Improving Collaborative Efficiencies · enhance the document lifecycle have been proven to increase efficiencies, such as faster document ... 12% of users say that there is an increase

Improving Collaborative Efficiencies:The Document Lifecycle

Published: January 2013

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Contents

Section

1. Executive summary

2. The struggle to increase productivity

3. The document lifecycle

- Creating

- Storing

- Finding

- Sharing

- Delivering

4. How Workshare optimizes the document lifecycle

5. Conclusion

6. About Workshare

Improving Collaborative Efficiencies: The Document Lifecycle

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1. Executive summaryEffective collaboration is beneficial to managers and directors as well as employees. Tools that enhance the document lifecycle have been proven to increase efficiencies, such as faster document revision and reconciliation, an improved ability to incorporate feedback and track changes, distribute company-wide information distribution, methods to share and process feedback, more productive meetings, improved search capabilities, and an improvement to the quality and creativity of output. As a result, managers and directors will see the financial benefits of the online and offline collaboration and employees will have more time to focus on the tasks that matter most.

However, when managers and directors misunderstand the value of the collaboration lifecycle and the processes involved, they cannot leverage these relatively new collaboration tools effectively. The first point in the journey is to come to the realization that not all collaboration is the same and certainly collaboration is not the same as file sharing.

When employees use basic file sharing tools, they do not benefit from the operational efficiencies and productivity gains that complete collaboration applications deliver. In fact, many of the current platforms available today increase complexity, circumnavigate data security policies, and invariably leave the users frustrated.

This paper explains how collaboration technologies can be applied to different points of a document’s lifecycle and how administrators and directors can actively engage with users to build a document-centric collaborative working environment that is underpinned by a simple, easy to use, and secure collaboration application.


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2. The struggle to increase productivityOrganizations use collaboration software to ensure that internal staff and outside contractors can work together on files, whether they are working in the same office or remotely, and whether they are working on a desktop computer, laptop, smartphone, or tablet. Research shows that 25% of companies already use or plan to use SaaS to deliver collaboration and file sharing applications in the next three years,i and for good reason.

The benefits of collaboration tools produce verifiable results in areas as widespread as reduced travel costs, meeting efficiencies, product management, document reconciliation, and access to information. To be precise, Forrester has reported that 28% of users employing online collaboration applications see an increase in productivity during both face-to-face and virtual meetings; 12% of users say that there is an increase in timely product management; 32% of cloud collaboration users have seen an improvement in the speed for document reconciliation; 19% of users have reported improvement in company-wide information distribution; 13% of users have said that information is shared and processed more effectively.ii

Even more astounding, IDC estimates that because of team members’ improved access to information, organizations can see ROI figures from 38% to over 600%, depending on whether the new information or content management system is an incremental improvement over an existing one or is an entirely new system replacing previously manual processes.iii

McKinsey is also reporting significant benefits for companies that use collaboration technologies: 68% of respondents have said that they saw an increase in the speed and access to knowledge; 54% have said that there was a reduction in communication costs; 40% said that there was a decrease in travel costs; and 35% said that there was an increase in employee satisfaction.iv

However, in order to maximize individual productivity, each employee needs to be working with the right collaboration tools for his or her job, which requires a complete understanding of the document lifecycle. Organizations without a full understanding of the document lifecycle are likely to miss out on the many exciting collaborative technologies designed for this very purpose such as enterprise-grade security and data policy features as well as file sharing, social business, document comparison and other online and offline collaboration tools.

Despite the wealth of collaboration tools available, a common misconception today is that cloud collaboration tools are the same as file sharing tools. It is hardly surprising, then, that organizations often believe if their employees have file-sharing tools, they will be able to maximize their productivity when collaborating. While file sharing is part of collaboration, there are many more features that employees require to collaborate efficiently such as managing file routing, which IDC estimates consumes 4 hours per week. IDC also reports that file management review and approval have 4.3 hours of management overhead while workers spend 8.3 hours of editing and reviewing.v

The cost to the organization is also high. The time it takes the average employee to read and answer email costs a company $21,752 per worker per year; Writing, creating illustrations, or putting together presentations costs $19,953 per worker per year; and searching for and analyzing information costs over $14,000 per worker per year.

