Document Collaboration has made leaps and bounds since explosion of technology revolution. In any business era, need to collaborate remains a constant. What varies is ability of technology to keep up with demands of collaborators. Groupware has risen to challenge, delivering solutions that streamline editorial process - tracking documents, sorting, and even merging documents, essentially answering who, what, when, where, and how of collaboration.
Even within family of groupware solutions, new technologies are available to take document collaboration to a higher level. Since all groupware technology is not created equal, it is important to search carefully. Millions of indexed pages on your favorite search engine become one groupware every business is looking for when searching through newest technologies available in groupware.
Digital Thread technology, Version History, and Document Signature services form a new “triple threat” in document collaboration technology. It is a time-saver, an energy-saver, and a money-saver.
In business efforts to preserve bottom line, effective management and thorough record keeping are paramount.
Consider following example:
Negotiations for a contract between company A and company B have been going on for months, with law firm C as author and mediator of contract. Three representatives from A and B have been part of a drafting committee with a partner from C, making a committee of seven, each with various electronic records of by laws, budgets, minutes, and memos. The deadline for final draft of contract falls due in a few weeks.
This could be a create-your-own-ending story, and you will see two alternative endings.
First ending: The committee has a semi-organized pile of various drafts of files distributed over seven separate hard-drives, with numerous copies of drafts sent via email to other members of committee. The report is almost ready to be merged; however, as committee members survey documents on their drives and emails accounts they realize they do not know who made certain changes, which drafts they are to merge, when each of changes were made, where drafts are stored, and how they are going to merge changes all within month remaining until deadline.