Document Collaboration Tools

The single best, seamless way to collaborate on a document is to have a tool on hand that immediately gives all collaborators instant access, a clear understanding of who is working on what and an integration of approval hierarchy. While some platforms might be able to do one or two of those things, none can accomplish all of that in one package. Folderit is a Digital Management Solution with highly robust Document Collaboration Tools to help small businesses and companies.

In a climate of self-isolation, businesses are learning that numerous operations previously incomprehensible outside an office environment can remotely operate just as efficiently. When teams are collaborating at distances, good project management requires robust collaboration tools. This relies on having the flexibility and freedom for document collaboration within your teams. When your workflow and documentation structure is highly accessible and robust, you will have a more Agile and efficient operation.

Approval Workflow

Document collaboration tools have traditionally relied on intra-office shorthand to nurture an understanding between document collaborators. We can all relate to the tired old, “my response in red” format of feedback. This adds to a lot of lead time to document completion and exposes the process to potential miscommunication and errors. All of that can be avoided through Folderit’s intuitive interface and structure where you decide the stages, hierarchy and clusters of approval required for each document at each stage. This way, each collaborator has a clearly defined role to play and their content cannot pass through to the next stage unless it goes through your preferred level of scrutiny.

Let’s say there is a proposal due in 24 hours. The CEO puts the Team lead in charge of completing the task. Team lead delegates a writer on creating the proposal and another writer to proof-read it. Final approval resides with the CEO.

With Folderit, Team lead assigns his team a folder with all the supplementary material inside. The writer sifts through that material and collects all the information needed and prepares a document. The writer turns in the work to the other writer just 4 hours shy of the deadline. To save time, the second writer does not read the document and approves it to move up the approval hierarchy.

The Team lead is notified that the document is ready for his approval. Before sending his approval, he checks the access log and finds that the proof-reader did not even open the document before giving his approval. Team lead takes corrective measures, adds his comments, and a notification reaches both writers. They quickly address the oversight and send an updated version. A task is completed with the system preventing an error from becoming a problem.

If you want, there can be an additional failsafe put in place that adds an automated retention period. You can specify the fate of a document after a time of your choosing has elapsed.

Notifications and Audit Trails

There is a famous incident about Toy Story 2, that it was deleted in its entirety from the server due to some erroneous command by someone they could not trace only to be saved by a stroke of luck where an artist took a backup to work on from home.

Such strokes of luck might as well be lightning in that they do not strike the same place twice. Pixar was very young at the time and this could have destroyed the now globally acclaimed animation company.

Companies lose content to erroneous commands and human error all the time. With the notifications and audit trails of Folderit, companies can set and configure automatic notifications for any changes in their documents or folders. The moment anything changes, you will be notified individually or, if you configure it, daily or weekly (you decide). If anything is tampered with without your approval, you will have a complete breakdown of what happened and how with trail and audit logs.

OCR

Optical Character Recognition technology is a collection of algorithms that process an image for text that might not be selectable, editable or available to copy, like screenshots. Adding that capability to Folderit’s search enables it to search more data from within an archive.

People in the archiving business go through extraneous efforts to locate information from documents stored in formats that cannot be queried by any search algorithms, such as PDFs, Screenshots or even photographs of documents. Imagine trying to send your sales teams photographs of scanned cards as leads, or even worse, pointing them at a folder labeled “leads” and expecting them to sift through each entry to land the ones they need.

To overcome that limitation, Folderit features a robust live-search function that integrates with the cloud document management software. Folderit goes beyond the traditional search via filename and/or metadata, which can be achieved by even the most rudimentary searches. Folderit takes you an extra step forward by implementing OCR technology to read the contents of documents and finding you the right file.

This way, if your team needs to reach out to someone from a scanned business card, they can just write their name and the OCR will track it down and deliver it to you.

Associate Files & Add Metadata

In the data processing industry, archiving is only part of the job. The other part of the job is retrieving data. Every startup understands the pain of having to revisit older documents, like proposals, designs or invoices to recycle and reshare with newer clients only to find a critical piece missing at the last minute and having to rework it.

With newer files and file clusters, it can be challenging to keep track of files that are associated with one another, such as proposals, presentations and charts; while there are other files that simply have little to no context other than names like logo files or videos that cannot be found even with highly robust OCR. For this purpose, we add Metadata to each entry to give it additional context. Folderit can easily let you add your own metadata fields. This helps keep track of data as the documents pile up.