It is possible for organisations to harness the full set of collaboration technologies, rather than file sharing tools alone, to reduce their costs and drive their operational effectiveness. Enterprise-grade security and data policy features combined with files sharing, social business, and document comparison tools will improve all of these tasks while also enhancing the collaborative experience for all members of the team. To that end, it is important to note that as a document moves through its lifecycle it may be relevant to different audiences and may require different tools to be used to get the most out of the time and effort spent creating it in the first place. In order to determine what tasks employees engage with during collaboration, we need to look at the document lifecycle.


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3. The document lifecycleIn order to determine which tools employees need to increase their collaborative efficiency, it is vital to understand what collaboration is. For this, we have the document lifecycle, which shows each stage that data goes through when a collaborative team is working on it. By looking next at the tasks involved in each stage of the lifecycle, it becomes easy to see what tools are needed and how they are useful.

For the purposes of this paper, we will highlight the document lifecycle from four primary aspects: creating, storing, finding, and sharing. These different aspects of collaborative content’s lifecycle do not necessarily occur as serial stage even though creating content is always the first step. Instead, each stage is circumnavigated based on the workflow and requirements of each collaborative project. Each stage may be executed by one member of the team or all members of the team, depending on the size and scale of the project, and some members of the team might participate in multiple stages.


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Creating

This is the most important stage in the document lifecycle. It sets the other elements in motion and the document will probably be returned to this stage several times. It involves everything required for creating the content, from using productivity applications to coordinating with the rest of the creation team.

• Working on content individually:This involves both creating the original file and, after the content has been shared, making edits to subsequent versions. For optimal productivity, multiple contributors should be able to work on the same content simultaneously. Information professionals should be able to accurately review, track,and compare documents rapidly on any device. Changes made by multiple contributors should beable to be compared simultaneously, saving time and avoiding costly errors. Collaboration tools thatintegrate with productivity applications are useful at this point because employees can continue tokeep up momentum, working with applications they are already familiar with rather than spendingtime learning new applications that might not have all the necessary tools. In particular, MicrosoftOffice applications rank above most other productivity applications when it comes to features and functionality.vi

• Managing revisions:If multiple contributors have been working on the same content simultaneously after it has beenshared, efficient collaboration tools need to include the ability to compare, accept, reject, or merge changes. Users managing revisions also need to be able to view or recover previous versions atany time.

• Coordinating feedback and approval:Part of the creation process is communicating with contributors, whether they are in the office, remote employees, or even external partners and agents. At this stage, real-time communicationbecomes particularly important as well as ensuring that all comments are tied to the appropriatepage. Because there can be many contributors, input needs to be organized chronologically aswell as cleared or retained as appropriate. Tagged comments should also be document-centric inorder to improve the relationship between conversations around a document and content in thedocument.

Storing

All collaborative content must be stored in an accessible location. Since collaborative content will spend much of its lifecycle in the data store, employees involved in the storage stage not only have to ensure that they can accomplish their task efficiently, but need to ensure that they have chosen the right type of storage for their project so it can be easily accessed and shared when required.

• Choose a secure storage environment:Security is always one of the highest priorities. But while data should be encrypted—both in transitand in the cloud—and content should always be backed up across multiple datacenters, individualusers storing data should not be overwhelmed trying to manage the details themselves or be forcedto waste time traversing additional and unnecessary barriers.

• Upload and download content:Employees involved in the storage stage need to make sure that the platform has the ability toboth upload and download every file necessary. A platform that can handle any file format and at least the most popular file formats from productivity applications such as Microsoft and Adobe isan asset because it means that any file can be uploaded, but when it is downloaded it will be in the same format.


