Groupware: The Triple Threat of Document Collaboration Technology

Written by Joe Miller


Document Collaboration has made leaps and bounds sincerepparttar explosion ofrepparttar 138996 technology revolution. In any business era,repparttar 138997 need to collaborate remains a constant. What varies isrepparttar 138998 ability of technology to keep up with demands ofrepparttar 138999 collaborators. Groupware has risen torepparttar 139000 challenge, delivering solutions that streamlinerepparttar 139001 editorial process - tracking documents, sorting, and even merging documents, essentially answeringrepparttar 139002 who, what, when, where, and how of collaboration.

Even withinrepparttar 139003 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 becomerepparttar 139004 one groupware every business is looking for when searching throughrepparttar 139005 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 preserverepparttar 139006 bottom line, effective management and thorough record keeping are paramount.

Considerrepparttar 139007 following example:

Negotiations for a contract between company A and company B have been going on for months, with law firm C asrepparttar 139008 author and mediator ofrepparttar 139009 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 forrepparttar 139010 final draft ofrepparttar 139011 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 ofrepparttar 139012 drafts sent via email torepparttar 139013 other members ofrepparttar 139014 committee. The report is almost ready to be merged; however, asrepparttar 139015 committee members surveyrepparttar 139016 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 ofrepparttar 139017 changes were made, whererepparttar 139018 drafts are stored, and how they are going to mergerepparttar 139019 changes all withinrepparttar 139020 month remaining untilrepparttar 139021 deadline.

Teamware: Answers the 5 Questions of Document Collaboration

Written by Joe Miller


Every organization which creates collaborative documents, whether they are budgets, presentations, reports, spreadsheets, or other documents recognizes that collaborative efforts are requirement. That collaboration always forcesrepparttar 5 eternal document collaboration questions: Who? What? Where? When? How? The reason I refer to them as eternal is that every day businesses are faced with these questions and rarely findrepparttar 138995 answers when they collaborate on documents.

Business frantically searched for groupware solutions that answersrepparttar 138996 5 questions of document collaboration, and this informational article is written to provide helpful information on technology that is now available to bring answers.

Three helpful groupware software technologies will be presented and referred to throughout this article as means of answer-finding, as a refreshing relief torepparttar 138997 more common question-making of collaboration. These technologies are Digital Thread technology, Version History technology, and Document Signature technology. These three groupware technologies function asrepparttar 138998 “triple threat” against document chaos.

Who?

Fromrepparttar 138999 start, it is important to state that accurate records arerepparttar 139000 key to keeping track ofrepparttar 139001 editorial or collaborative process. So much record keeping gets jumbled because documents and drafts are spread out across many different places and collaborators like butter over too much bread. Asrepparttar 139002 deadline nears, searches become more frantic. “Who has which draft?” or “Who made this change?” are questions that will frequently arise.

Imagine finishing up months of contract negotiation yielding a contract of hundreds of pages and asking your committee at that point about changes that have been made in an effort to track who did or has what. It simply will not work. Not evenrepparttar 139003 participant will remember all of their own contributions.

No business wants messy records. The groupware market has advanced to such a point that a groupware solution torepparttar 139004 question “who?” is now available. Digital Thread, for example, creates a tracking device inrepparttar 139005 meta data of all documents created inrepparttar 139006 everyday MS applications businesses use. This tracking reaches across servers and emails to create a virtual family tree of document drafts, even if you are working with clients or others who do not have this technology. Version History compilesrepparttar 139007 document family tree into a flowchart, and Document Signature lets you know who has worked onrepparttar 139008 draft every time you open a draft from your hard drive or email. You will never lose track of who did or has what.

What?

Often, when opening an email attachment, you might be asking yourself “What version am I looking at?” “What draft is this?” “What am I supposed to do now?” or a myriad of other “what’s.” The time for questions like this is not time your company can afford. This groupware technology will track documents and their drafts, allowing you to always know what you are looking at and which draft it is. Then you will know exactly what to do with it.

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