23 Feb 2008 03:21:11 | Joe Miller
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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 forces the 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 find the
answers when they collaborate on documents.
Business frantically searched for groupware solutions that
answers the 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 to the more common
question-making of collaboration. These technologies are Digital
Thread technology, Version History technology, and Document
Signature technology. These three groupware technologies
function as the “triple threat” against document chaos.
Who?
From the start, it is important to state that accurate records
are the key to keeping track of the 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. As the 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 even the
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 to the
question “who?” is now available. Digital Thread, for example,
creates a tracking device in the meta data of all documents
created in the 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 compiles the document family tree into a flowchart, and
Document Signature lets you know who has worked on the 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.
You can refer to the flow chart created by Version History and
Digital Thread. You can also rely on the Document Signature to
open with the document to tell you exactly what you are looking
at. Next question please.
Where?
It is important in collaboration to share information and to
refer to others’ findings. When that happens, especially in the
electronic document world we work in, you may be asking later
“Where did that document go?” You may also receive information
and ask “Where did this come from?” These questions are not
uncommon among businesses. Business is fast-paced, and we cannot
remember everything without a little bit of help from a good
groupware.
Help is available with the proper groupware that tracks
documents and lets you know exactly where documents are and
where they come to you from.
When?
The toughest part of tracking documents and drafts is knowing
the chronology of the changes. Drafts are flying back and forth,
via e-mail, so quickly that without the proper groupware,
changes could be made out of order.
Confusion need not reign in electronic collaboration. Version
History’s flowchart, tracked by Digital Thread, and available
with Document Signature every time you open a draft, puts
everything into proper editorial perspective.
How?
Saving the toughest question for last, imagine that you have
various versions of the latest drafts recently emailed to you
from your faithful committee. You will see them there, you will
look at them, and you will probably want to weep. “How am I
supposed to put this all together?” is the cry heard down the
hall.
Since groupware is now available which tracks everything,
including the who’s, what’s, where’s, and when’s, you can now
rely on that same teamware to know how to merge the changes
together. It will put information together and suggest changes
that might take one person hours to come up with.
Search through the groupware software suites available for
Digital Thread, Version History, and Document Signature. It is
refreshing to have answers during a potentially confusing and
chaotic collaborative process.
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