Google Docs: A Scratchpad for Information Sharing

by Thomas C. Snide, President
TCS Software, Inc.

When your organization needs to create information, share and collaborate with multiple people or groups, in one or more physical location, consider using Google® Docs -- it's convenient and easy to use.


With access to documents on the web from any computer or smartphone, Google Docs provides a centralized location for your documents that's accessible even when you're away from your office.

Google Docs

At TCS Software we use both the Document and the Spreadsheet functions to:

What we like about Google Docs is that information is accessible in a single location and more than one person can be working on a document at the same time. For example, each TCS team member keeps detailed time billing records in an online worksheet - and all of the worksheets are stored in an Excel-like workbook within Google Docs.  At any given point in time, the workbook may be in use by more than one person.

When collaborating on documents, users can leave comments, respond to comments, share the document with others, or export (download) it as a .doc, .pdf, .xls or other standard formats.

For associations, Google Docs can be a convenient way to obtain feedback on strategic plans, develop programs for annual conferences or to collaborate on new initiatives.

In addition to spreadsheets, you can also develop Presentations, Drawings and Forms. I suspect these are easy to use as well, although we have not yet utilized them.

If your organization is using the WebSuite2™ blog feature, you might want to compose your blog post in a Google Doc and share it internally for feedback and approval before publishing it on your website.  (That's what we do.)

All you need to get started is a Google account with an associated e-mail or gmail address.

For licensing purposes, Google Docs are free for personal use.  Check out the business licensing details if you plan to use it for commercial purposes.

Google maintains all sorts of data redundancy - so there shouldn't be any reason to think that your data would somehow be lost on their end.  However, their systems may be temporarily unavailable at a time when you need to access a document.  So, it never hurts to periodically download any mission-critical documents you have. 

As I always say, 'you can never have too many backups.' So we download our time billing workbook on a weekly basis.

Are you using Google Docs? How has it saved time or made you more efficient?

 

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