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• Flexible online and offline viewing:While all files should be available to be downloaded in their original formats, it is also important that the storage method allows most of these files to be rendered so that they can be viewed online. This ensures that if a file is confidential and access rights are set to prevent users from downloading the file, those users will still be able to view and comment on the file securely beyond the corporate firewall. An additional asset is a platform that integrates with productivity applications like MicrosoftOffice and allows users to view their files without leaving the native application.

• Be easy to access:If every version of the file is accessible at any time, contributors will be more productive because they have the information they need on hand. In order to save time and increase productivity,storage structures should be available in familiar formats like folders and subfolders.

• Sync to desktop and mobile devices: This provides fast local access as well as the added benefit of removing redundancy with thecentral collection or across multiple devices. Syncing should apply to any desktop version of theplatform and all apps included with the platform.

• Choose an efficient storage method:Ensuring that the platform’s storage method is efficient will reduce costs, saving the organizationmoney. An effective storage method is by using deltas. While other storage processes will upload anentirely new copy of the file when a user has made changes to it, using the delta system means that only the changes will be uploaded, thereby saving money by reducing the number of copies stored.

Finding

Content retains its value for longer than most people think. Even if some of the data is out of date, files can be used as a source of inspiration for new employees or distributed teams working on a similar problem. More importantly, these documents can prevent individuals and teams from recreating content unnecessarily, saving time and resources.

Every individual is involved in the finding stage of a file’s lifecycle, whether the team is made up of two contributors or twenty. As such, it is essential that the tools for finding a file are easy to use and flexible enough to accommodate every contributor, no matter what other stages he or she handles.

• Connect content to people:Users need to be able find content intuitively. Before the file is even uploaded to the platform, it should be automatically indexed with metadata tags. This will ensure that later, users will be able to search using filters and refiners. Filters and refiners will help users narrow down their searches to locate files faster. Full-text searching should be available to maximize efficiency.

• Search files quickly and easily:Because each employee’s time is valuable, finding files should be simple. Although metadatatagging should be available behind the scenes, the average contributor should reap the benefitswithout being overwhelmed with the details. Instead, the search tools should use plain language and be intuitive.

• Find files efficiently:Having a centrally managed system will enable contributors to find their files without any undue hassle. A single copy of each file that is located in a central repository will allow team members to navigate quickly to a shared project using either workspaces or folders.

• Locate files from anywhere and at any time: Files should be found in a central repository with widespread, flexible access, but there should also be tools available to sync them to a local collection so that they can be accessed on a hard drive ormobile device, allowing individual employees to increase their own productivity.


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Sharing

Once files have been stored, they can be shared so that other contributors can collaborate on them. Team members that handle the sharing stage need to have the tools to manage and communicate with the file’s contributors as well as organize the files so that the team can run smoothly.

• Organizing contributors:Contributors include co-authors, reviewers, and approvers. This step involves assigning them to the proper tasks and ensuring that file or folder permissions can be set so that, depending on which task has been assigned, contributors can download the file in its original format for easy file modification or a view-only copy for reviewing and commenting. Organizing contributors also includes ensuringthat all contributors have a method to access the content from wherever they need work, whether that is online or offline, and whether it is in the office or beyond the corporate firewall.

• Communicating with contributors:Employees who participate in the sharing stage of the lifecycle need to make sure that they have away to communicate with contributors in real time. It is necessary to ensure that all collaborators areclear about what their roles will be and can communicate with each other to organize themselvesin an efficient method. In the sharing stage of the lifecycle, real-time collaboration tools are justas important as they are in the creating stage. IM-style messaging and presence indicators for file membership lists need to be available to enhance communication and group awareness.