With the use of signers, notes, date and due dates we can create and track file clusters. Folderit’s cloud document management software can create relations between files in different folders so that you don’t have to track each entry down each time, just retrieve one and markers for the others will automatically follow.

File Versions

When you have multiple teams working on multiple items, assigning each member a task is great, the challenge is putting it back together. If each member updates the file, most collaboration tools will only tell you which user made which update. This complication can be avoided through versioning.

This issue is magnified manifold if multiple teams are working on the same document and multiple versions of the same file are being produced and saved chronologically. Folderit solves this potential problem by allowing users to create multiple versions of documents as they evovle and also preserve the existing metadata and all earlier versions of the file. All preserved earlier versions are easily recoverable with a single click. Furthermore, Folderit has a document check-in/check-out feature which lets you take complete control of a document while you’re working on it to avoid duplication or redundancy.

Reminders

Folderit is already primed to send notifications from compressed weekly reports to specialized push notifications. Making use of that feature, you can set reminders on what kind of notification to receive at what time. You can set up multiple reminders for yourself or your team by connecting each to a different email address. This way, if you want your teams to be aware of certain deadlines and due dates, you can push them in the form of reminders.

Inbox

Storing documents on the go can be challenging. You cannot be expected to launch a dedicated app and software every time you need to upload a document. For that purpose, Folderit generates a dedicated e-mail address for each listed account role. When you are on the move, you can just send/forward an email to your allocated email address and it will automatically end up in the Folderit Inbox. It is as simple as sending an email. This inbox can serve as a temporary space for your files for that you can later organize.

Roles or Sub-Accounts

Folderit is built for small companies and businesses. After you have set yourself up with a primary account role, you can create unlimited hierarchy under that role. You can also add 5 additional roles, in case you create subdivisions, external teams, clubs, or something personal. You can add as many members to these teams as you like.

Mobile Friendly DMS

The world is more mobile than ever before. Users cannot be expected to remain connected to a dedicated workstation in order to fully utilize the capabilities of Folderit. Folderit comes to where you are. As long as you are operating from an internet ready device, you have everything you need to make complete use of Folderit. The tool is accessible from anywhere in the world on any device, on any connection, be it a PC, Mac, Tablet, Phablet, or Smartphone. You are as productive, connected, hassle-free and up to date as you want to be.

Local Backup Too

Even though Folderit prides itself on liberating you from the insecurity of relying solely on local backup and offline files, you cannot overlook the importance of having your documents handy when they are needed. Therefore, on top of your data being safe and sound online, you also have local offline backups that you can access just as efficiently as you would online. If/when you are back online the updated content will Sync with the document collaboration tool’s server and all relevant notifications will be pushed to owners and stakeholders accordingly.

Safe & Secure

The safety and security of your data is the highest concern for Folderit. Folderit understands that not only does your data need to be safe and secure, it also needs to be accessible. There is no point in locking it away, under layers of complex, hard to access security layers. To strike this balance between function and accessibility, Folderit ensures that all your data is triple backed up with bank-level encryptions in place through the Folderit cloud document management system.

All data transfer to and from the Folderit cloud document management system is done via secure SSL layer. To further strengthen security, Folderit allows for you to customize password policy for your team members, that way you can decide how frequently passwords change and how strong each one needs to be. This company wide evolving password policy is available as an option if you wish to avail yourself to it, as with everything in Folderit, these are all features, nothing is mandatory.

Conclusion

Document collaboration tools should grant you the freedom to interact with your teams and data as you see fit without making compromises on communication, hierarchy, accessibility or security. This fine balance is struck with Folderit’s Cloud Document Management System Software for Small Medium Businesses does so because customers should get everything they need.

Just as Folderit shields you from the security and safety risk of local backups, which are one tragedy away from complete annihilation; Folderit shields your workspace from becoming unproductive on account of poor file management. You should have instant access to everything you need without worrying about the minutiae. It is not enough that all your files be on a cloud storage, accessibly only by filename, they need to be treated as living breathing entities with identities and accessible contextually as well.

All your data should be secure, easy to access, intuitive to assign and still let you exercise as much control and vigilance as you deem necessary for your data. There is absolutely no need to compromise and that is where Folderit shines.

Do yourself a favor and switch to Folderit today. Start your free trial here!