We just completed our DocuSign integration. It means that you can ask collaborators to e-sign documents they review on Agilewords.

This integration was a no brainer for us. E-signature is a natural extension to our review workflow and benefits users who collaborate on legal documents with partners or lawyers.

Why DocuSign? First, they’re at the forefront of cloud-based document signature and a leader in that space. Like us, they have an app on Box.net (you know, that great cloud collaboration platform). So the DocuSign integration helps us keep things simple for Box.net users who already use both services.

How does the DocuSign integration works?

We integrated DocuSign e-signature as a natural extension to our review workflow. After completing a document review on Agilewords, you can request the collaborators e-sign the document.

To do so, follow these steps.

• Go to the document folder (or open the document).
• Open the file menu and click “Sign with DocuSign”.
  
• A setup page appears.
  
• Login to your DocuSign account.
• Select reviewers who need to sign the document or type the email of other people who need to sign the document.
• Click Sign with DocusSign.
• A PDF version of the document is sent to DocuSign who notifies all signees.

We introduced two new document icons to show to the owner of the document the e-signature status:

• for e-signature in progress
• for documents e-signed by all parties

The document owner can track the signature progress at anytime by clicking ‘Sign with DocuSign’ from the document drop-down menu (see screenshot above).

The page shows the DocuSign status for each signer. You need to login to your DocuSign account to retrieve the signees latest status.

Summary

With DocuSign integration, you can now review, edit, collaborate, and e-sign documents in the cloud. E-signature is legally binding so it’s a great way to quickly seal deals or agreements once you passed the review stage.

As usual, we invite you to send us feedback and share ideas you may have to improve this integration.

Here at Agilewords, we’re big fans of Box.net . We love the simplicity of sharing documents and how you can collaborate on documents online with tasks and discussion threads.

We’ve always thought that Agilewords would be a great addition to Box.net, especially for companies in need of structured document collaboration.

While Box.net integrates with online editors like Google Docs or Zoho, there was no way to get a business document reviewed and approved by colleagues or clients on Box.net.

So we came up with the remedy!

How the Agilewords-Box.net integration works?

Once you’ve installed Agilewords from the  Box.net apps page, you simply click “Review with Agilewords” from the “more actions” menu and send a Word document to Agilewords for review.

If you have an Agilewords account, you’ll need to fill in your credentials. If you don’t, you’ll need to register a free account with us (maximum three active document reviews at a time).  For more details on our plans, check out this article.

Next, you’ll reach the review setup page. Here you can set a review deadline, invite collaborators, assign them a task (review or approve), and customize your message to collaborators.

We customized this page to further enhance the Box.net user experience:

• Access to Box.net folder members - We added a "Select folder members" drop-down list that lists all Box.net collaborators with access to the document folder.  Click on a user name to add him to the list of reviewers; you can also add all folder collaborators at once.
  
• Access with secure URL link - We provide a checkbox to create a comment on Box.net with a secure link to the document in review on Agilewords. Anyone with the shared URL link can access the document as reviewer. Note that reviewers are still requested to login with a valid user profile (or create one). So you know at all times who is reviewing your document!
  

When you click “Review on Agilewords", the document review starts on Agilewords . Collaborators receive an invitation with a link to the document.

Here's how the document looks with discussion threads:

Why Agilewords is a great complement to Box.net

As Box.net is an improved replacement of Sharepoint, Agilewords is the improved replacement of MS Word Review and Track Changes. Think MS Word in the cloud with collaborative features to boot.

Box.net discussion threads are useful for general discussion but limited when you need a detailed review of your document. Instead, use Agilewords to collaborate on the document, collect group feedback, track changes, and request approval from key stakeholders.

Here's how Agilewords can benefit you:

• Cloud-based, accessible 24/7 - all you need is a browser
• Structured document collaboration (review deadline, review and approval tasks, audit trail)
• Simple and efficient way to collect group feedback
• Track changes for all document edits
• Easy progress tracking (document notifications, daily digest)
• Full audit trail and activity reports (comments, edits, access log...)
• Secure collaboration (login required, role-based permissions, you control who downloads the document)

What’s next?

