Develop, maintain and enforce document control procedures, templates, checklists and standards (SOPs, work instructions, templates) consistent with ISO 9001, ISO 13485, FDA 21 CFR Part 11, GxP or other applicable regulatory frameworks.
Coordinate and administer formal review and approval workflows, routing documents to subject matter experts (SMEs), managers and cross-functional stakeholders and ensuring timely completion of reviews according to established SLAs.
Prepare and manage documentation packages for internal and external audits, regulatory submissions or client deliverables; compile evidence, respond to document requests, and remediate observations related to document control.
Implement and maintain metadata taxonomies, controlled vocabularies and tagging standards to support effective search, retrieval, retention and reporting across the documentation environment.
Monitor DMS health and usage: run periodic system checks, resolve indexing or access issues, escalate system incidents, and coordinate with IT or vendor support for upgrades, patches and migrations.
Create and maintain training materials, user guides and quick-reference documentation for end-users on DMS best practices, workflow procedures, naming conventions, and records retention policies; deliver user training and onboarding.
Oversee digitization projects including scanning, OCR processing, quality verification, indexing and import of legacy paper records into the DMS while ensuring compliance with retention and imaging standards.
Maintain document security and access controls by assigning and auditing permissions, managing user groups, and enforcing least-privilege access to confidential and regulated documents.
Perform routine quality assurance checks and document audits to ensure content accuracy, completeness of metadata, compliance with standards and to identify opportunities for remediation.
Produce regular reporting and KPIs (document turnaround time, overdue reviews, audit findings, retention schedule adherence) and present trends and recommendations to managers and process owners.
Support configuration and administration of workflow automation tools (e.g., Nintex, Power Automate, JIRA workflows) to streamline review cycles, approval routing and notifications.
Serve as the focal point for cross-functional change control related to documentation — coordinate ECR/ECO documentation updates, link drawings and manuals to change records, and ensure documentation updates are synchronized with product or process changes.
Maintain and publish external-facing documents and manuals (user guides, service manuals, technical manuals, safety sheets) and manage distribution lists, revision notifications and document obsolescence processes.
Manage translation and localization workflows for multilingual documentation including vendor coordination, translation memory management, and quality checks to ensure consistency and accuracy.
Liaise with Quality Assurance, Regulatory Affairs, Legal, Engineering, Operations and suppliers to ensure documents meet regulatory, contractual and business requirements.
Lead continuous improvement initiatives to optimize document control processes, DMS configurations, metadata strategies and automation opportunities to reduce cycle time and increase compliance.
Execute records retention and disposition actions per organizational retention schedule; coordinate legal holds, archival retrieval, and secure destruction of records as required.
Validate and maintain document-related controls for electronic signatures, time-stamping and record integrity to achieve compliance with electronic records regulations (e.g., 21 CFR Part 11).
Support product lifecycle documentation needs, including BOM-linked documentation, engineering drawings, manufacturing work instructions and maintenance logs, ensuring all are current and accessible to authorized users.
Manage third-party documentation providers and contractors — set requirements, monitor deliverables, enforce SLAs and ensure vendor documents comply with internal standards.
Maintain disaster recovery and backup procedures for critical records, verify restore processes and participate in periodic recovery testing for document repositories.
Provide responsive helpdesk support for document-related inquiries, troubleshoot process exceptions, and escalate unresolved system issues to IT or vendors.
Continuously review and remediate document quality issues found in audits, user feedback or process reviews and maintain a prioritized backlog of documentation fixes and improvements.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
Assist in cross-functional projects that require document control expertise, such as ERP rollouts, quality system implementations, or product launches.
Support records retrieval for legal, HR or compliance investigations and coordinate secure transfer or redaction where needed.
Contribute to content migration planning and execution during system consolidations or upgrades.
Help maintain a centralized knowledge base and FAQs for common documentation and records management questions.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Proven experience with enterprise Document Management Systems (DMS) such as SharePoint Online/On-Prem, OpenText, Documentum, Alfresco or Confluence — including administration, permissions, libraries, and migration.
Strong knowledge of document control principles, versioning, baselines, change control, and audit trails.
Familiarity with regulatory frameworks and standards: ISO 9001 / ISO 13485, FDA 21 CFR Part 11, GxP/GMP, SOX or equivalent, and the ability to apply those rules to document management processes.
Hands-on experience with workflow automation and form tools (Nintex, Power Automate, JIRA Service Management, ServiceNow) to design and maintain review/approval flows.
Competence in metadata design, taxonomy creation, indexing strategies and search optimization for content discoverability.
Experience with scanning, OCR, PDF optimization (PDF/A), image quality control and batch processing for archival digitization projects.
Working knowledge of content authoring/conversion formats and tools: MS Word/Excel/PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat, XML/HTML, DITA, MadCap Flare, FrameMaker or similar CMS tools.
Ability to configure and manage access controls, role-based permissions and security groups to protect sensitive documents and PII.
Practical experience producing metrics and reports using Excel, Power BI, Tableau or SQL queries to analyze document lifecycles and compliance status.
Experience with records retention scheduling, legal hold processes and secure destruction/disposal of records.
Familiarity with translation/localization workflows, translation memory tools and vendor management for multilingual documentation.
Basic IT troubleshooting skills and the ability to work with IT teams on integrations, backups, and system upgrades.

Soft Skills

Exceptional attention to detail with a strong focus on accuracy, consistency and compliance.
Clear written and verbal communication skills for coordinating cross-functional reviews, writing SOPs and presenting status updates.
Strong stakeholder management and customer-service orientation to support document authors, reviewers and auditors.
Excellent organizational and time-management skills, able to prioritize multiple concurrent document projects and SLA-driven tasks.
Problem-solving mindset with continuous improvement orientation and the ability to drive process changes and automation.
Discretion, integrity and the ability to handle confidential or regulated information appropriately.
Collaborative team player who can work across Quality, Regulatory, IT, Engineering and Operations.
Adaptability to changing priorities, new systems and evolving regulatory requirements.
Training and coaching skills to onboard users and promote compliance with documentation standards.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

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

Preferred Education:

Bachelor's degree in Technical Communication, English, Information Management, Records Management, Library Science, Business Administration, or a related discipline.
Certifications such as Certified Records Manager (CRM), ARMA IGP, ISO Lead Auditor, or document/DMS vendor certifications are a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Technical Writing / Communication
Records & Information Management (RIM)
Library Science / Information Science
Business Administration / Project Management
Computer Science / Information Technology

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

2–7 years of progressive experience in document control, records management or documentation administration.

Preferred:

3–5+ years working in a regulated or highly controlled environment (manufacturing, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, defense, finance) with demonstrated experience supporting audits and regulatory inspections.
Direct hands-on experience administering SharePoint or enterprise DMS, implementing workflows, and supporting document migrations.
Experience collaborating with Quality Assurance, Regulatory Affairs or Legal teams on compliance-related documentation activities.