What’s an Info Management System?

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An information management system collects and manages data from various sources within an organization, and must comply with laws and regulations. Experts from different fields work together to develop the system, which can be developed in-house or licensed from commercial software. The system must be able to pull information about specific requests to be considered a management information system.

An information management system is a large system that incorporates large amounts of information within an organization. Data elements are fed into a variety of systems within an organization. Information management is responsible for bringing all of these data elements together into a cohesive system. Depending on the size of the organization, this system can cross many platforms and software applications, or they can all be hosted on the same computer.

Organizations collect huge amounts of data on a daily basis. To access and use all of this information, your organization needs a well-planned and managed information system. The source or format of the data is irrelevant. All data must enter the system so that the organization can use it.

Data must be managed throughout its lifecycle. Paper documents, electronic document files, audio, video, and application-specific data must be captured and archived properly. Laws and regulations impose requirements on how data is to be stored, used and archived by an organization. These laws and regulations vary based on the type of information collected.

Individuals with expertise in a variety of disciplines work together to develop a management information system. Business analysts and lawyers work to define the business and legal requirements of a given business need. This information is then fed to database specialists and information specialists to determine how data should be stored in a system. Ultimately, programmers and other technical experts work to develop the software used to store this information.

Every business and data need of an organization must be addressed in some form of information management system. Many of these systems are developed within an organization, due to the unique needs of that organization. Commercial software applications can be licensed by an organization to meet many of its data management needs; however, these separate systems must be integrated to make them communicate with each other. This integration process can be completed within the organization or by external consultants.

An information management system hosts disparate data within it. This data can be collected through keyboard data entry, web portal collection or even mobile phones. Generally, there are some tags on these data items that allow the organization to pull information through the system about a particular request. This capability is intrinsically important to the success of the system. If the system does not allow for such a request, it is not a management information system, but rather a collection of software applications.




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