File Versioning Increases Confidence in Team Collaboration
Posted by Dana Larson on February 26, 2010
Last week, we wrote about how file sharing and file versioning within OnePlace can be a great team collaboration solution. This is especially true when many members of a large team need to update one file before a meeting or presentation.
Imagine what would happen if there weren’t a good system for tracking versions of files - how would a team know that all updates and additions were made in the right places across each version of the file? This is exactly what happened to Mark, the manager of a design company who had just landed his first big client.
Mark knew from his management training that it’s good to delegate tasks to responsible people on his team to produce the best end result. With each member of his team working on various portions of the design and development work, Mark dived in to making a nice slideshow presentation for the client.
After reviewing the team’s work and being satisfied, Mark emailed out a copy of the slideshow and asked each team member to input their contributions onto related slides, and send him back the file.
What Mark received from his team was 7 different versions of the slideshow. The team had input their contributions - but now Mark had a large task at hand. He had to compile all of their edits in one version and make sure he wasn’t missing any important information. And some team members used different formats, causing Mark to spend 4 hours updating the file right before the client meeting.
What could have helped Mark in collaborating with his team on this slideshow presentation was a strong file sharing and file versioning feature. An ideal solution for Mark’s situation would be the ability to check in and check out a file when one team member was working on it.
Mark could then have uploaded his first version of the presentation, and asked the team to add in their updates. Only one team member could check out the file at a time, make their updates, and check it back in for another to update. This would have given Mark one final version of the file, reducing his time spent editing it for the client.
If you are finding yourself engaging multiple team members to collaborate on files, try to look for an online file sharing and file versioning solution. It will positively impact the way files are stored and updated, making your business more efficient.
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