6 Best Quality Management Software Features That Simplify Your QMS

When life sciences companies are looking for the best quality management software features, they often focus on areas like document control, audits, CAPAs, and training – and that makes sense! After all, these are critical components of the quality management process. However, there are smaller, more nuanced quality management tools and features that can also have a huge impact on day-to-day work.

These are six underrated quality management system (QMS) software features that help simplify your QMS and make life easier for quality professionals.

1. Advanced Keyword Search for QMS Documents

A lot of QMS software platforms offer some sort of keyword search function. Unfortunately, it’s usually pretty limited.

For example, most systems only allow you to search by your documents’ metadata fields, such as the document title, category, or other predefined tags your system allows you to add.

But let’s say you need to find a specific client name, lot number, or drug identifier that isn’t included as part of your document categories. You know it exists within one of your documents, but you’re just not sure which document. With only a basic keyword search function, you’re out of luck.

This is why Quality leaders should seek out an electronic quality management system (eQMS) with full-text keyword search capabilities. This advanced type of search is capable of looking through all of the text within your documents, not just the metadata, helping you find what you need without requiring you to memorize the document name or to search through hundreds of documents manually.

This type of full document scan is especially valuable for teams managing high volumes of documentation or trial-specific data.

2. Role-Based Training Assignments & Courses

Assigning training at an individual level is incredibly time-consuming. Why? Imagine you have five new researchers joining the team, all requiring the same training. The quality team must carefully find and assign each required training to every new employee, manually repeating the process one by one. Depending on how many assignments are necessary, this could take a lot of time and introduce some unnecessary risk for error.

A better approach is to use a QMS that ties training to user roles. Assigning training based on roles (not individual users) allows for:

• Automatic training assignment when someone is added to a role
• Easier management of job-specific learning paths
• Visibility into training status by role
• Better alignment between roles, permissions, and document access

With role-based training assignments, those five new researchers mentioned above would be automatically assigned all necessary training as soon as they were added to the "researcher" role. What was once a tedious task now takes the Quality team just a few minutes.

Role-based training supports scalable, compliant onboarding and continued education, whether you're a contract research organization (CRO), a biopharma company, or any GxP-regulated entity.

3. Document Control & Granular Permissions

Access control is essential in any quality management tool – but broad permissions are a significant cause for concern. Here’s why:

• Someone outside of your document creation or approval process might unintentionally edit or publish a document.
• Sensitive client or patient information could be accessible (even downloadable) by users who don’t need to see it.
• Allowing uncontrolled downloads might mean outdated SOPs are circulated across teams or sites, making it difficult for the Quality team to enforce version control.

When permissions aren’t granular, you rely on user behavior to maintain control instead of the system itself.

A better approach is to look for systems that have category-specific document permissions. You should be able to define who can view, edit, or manage specific types of documents. This level of control is especially helpful for organizations with cross-functional teams or sensitive client-related materials.

Precise document management helps organizations stay compliant and enables smarter collaboration across departments.

4. Configurable Workflows for Issues & Change Controls

Some systems require you to mold your quality issues and change control management to fit their predefined workflows. That can lead to unnecessary friction, especially as your organization changes and processes need to evolve.

What matters most is configurability – not just for some fields, but of the entire workflow.

A configurable eQMS should let you:

• Design issue and change control workflows that reflect your process
• Update those workflows easily as you move through clinical or operational stages
• Avoid needing to rework your process just to make them "fit" the platform
• Manage multiple types of issues or changes with unique routing and approval logic

This flexibility gives your team the freedom to stay efficient without compromise, especially in regulated environments where process evolution is part of the norm.

5. Built-In Collaborative Editing for Documents

When teams rely on external tools like SharePoint or Google Docs to edit documents, version control can become challenging. It also pulls activity outside of the QMS environment, which can make audit trails more complicated than they need to be.

That's why it's important to prioritize an eQMS with real-time collaborative editing for documents. For example, at ZenQMS, collaborative editing means:

• Multiple users can edit the same document at once
• Each user's changes appear in a different color
• A new document version is automatically created when the session ends
• The system tracks who joined, what changes were made, and when

This type of document editing removes the need for external tools, keeps your versioning clean, and keeps audit trails simple. And traceable.

6. Transparent & Scalable Pricing Structure 

This may not be a technical feature, but the pricing structure of any QMS has a major impact on usability. Platforms commonly charge per seat or require additional fees to unlock new modules, but that approach creates roadblocks for growing companies.

Instead, look for pricing models that:

• Give access to all modules from day one
• Don't charge per user, so adding new team members is simple, and pricing is predictable
• Scale with you as your team and quality processes evolve

Removing the complexity from pricing allows teams to use what they need when they need it, without having to justify future functionality or navigate budgeting barriers.

Small Features Can Have a Huge Impact

A well-designed QMS does more than meet regulatory requirements. It also makes the daily work of quality professionals easier, more organized, and more efficient – making it easier to create achievable quality management goals.

From smarter document searches to flexible workflows and training aligned to roles, these features may not sound flashy, but they sure make things simpler when the system goes live.

These often-overlooked QMS features are what truly set a system apart.

Curious how these features look in action?

If you’re exploring QMS platforms and want to see how these features can simplify your quality management processes, schedule a demo with ZenQMS. We’d be happy to show you how it works and answer any questions you might have!