With the office 365 integration components of OneDrive, SharePoint and now Teams collaboration is becoming a priority when introducing new technology applications to organizations. SharePoint was the start of collaboration tools within the Office365 suite and has only evolved through the years. With multiple people working on the same document Microsoft has incorporated features and functionality to accomplish this using SharePoint and the Office suite such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more.
When you think of collaboration two types may come to mind, controlled collaboration and co-authoring. Well, guess what SharePoint can support both! When thinking about controlling your documents some things come to mind: version control, permissions, accessibility and editing lock outs. When thinking about co-authoring one might think about real-time edits, online vs. offline, sharing files, and chatting capabilities. Whichever collaboration method is used SharePoint can handle your requirements and fulfill all of the mentioned functionality.
Using a document library in SharePoint you will already be equipped to manage version control with minor and major edits, having additional functionality of who can see these documents in draft mode. Permissions can be broken within the library to even further control the document accessibility. Finally the edit lock out functionality is available with Check in/Checkout functionality. With this enabled users will be informed if the document is currently checked out for editing and won’t be able to access the document until it is checked back in.
For a more flexible style of collaboration, co-authoring is available and very intuitive using tools that are native to all Microsoft products. This function is set by default for users to begin working on documents together in real-time. While working on a supported office document authors will be able to chat with one another, see real-time edits and markups. These are functions supported through many devices in desktop or mobile views. Even after the collaboration is complete the ability to share documents and continue collaborating externally is available with little transition period or interruption to daily operations.
So stop sending attachments and naming files with words like “Draft1” or “Final” and get collaborating online, locally, internally and externally with SharePoint!