We believe that the Agilewords integration with Box.net has great potential and plan to enhanced it further. How do you want this integration to work?

We invite you to tell us how we can improve. Post your comments or ideas in our forum (Box.net discussion thread) or email us email us and we'll get right back to you.

The Agilewords team

The old email approach may seem to work fine for you but chances are that you are missing on a big opportunity to boost your productivity and to simplify the life of everyone involved in the document review process.

Without further due, here are five reasons to start using Agilewords online document review solution:

• Shorten reviews from weeks to days – Instead of sending emails to every team member, dealing with multiple versions, merging changes, and chasing up as the due date get closer, use Agilewords to assign tasks, monitor progress, and drive reviews to completion faster.
• Control who can access and download your documents – We’ve all read about staff leaving laptops in taxis or losing memory sticks with confidential data. Agilewords is safer than email or storing documents on a shard drive. Users you invite access an online version. They can’t download your document unless explicitly granted access.
• Streamline your document collaboration – Sometimes you want people to look at a document but not change it. Agilewords lets you do this by assigning ‘roles’ to your review team; for instance, you can invite users are an ‘Author’ or ‘Reviewer’ depending on their requirements.
• Client Access – As your document is stored on the web, you can share a secure link with your clients (or overseas team) allowing them to review the document and see the progress you're making.
• Track document changes online – Agilewords helps you identify changes made to the document by highlighting all edits made to the text. This speeds up the review process as you can quickly view the document changes online and respond where necessary.

Don't take our word for it and  try Agilewords free for 14 days. It takes less than 60 seconds to get started.

The New Rules of Document Collaboration is the first in this series. It’s a short guide to help you navigate through the issues, risks, and other unknowns when it comes to selecting a document collaboration application.

But, it’s more than that. It also shows where you can benefit from Document Collaboration: how to use it in the workplace, make immediate cost savings, and ensure your firm doesn’t miss out.

This book is shared under Creative Commons. So when you're done, feel free to post this on your blog or email it to whomever you believe would benefit.

Thanks for reading it.

Fabrice Talbot
Founder, Agilewords.com

Ivan Walsh
Editor, Business Synchronicity at www.ivanwalsh.com

PS - Thanks also to the Agilewords team who made the project a reality

Why the Document Review Wizard? Well, we realized that many users who wanted to setup a document review were struggling to pass the upload step and needed guidance to select the right document review settings for their project. With this in mind, we created a 3-step Document Review Wizard.

Let's go through each step.

Step#1 - Upload Document

In the Upload Document step, page you select the Microsoft Word document you want to upload and specify the document title and workspace location. Click Next Step to go to Setup Review step.

Step#2 -Setup Review

In the Setup Review step, you set the Review Deadline, Offline Updates privileges, and grant download permissions to collaborators:

• Review Deadline - We made it mandatory (if you're asking someone to provide you feebdack, better tell them clearly when you expect that feedback). You can always change the due date later during the review if collaborators need more time to complte the review.
• Offline Updates - Use this option to authorize authors to download the document while in review and update it offline. The default option is Any Author on the document but you can select Only me if you want to be the only one with offline updates privileges; note that authors can still make online updates.
• Download permissions - Choose who can download the document after it has been reviewed. Select Only me, Authors and Me, or Everyone invited on the document. Reviewers are always able to access a document they reviewed independently of the download privileges.

Click Next Step to go to the Invite Others step.

Step#3 - Invite Others

In this Invite Others step, you invite others to review the document and customize the message to the collaborators

To do this:

1. Enter the email address of the collaborators you want to review the document or select Existing Users (not visible if no reviewers have been invited yet).
2. Click Add or press Enter to add the person to the reviewers list.
3. By default, new collaborators are added as a Reviewer; they can read and post comments on the document.
4. Select Author if you want them to edit the document – Free accounts are limited to one author.
5. Click Request Approval if you want them to formally approve the document. This step is optional – if not selected, collaborators will be assigned a review task.
6. Enter a brief message, such as when the review starts or other helpful information.

