NetDocuments 4+

This review is not for the program as a whole, as my law firm uses it on a PC platform and it’s perfectly fine. However the iPad utility is woeful. I don’t have trouble logging in like others have mentioned, that part works fine for me. However once logged in about 90% of the time I can’t access the document I’m seeking, despite using a link sent to me by one of my colleagues. The error message says the document doesn’t exist or I don’t have access; I have access to everything in our system, so something isn’t right. On the rare occasion that I can access a document, I can only open and view, the edit functionality gives an error. Saving a document in the first instance presents a whole different set of issues, as there’s no ability to profile a document. There’s a pseudo file structure to select from, but it’s only recent places.

Overall the functionality with iOS is really subpar, at least as configured with our system. We were promised robust Apple functionality during the sales process, and for a short time most things worked (though never the saving a document with a profile in the first instance). However relatively quickly the bugs noted above appeared, and our IT support (including a large and well-known Managed Services Provider and an in-house IT manager) have been unable to fix the issues; ND support has similarly provided no solution.

All in all, good platform for PCs, very disappointing for the iPad.

My firm uses ND so there is little room for options. That said, I can get it to function on my iPad, but there are so very many quirks that need to be worked around that I am a little hesitant to recommend it. For example when viewing a folder’s contents it automatically lists some, but not all, of the sub-folders’ files. For 18 months I thought this was a sync issue, but no, looking at the “location” of the various files it clearly states they are located in another folder - a sub-folder. The problem is not solved by time (maybe they’re slow to move), nor are there any features of the application that can be toggled.
Really ND, try to spend a small amount of your development budget to update the iPad software - your audience is not small, and could be bigger…

This app is OK for very basic functions like viewing files, but it is not very useful for more typical productivity functions, such as editing.

The process of editing a PDF takes lots of steps and requires using other apps, and it’s just not really practical. Users should expect to be able to open a PDF, edit it, and re-save it, very easily with a cloud based document management system app.

The web-based NetDocs product is generally very good, but this app is not great. I think that NetDocs would do well to invest considerable resources in their mobile apps, because there is tons of room for improvement there and people always want good mobile apps.