• Organizing collections or individual files:Even though employees involved in the storing stage will have organized files into folders andsubfolders, sometimes it is necessary for employees involved in sharing to reorganize them if either the contributors or their roles change. Employees who are sharing might need to link wholecollections or individual files as circumstances require so tools such as individual workspaces have to be available.

• Security is tailored to company data policy and mandates: Applications that provide administrators with a policy engine to clean content based on predefined settings and control whether they can read, download or forward attachments will enable organizations to meet their data compliance obligations and reduce commercial risk. Employees needto be provided with a more secure way to send email attachments such as a secure link to the file.

• Ensure accountability of contributors:Employees involved in sharing files might need to ensure that the contributors are accountable,especially if the collaboration project is large or spans a great length of time. As such, theseemployees need the tools to quickly create detailed audit trails of all of the features involved in file sharing, including real-time communication tools and different file versions. Employees whoshare files also need to feel confident that the files will be secure so it is essential that the platform includes password protection and data encryption at rest and in the cloud.

Delivering

This stage in the lifecycle typically appears at the end of the entire lifecycle or at the end of an iteration of the lifecycle. In fact, sometimes this stage is not included at all. Delivering a file is when the recipients will be outside of the team of contributors and might require a way to access the file through sources outside the collaborative platform, such as through social media sites. Recipients will be viewing the file but will never be making changes to the document itself. They might include clients or bosses. As such, team members that need to handle the delivering stage require efficient tools to present the file in a professional, but easily accessible, way.


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• Ensure that the required file can be delivered: Employees involved in the delivering stage need to make sure that their method of delivery canhandle the required file, no matter what the size or file format might be.

• Ensure recipients recognize what the file is: It is important to make sure that the recipients are not confused about what the file is supposed to be when they access it. Collaboration tools should provide a view-only file format that is as true as possible to the original.

• Ensure that recipients can access the file: The file should be accessible through as many ways as possible, including through a special webpage on the collaboration platform, or as a link that can be shared through email, instant messages, or anywhere else that would be convenient. Collaboration should be provisioned on multiple channels so that every user can collaborate in the best way for his or her requirements.

• Control what information leaves the organization:Users should be able to deliver their content without accidentally sharing confidential or sensitiveinformation. It is necessary to have a system in place that will allow administrators to add rules thatprevent confidential information from being sent out by mistake. This might include a configuration toautomatically prevent attachments from being sent out if they say “draft” or “confidential.” This mightalso include removing hidden metadata such as leftover comments or unwanted sensitive changes.


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4. How Workshare optimizes the document lifecycleMany of these tools are available separately, but Workshare has taken a different approach. Having researched into the lifecycle of collaborative content, Workshare has developed an application featuring a rich set of tools to cater to every employee, regardless of what stage or stages of the collaborative lifecycle they are involved with.

For employees involved in creating files, Workshare has made it possible to download the file in its original format so they can work on the file in the correct productivity applications. Previous versions are always available and version rollback is provided. Tagged commenting is available so collaborators can communicate in real time. On top of this, Workshare has created a mobile app and desktop version that syncs with Workshare online so employees can compare and collaborate on documents no matter how they prefer to work.

Employees storing files are able to upload any file in its original format, even if the file’s size is very large and multiple copies of the file can be organized in folders and subfolders. Additionally, behind the scenes all files will be backed up across multiple datacenters and encrypted both in transit and at rest in the cloud.

Workshare provides employees involved in finding files with a multi-faceted search tool that includes metadata tagging and refiners. The user interface uses plain language and is intuitive. Desktop and mobile syncing means that files and comments are always up-to-date and always available from any location.

Workshare has created tagged commenting, folders and subfolders, and individual permissions that can be set at the file or folder level in order to allow employees involved in the sharing stage to manage teams more efficiently. Workshare’s secure, policy-enforced application works both inside and outside the corporate firewall so files can be shared with anyone, no matter where they are located. Employees sharing can also create detailed audit trails so there is always a record of user history.

