Wanting to collaborate with a colleague on your nearly finished document titled Project (for the sake of example), you email it to them as an attachment expecting to receive it back fully completed.
Your colleague emails the document (now titled Project1) back to you cc’ing another teammate of yours named John (it’s always either John or Mary) since they would also like to contribute.
Now that John is in the loop too, he takes it upon himself to work on the document and email the revised version (now titled Project11) to you.
Having looked through the document, you realize that one of your colleagues (at this point, you don’t know which of the two) must’ve used last year’s numbers cause they don’t make sense. You email the document back asking the guys to check the numbers and correct them if needed.
John realizes it was his fault, corrects the mistake, and emails the document (now titled Project11_corrected) back to you.
Glad that you did manage to get the document together, you send it to your supervisor for one final approval before showing it to the boss. In a desperate attempt to be of any help, your supervisor comes up with a few notes and remarks regarding the document’s presentation.
Now, you have to consider those, update the document (now titled Project11_corrected+), and send it back to the supervisor receiving the long-awaited approval.
Seems like the document is good to go and it’s about time to email it to the boss, especially if you consider that the deadline was yesterday and the boss is already fuming.
Like any other person in your company, your boss wants to be needed so he emails the document back to you with a long list of notes and also asks you to run the numbers by the accountant.
At this point, you are not you - you are a hollow shell of a man practically devoid of any human features. So you quickly engage in a bit of back and forth with the accounting department until you finally clear all the numbers with them. Now you’re ready to send the final version of the document (now titled Project11_corrected+++_edit_verified123) to the boss, which you do.
Having received the document, the boss thanks you but also tells you off for taking too long to prepare a simple document. You want to go home and cry.
Oh, and all of the previously mentioned colleagues of yours have been in the loop all this time - that’s right, these poor people were (largely against their will) receiving copies of all your emails even though their work on the project had already been done by then.
Too many different versions
When there are three or more people contributing to a document that’s being constantly emailed back and forth, the outcome will always be the same - multiple “final” versions of the same document. Go figure which one is the final “final” one.
Impossible to track changes
Stemming directly from the previous point, having multiple people collaborating on a document via email means it will be nigh impossible to track everyone’s input. Oh, and if there’s been a mistake, good luck finding who made it.
Slow speed
Sending emails and responding to them takes time. So does downloading a document and editing it on your hard drive. It all adds up slowly dragging out what’s supposed to be a quick, effortless process.
It’s not 2001, come on
Like, really. No one relies on email as their primary means of communication and collaboration anymore - we’re living in the world of cloud-based services and instant messengers.
Okay, that’s enough of “how not to do something”. The question you are probably asking yourself now is “So you guys laid out all this criticism here - it must mean you have something to offer instead”. Oh, you bet we do!Among the plethora of tools featured in Bitrix24 is Online Workspace, which is all about collaboration and features the following tools:
Instant messaging (chats)
Video calls and conferences
Calendars
Live feed (where users can post articles, leave comments, give likes, etc.)
Drive (online cloud storage)
Documents
That’s a lot of functionality already and - mind you - these are not separate tools. Cross-integrated, they are all part of the same software/environment - Bitrix24. Since our main topic is collaborating on documents, let’s take a closer look at this component.
Despite having been added just recently, Documents were, in fact, a long-requested feature. So what are they?What makes Bitrix24.Documents stand out is the fact that it is not just a standalone editor. It is a part of a larger ecosystem - an ecosystem that features everything you need to run projects, grow sales, and manage your team, whether it’s remote or in the office.
You co-edit a document, write a message in the chat, make a quick video call, read a new post in the live feed, and then get back to working on the document. Without having to switch between different tools. All within Bitrix24.
So what else makes Bitrix24.Documents great?