Click I'm done. Start Review Now! to complete the Document Review Wizard. An email is sent to reviewers you are redirected to the document.

Why don't you give it a try?

Let’s take a look at what we have in common and where we differ.

1. How Agilewords is different from Google Docs?

Agilewords is a web-based document review application.
It is specifically designed for reviewing Microsoft Word files over the internet, especially business documents. You can upload documents (in .docs and .docx format), invite others, schedule reviews, approve or reject reviews, engage in threaded comments, maintain an audit trail, track changes, and receive email updates. It does not have any Microsoft Excel or PowerPoint type functions.

Google Docs is web-based word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application.
In many respects, it’s an online alternative for Microsoft Office. It lets you create, edit and share documents while collaborating with others online. It’s ideal for sharing documents such as notes, essays, and other documentation that is not client confidential. However, due to its proprietary nature it struggles with different versions of Microsoft Word documents, for example, it doesn’t offer an export option for .docx, the default file format for recent versions of Microsoft Word.

2. What are their similarities?

Instead of emailing business documents files, managing different file versions, and manually aggregating input from others, both applications let authorized individuals share, view, and comment through web browsers. They have the following features in common:

• Web-based
• Upload Microsoft Word .doc files
• Share document with others via email
• Add comments to documents
• Change the document’s contents

3. What are the key strengths of Agilewords and Google Docs?

Agilewords is developed for business professionals who want to review document securely online.

When we developed Agilewords we looked at how business professionals review documents, the type of issues they encountered, and how the process could be improved. When you log into Agilewords, you'll notice how easy it to:

1. Start the review process by inviting others
2. Setup due dates so you can monitor each document’s progress
3. View recent comments on the text itself and also in the right page
4. Track comments from other team members and drill-down to the exact comment you want to reply to
5. Visual track changes which help you see where the document has been updated

One major difference between Agilewords and Google Docs is that – as a Document Owner – when you access Agilewords it displays a project management screen where you can setup folders for projects, see the status of documents with a single click, use the Activity feed to filter/find any comment/edit/task on a document.

This means that, in addition to reviewing documents, you have much better visibility on the overall review lifecycle so you can chase up late documents, query comments, and locate information faster.

This also leads to the question of Return On Investment (ROI). It is really worth your while moving from email and/or Google Docs based document reviews to Agilewords. Here are some ways to measure the ROI of Agilewords:

• Increased Productivity – Measure how long it takes to email a document to different people, track all of their comments, merge the comments in a final document, send this out for review again, and then sign off on the final version. Wouldn’t it be faster to have a master copy on the web, which everyone can work on at the same time? Enormous costs savings can be made by shifting to internet-based reviews and removing time-consuming manual reviews. While you can do most of these in Google Docs, it’s hard to scale if you have more than a few documents. In addition, as Google Docs was not built for Document Collaboration, you'll need to engage in ‘hand-holding’ with less skilled team members who are unfamiliar with its user interface.
• Credibility – Business clients are unlikely to be impressed if you share their legal documents and contracts on Google Docs. It sends all the wrong signals. With Agilewords, you can get a personalized website URL, for example, using your business name or the project name.
• Security – Memories of high-profile security breaches in Google Docs will make most clients nervous. Agilewords protects your documents in multiple ways and provides world class security with RackSpace.
• Finances – How much does it cost for senior members of your team to find documents, download attachments, send reminders, check progress, reformat documents and so on? Instead, their time should be spent on other high value tasks, which make better use of their abilities.

Its online dashboard lets you see all the documents under review, so you can manage the progress of documents are they move through the review cycle. Agilewords also allows you to invite others, schedule due date for completion, monitor every change made to the document, send daily report/digest, receive personalized notifications, create folders for different projects, quickly see the most recent comments made to the document (new comments are color coded and highlighted in the comments pane) and download the document for offline reviewing.

Google Docs lets you create web-based documents, presentations and spreadsheets that anyone in the group can update from their own computer, even at the same time. It reduces license costs associated with Microsoft Office and anti-virus software as your documents are stored safely in Google's servers, so you don't have to worry about losing data or getting virus.