Finally, for the delivery stage, Workshare provides several ways to publish files of any size. There are methods to both publish to Workshare as well as share via a secure link. Accurate online rendering means that recipients will always be able to view content in the way collaborators intended.

Workshare has the best fit to meet most collaborative requirements through a single integrated application and ensure that members can protect, compare, and collaborate.


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5. ConclusionContent is valuable to businesses in many ways but it is virtually meaningless without collaboration. Collaboration encompasses the whole lifecycle of the file, starting from the moment the file is created, following through to when it is stored and shared with other team members so that they can find it, download it, and modify it again. Even once a file is delivered and the project is officially complete, the file can be reused as a reference tool for senior employees and as a source of inspiration for junior employees. The pinnacle of collaboration is when employees apply their intelligence to build and maintain interest, when they thrive on solving problems collectively – and often more efficiently than distributed groups working with ailing file sharing point solutions.

But asking employees to collaborate without the proper tools could mean that valuable resources are wasted. Workshare has researched what happens to collaborative content in order to build an application designed to accommodate all employees. Using an application like Workshare will enable the efficient, asynchronous movement of content and people throughout the different stages of a file’s lifecycle. The entire organization will benefit from the improved efficiency of collaborative teams that are familiar with a consistent set of tools that are closely integrated into their established ecosystem. Meanwhile, the individual employee will benefit from an enhanced experience.

i. Forrester,2011.KeyBenefitsofCollaboration.

ii. IDC.2001.TheHighCostofNotFindingInformation.

iii. McKinseyQuarterly.2009.HowCompaniesareBenefitingfromWeb2.0:McKinseyGlobalSurveyResults.

iv. IDC.2001.TheHighCostofNotFindingInformation.

v. Forrester.2010.TheNextWaveofOfficeProductivity.


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6. About WorkshareWorkshare is a leading provider of secure enterprise collaboration applications. The Workshare platform allows individuals to easily create, share and manage high-value content anywhere, on any device. Workshare enhances the efficiency of the collaborative process by enabling content owners to accurately track and compare changes from contributors simultaneously. The integrated Workshare platform also reduces the commercial risk posed by inadvertently sharing confidential or sensitive documents. More than 1.8 million professionals in 70 countries use Workshare’s award-winning desktop, mobile, tablet, and online applications. For more information visit www.workshare.com or follow Workshare on twitter at www.twitter.com/workshare

About Workshare PointWorkshare Point enhances Microsoft SharePoint 2010 as a Document Management System by providing a “document centric” front end that provides integration to both Microsoft Outlook and Office for better Microsoft SharePoint access and content management. Workshare Point integrates Microsoft SharePoint and Outlook, you can access SharePoint document libraries from the Outlook Navigation pane. A Reading Pane view in Outlook lets you perform tasks on documents within SharePoint. You can also easily drag-and-drop files from SharePoint into Outlook email either as links or attachments.

About Workshare ProtectWith Workshare Protect, you can remove hidden information (metadata) to protect against financial risk, a competitive disadvantage, or in an embarrassing situation with costly consequences. Customizable with more than 25 document security options with unique settings for different types of recipients, Workshare Protect removes hidden information to reduce the risk of inadvertent exposure of confidential information with automated alerts and one-click removal of hidden information such as tracked changes, speaker notes, the author’s name, and document editing time from Microsoft Office documents and PDF files.

About Workshare ApplicationsWorkshare empowers users with a document-centric collaboration experience, enabling them to review, make content-specific comments, and update documents based on user-defined permissions. This is managed with presence indicators, real-time alerts, and activity feeds. Workshare offers a range of integrations that enable customers to embed the power of Workshare collaboration and file sharing into existing enterprise content management and productivity applications such as Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, and PowerPoint).documents and PDF files.


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Improving Collaborative Efficiencies · enhance the document lifecycle have been proven to increase efficiencies, such as faster document ... 12% of users say that there is an increase