One of the most common problems faced in a team-based project is keeping everyone up-to-date with the latest progress. Or, you´re sent a document or spreadsheet, but you can open it because it was created by a different program to yours. Does this sound like you?
We hear about these problems pretty often. So, we thought we would explore one possible solution - Google Documents.
Google Documents, or Docs for short, is a suite of products all located in one clean location, accessible through your Google account. It includes all of the capabilities you would expect to see in a suite designed for the office:
- Documents
- Presentations
- Spreadsheets
- Forms
- Drawings
All of the basic features you need are covered. Open files created in anything from OpenOffice to Microsoft Office (both old and new formats). Admittedly, it doesn´t have the grunt of especially the latter´s swanky functionality, but for most common tasks we think it does the job well. We liked that files are automatically saved in the background every 30 seconds so you don´t lose your progress, which saves a lot of hassle.
A cool feature of Google Docs is the ability to seamlessly share files or folders with team members. You can manage permissions and see who is viewing your file - you can even watch them making changes to it in real-time from your own PC! Some competitors have this too, but generally at a high cost. All the files you create with and upload to Google Docs appear in a handy directory, where you can organise your folders in cascaded collections.
The way that Google Docs works is that all your files are saved on the internet, so your files are accessible from any computer that has internet. This is a major disadvantage if your internet goes down - you lose access to anything that isn´t saved locally. If you do decide to try it, we recommend that you download your files and folders if you know you´re leaving coverage, or as a backup just in case.
Some people have the fear that using Google´s services means your files might be read and then shared with a third party. This doesn´t happen - their computers do scan what you upload for recurring topics or places to use in their advertising, but privacy breaches are rare.
For a free middle-of-the-road suite of office products, Google Docs does a pretty good job. We think it would work well for most businesses, so long as you have internet access.