4. What are the limitations of Agilewords and Google Docs?

Agilewords is designed for online document reviews.

It does not have the Microsoft Office functionality, such as spreadsheets or presentations. Likewise, it is not an online word processor, for example, you can't create table, add headings, insert images, or add footnotes… even though it lets you update documents offline. It’s designed specifically for reviewing business documents. In Agilewords, the focus is on editing the actual text in the document, not the format, layout, or design.

Google Docs is an alternative to Microsoft Office.

It offers most of the features found in an Office suite and does a very good job at this. One limitation of Google Docs is that, as it uses a propriety format, you are likely to encounter issues when saving the document back to Microsoft Word. While the changes can be minor with small documents, once you start working on larger, more complex Microsoft Word documents, you’ll encounter issues with styles, format, layouts, and macros. This creates significant issues when dealing with business documents and scenarios where sensitive data must be delivered on time.

It also lacks industrial strength security measures, audit trails, and instant email notifications. In other words, you can open the document, find the changes in the Revision History pane and respond but Google Docs doesn’t flag which comments were made since your last visit. This means if you're reviewing a large document, say 100 pages, you have to re-check every comment to make sure you haven’t missed any.

Google Docs wasn’t intended for document review, it’s just a natural extension of collaboration document reviews, especially for confidential business documents. While you can use it for document reviews, it comes with a ‘price’. For example, the user interface isn’t designed to show you comments, changes to the documents, and which changes has occurred since the last login. The 'add comments' option is there but is ‘hidden’ inside a drop-down menu. For many novice users, this will be a bridge too far and result in them looking for assistance and resorting to making changes on the original document and then emailing it to you – which defeats the purpose of online document reviews.

5. Why would I choose Agilewords vs Google Docs and vice versa?

• Use Agilewords to review documents online.
• Use Google Docs to write documents online.
• Use Agilewords to invite, schedule, track changes, get approval, and review documents securely online.
• Use Google Docs to write, edit, and share Office files, including documents, spreadsheets, and presentations over the web.

6. My company uses Google Docs. Should we switch to Agilewords?

Yes.
Use Agilewords if you want to review confidential business documents online. This will save you time (as there is only one file involved), simplify the review process (no more emailing attachments), reduce costs (no license fees associated with Microsoft Office), and quicker set (no installation is required.). You can use the Free plan to test run Agilewords and then upgrade if you need to.

No.
Use Google Docs if most of your documents are neither time-sensitive nor client confidential.

Maybe.
If you're not sure, take Agilewords for a test drive. You can sign up for the Free trial – you don’t even need a credit card – upload documents, invite others and see if this makes the review process easier.

7. What are the key features available in Agilewords and not in Google Docs?

Agilewords has several features related to the document review process, which are not available in Google Docs.

These include:

1. Advanced Security – Includes Secure Socket Layers (SSL) and encryption on all files
2. Web Hosting - Provided by Rackspace, award-winning web hosting provider
3. Offline Updates – You can download the file, update it offline, and then re-upload a modified version.
4. Schedule Reviews – You can set a due date so the reviewer knows when the document is due to be completed. This date is displayed at the top of every web page when reviewing documents as a reminder.
5. Export – In theory, you can export documents from Google Docs. However, during our testing it changed the layout and styles of the source (i.e. original) Microsoft Word file, requiring the document owner to reformat the document.
6. Audit Trail - When one of your team updates a document in Agilewords, you can configure the system to automatically send a notification email to the Document Owner highlighting what has been changed and by whom. This gives you an audit trail of all changes made to the document, with details of the date, reviewer and text changes.
7. Security Console – Access to Agilewords is based on roles, for example, Manager, Author and Reviewer. When you log into Agilewords as a Manager, you can create shared folders for each project and then assign access rights to different users. This disallows others from intentionally or accidentally accessing documents. While Google Docs also has shared folders, these are essentially individual folders that are shared across a team.
8. Document Review workflow – Agilewords coordinates the different stages of the review process, by sending out automatic reminders to authors and reviewers, assigning tasks, setting up deadlines, and using a role-based system to control access to documents.
9. Progress Tracking – Document Owners can use the online dashboard to monitor all document review activities, review the Daily Digest (email containing all document edits for each day) and check the progress of each document. Google Docs allows you to share documents with colleagues but lacks the project management features that allow you to ‘manage’ the review cycle. As a Document Owner, you can also setup an Activity Feed and filter your documents by Documents in Review, Shared Documents, and Private Documents.
10. Versioning – Google Docs offers a Revision History tool that shows you all the changes you made to the document by date. Changes are color coded in green. My bet is that most people don’t know it’s there as it’s slightly hidden away and you have to dig it out. Whereas in Agilewords, you get notified when changes are made (and you can keep the email to double-check later) and it’s also highlighted on document and in right-pane. This makes it impossible to miss and faster to drill-down into the content and complete the review.

