Document revision: things that can go wrong (part 2)

Let’s list some more things that can go wrong when it comes to document collaboration. Just two more to go and, afterward we will also give you our solution for avoiding not only one of these “document collaboration” pessimistic situations, but really all.

Nightmare Number Three: Editing

The author created a read-only file as the second draft, in a separate file, many hours after incorporating all the comments from the different versions of the document collaboration companions, piece by piece, cut-and-paste by cut-and-paste. Some important things may have been missed due to Version Madness.

So, merging different sets of comments manually in your collaborative document is not the most efficient way to edit. This is true especially if your goal is real-time document collaboration.

Nightmare Number Four: Each reviewer’s role isn’t clearly defined

You include different people in your document collaboration, each with specific, defined roles. You have the writer (author), an editor, a proofreader, a subject matter expert, a project manager, or perhaps others, such as the client – a wide range of document collaboration companions.

But with multiple impersonal email attempts, roles became confused, and your subject matter expert engineers are looking at the format of your collaborative document, something the editor should be doing. More wasted time and frustration.

Curing the Nightmare and Version Madness

With online document collaboration tools such as Agilewords, assigning roles is easy. So is the process. Simply upload your collaboration document in one place, quickly and easily. Invite reviewers and assign their specific collaborative roles. And you can select who sees only certain portions of your document. Securely work from your site, even if your proofreader is in the Philippines and your engineer is in Germany. They will be notified when there are comments they need to address. The changes will be made all in one place, where you and the project manager can view them and finalize the document, in the time it takes you to … well … pop another aspirin to cure your Version Madness triggered by the whole document collaboration process!