8. What are the key features available in Google Docs and not in Agilewords?

Google Docs has several features which are not available in Agilewords, such as:

1. Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office – Free plugin that improves Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 on Windows PCs. It adds simultaneous collaboration, revision history, cloud sync, unique URLs and simple sharing to the Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications.
2. File formats - You can now view the following file types using Google Docs: .XLS, .XLSX, .PPTX, .PAGES, .AI, .PSD, .DXF, .SVG, .EPS, .PS, .TTF, and .XPS.
3. Spreadsheets - You can now analyze and view your data more easily with the addition of filtering in spreadsheets.
4. Mobile editing in 45 languages - Edit your documents on the go in 45 languages on Android with Froyo (version 2.2) and on iOS devices (version 3.0+) including the iPad.
5. OCR in 34 languages - Upload and convert PDF or image files to text in 34 new languages.

You can read the Google Docs Feature List here.

9. How does pricing compare?

You can get both Agilewords and Google Docs for free.

Google Docs Pricing

If you want to move from Microsoft Office and save money on its license fees, then Google Docs is an excellent alternative. There is no cost for using the application and you can share it across your teams.

Agilewords Pricing

You can get Agilewords in three different versions: Free, Individual, and SMB.

1. Free Plan: 1 Author, unlimited documents, but only 3 in review at a time
2. Individual Plan: $19 per month, 1 Author, Unlimited documents, Custom domain
3. SMB Plan: $49 per month, 3 Authors, Unlimited documents, Custom domain

Note that when you when you signup for the Free plan, you can:

1. Upload documents
2. Invite others to review documents
3. Add comments, respond to comments, and get documents approved
4. Track document’s progress, get email notifications, and request sign-offs

Conclusion

While Google Docs and Agilewords do overlap in some areas, for example, you can use both for sharing documents online, they are intended for different purposes. Google Docs is an excellent alternative to Microsoft Office and comes with a sleuth of Office type features, including a very powerful text editor.

‘But, I’m still not convinced? Where’s the real benefit?’

Is Agilewords worth the investment? While Google Docs and Agilewords are both free, one is freer than the other. Agilewords makes document reviews easier to manage. It’s ‘raison d'être’ is to help you manage all aspects of the document review lifecycle, from initial setup, to inviting reviewers, tracking progress, and signing off on the final draft. Sign up for Free here.

Agilewords Subscription Plans: How It Works

You can get started with Agilewords by signing up to the Free plan. This is ideal if you want to take it for test run and see how it works. Once logged in, you have access to all the features and can start sharing documents with your colleagues. They also need to sign-up to review the documents – and, Yes, their accounts are also free!

Agilewords offers three different subscription plans. Here are the key points:

There is no Credit Card required when you sign up. All documents are password protected and secured with Secure Socket Layers (SSL).

You get Unlimited Reviewers on all plans. This means you can share your documents with as many colleagues, clients and partners as you wish.

Difference Between Free and Pro Accounts

Let’s look at the difference between the Free and Pro accounts.

Free Account

How does the Free plan work? The Free plan lets you review a maximum of three documents simultaneously. This is ideal if you want to review documents occasionally online or if you want to try Agilewords before signing up to the other plans.

As mentioned below, while there is a three document limit, you can remove documents once they are finished and then upload more. This means you can stay within the Free account plan for as long as you wish and not have to upgrade once you complete the first three documents. Just remove the documents you no longer need and upload more.

• Free – there is no cost to sign up.
• Author – this individual is allowed to upload documents and invite others to review.
• 3 documents – this is the number of documents you can have in review at any given time. However, as you can delete documents once you complete the review, you can then upload more documents.

‘I already signed up to Agilewords. Can I stay with the Free plan?’

Yes, you can. You can stay with the Free plan for as long as you like. There is no time limitation.

You can upgrade to the premium accounts at any time, for example, if you want other team members to control their own document reviews or if you want to give different business units their own accounts.

Individual Account

Here are the key features for this account.

• $19 per month
• 1 Author – this individual can upload documents and assign them to others for review.
• Unlimited documents – there is no limit on the number of documents you can have in review.
• Custom domain – Agilewords will setup a personalized sub-domain for you, for example, mycompanyname.Agilewords.com. You can choose you own custom domain name.

SMB Account

Here are the key features for this account.

• $49 per month
• 3 Authors – three individuals are allowed to upload documents and assign them to others for review.
• Unlimited documents – there is no limit on the number of documents you can have in review.
• Custom domain – Agilewords will setup a personalized sub-domain for you, for example, mycompanyname.Agilewords.com. You can choose you own custom domain name.

Note: You can add an extra author for $15 per month.

Enterprise Plans

Do you offer discounts for Enterprise plans?

Yes we do. We also provide additional security features for Enterprise plans. Contact us to get more details.

Which Plan Should You Start With?

We suggest you start with the Free plan. This lets you try Agilewords for as long as you want, try it out at your own pace, and introduce it to your colleagues.

When you signup for the Free plan, you can:

• Upload documents
• Invite others to review documents
• Add comments, respond to comments, and get documents approved
• Track document’s progress, get email notifications, and request sign-offs

Why should I upgrade?

For most companies, the Free plan is sufficient to meet their requirements. However, there are benefits with the other plans, such as:

• Add more Authors - For instance, you may want to create separate accounts for Sales, IT, and Business Consultancy.
• Unlimited documents – While the Free plan offers three documents for review, you may want to upgrade so there are no limit on the number of documents you can review.
• Custom domain – The Individual and SMB plans allow you to setup a personalized sub-domain, such as, mybusiness.Agilewords.com. This personalized website address increases trust with reviewing documents with clients, as they will recognize your company name in the website url.

FAQs

• Can I stay with free? Yes, if you've already signed up you don’t need to do anything.
• Do I have to upgrade? No, you can stay with Agilewords for as long as you wish. And we won’t send you any nagging emails.
• How do I upgrade? You can upgrade to a premium account once logged into Agilewords.
• Can I stop payments at anytime? Yes. You can switch to the Free Plan at any time or close your account. We do not provide refunds for unused days.

Want to get started? Click here to Start your free trial.

Document Review Process: What’s Involved?

The Document Review Process is a framework for reviewing business, legal, and technical documents in a more structured, process-driven manner. For example, the process of document reviews may include procedures for conducting interviews, peer reviews, and walk-throughs of how the subject matter works. The process of reviewing documents also involves setting up guidelines, samples, and best practices for other document reviewers involved in writing, editing, and proofing documentation.

Document Review Process Model

Here are three examples of how the Document Review Process works:

• Document Review Workflow – This defines how the document review process works. The review is a series of steps; for instance, steps to ensure the documents are reviewed, edited, and written correctly. In the paper-based world, the document review process includes hard copies that are printed out and reviewed manually.
• Document Peer Reviews – The focus of the Document Review Process is to get team members to review and approve documents. This involves sending comments, feedback and notifications from the Document Management System to the peer review team, i.e. those involved in the review process. Comments may also be embedded in the review documentation during this process.
• Technical Document Review Process – For this, you need to define the document review process during the project-planning phase, for example, when writing a set of technical documents. This gives you adequate time in the project schedule for all document reviews to be completed on schedule.

Sample Document Review Process

If this is your first time designing a document review process, identify the main tasks first and be very clear about each person’s role. Design the workflow so that dependencies and expectations are clearly understood and there are no expectations or ‘assumptions’ from team members. Everyone should understand their role.

When designing your document review process and its workflow, consider these steps:

1. Identify prerequisites for the review process, e.g. best practices, format, and guidelines. Design the initiation form, i.e. how the process will start. For examples, create guidelines for Technical Document Reviews and other documents that will help others get started.
2. Identify the Document Owner. This is usually self-evident but there may be exceptions, for example, the Document Manager (e.g. who may be in charge of a team of 10 writers) might assign different Document Owners for different projects, e.g. Kevin to be in charge of User Guides, Tina in charge of Media Kit etc.
3. Assign tasks to the Document Reviewers and send email notifications that the document has been assigned to them. This creates expectations and also helps them track their time.
4. Design a secondary workflow for review tasks.
5. Assign tasks to the Final Reviewer, i.e. document approver. This person is authorized to sign off on the document. They may be the Document Owner, a subject matter expert, for example, the development manager, or the client.
6. Design a secondary workflow for the final review tasks.
7. Determine whether the Final Reviewer approved the document. If not, identify the next steps. This means that if they didn’t approve the document, (for example, specific changes need to be made), how will you update the document to incorporate their concerns or recommendations.
8. Determine how the final document will be shared. Once you have completed the review, identify a location from where the document can be accessed.

Software Document Review Procedure

The document review report is the outcome of the document review process. This provides the input for deciding the next step in the lifecycle of the document you have reviewed. The review process is then refined based on feedback received during the review from others members of the Peer Review team and others involved in the project.

First Level Document Reviews For Legal Firms

In the legal industry, the basics of legal process outsourcing, particularly first level document review involves.

• First Level Document Review – This is part of the discovery process in litigation, contracts, mergers and acquisitions.
• Legal Document Reviews – First level document reviews are a time-consuming process which requires trained attorneys and paralegals to review sensitive legal and business documents.
• Categorizing Documentation – This involves reviewing documents and categorizing them as responsive, non-responsive, privilege, non-privilege, privilege-work product, and confidential.
• Reducing Potential Costs – Errors are very costly. For example, when attorneys make mistakes during the document review process, it can undermine their client’s ability to win their lawsuits. To address this, legal firms are adopting Document Collaboration applications so they can share, review, and edit legal documents more effectively.

Due to increases in litigation, the Document Review Process has become an integral part of the legal industry, incurring almost sixty percent of the total cost of litigation.

Conclusion

There’s always a ‘trial and error’ period when embracing new technologies. We like to explore what works for us, define new processes, and use it as often as possible. Document collaboration is no different.

The process of reviewing documents - whether offline or online - benefits from a structured review framework. This allows you to improve the review workflow, identify steps, communication better with the peer review team, and ensure that the quality of your documents (business, legal, and technical) are improved during this process.  It’s all about making a starting, defining goals you can measure (for example, turnaround times for reviews), and encouraging others to use the tools. Once you do this, you can tweak the workflow, share lessons learned, and make it easier for others to contribute.

Makeuseof.com: Collaborating On Word Documents Made Easy

The review highlights that, ‘Agilewords is a free online tool that simplifies and streamlines the whole document editing and review process. It lets multiple people work on a document in a single place online and automatically keeps track of all the feedback and changes in the document (currently supports only Word documents).’

Collaborating On Word Documents: Key Features

Three of the key features identified in the review included:

• Easily collaborate on Word documents online with multiple people.
• Keep track of all the feedback (comments, messages), edits and other activity in the document and be notified of changes.
• Set up a review deadline and approve the document with a single click.

Read the Makeuseof.com: Collaborating On Word Documents Made Easy review here

Contrast this with how Marketing Departments work today. Not only has the pace of life changed, but the way information is gathered, refined and published is also different.

The Shift Towards Collaborative Tools in Marketing Departments

How Marketing Departments Can Collaborate Online