Document Collaboration Tools for Business

Document Collaboration lets you work on the same document at the same time with your fellow users, wherever they are in the world. This is great for making sure that no one makes an edit without consulting the rest of your team, or for approving documents right after they’ve been updated.

The Document Collaboration Tools for Business are used to electronically capture, convert, complete, submit, review, route, comment on, track, manage and store all of your documents in one central place.

Collaboration Tool: Bit.ai – Smartest Interactive Documents

The first and one of the most feature-rich tools on this list is Bit.ai. Bit is a new age cloud-based document collaboration tool that helps teams create, manage, and track documents.

Bit helps you make sure your documents are more than just plain boring text. Thus, apart from allowing multiple users to collaborate on documents, Bit also allows users to share any sort of rich media like YouTube videos, SoundCloud Playlists, Google Docs, One Drive Excel Spreadsheets, GIFs, Tweets, Pinterest boards, etc. Basically, anything on the internet with a link can be shared and Bit will automatically turn it into visual content.

Just copy-paste the URL of your content. Bit automatically generates a live preview of your digital content within your document. Imagine how rich and interactive your smart documents can become!

In addition to adding rich embeds and content, you can also add file attachments inside of your documents. It allows your reader to reference additional documents they need to sign, download, store, or access. Bit allows hundreds of various file types to be added to your documents.  No more hunting through email attachments to find the right document. You can even choose to preview your file attachments and have them display inside of your documents! You can preview PDFs, Excel, Word docs, Mov. files, etc.

Bit has a very minimal design aesthetic to it, but it’s feature-rich and helps teams rethink the way they work and communicate.

It even includes an ability for users to track engagement levels on the documents they share. Users are able to see who has accessed their document, how frequently, how much time they spent on it, how often they have returned to it, along with other great engagement metrics.

Here’s a visual tour of Bit documents so you can see the amazing interactivity & collaboration:
Here are some additional features Bit provides:

• Create professional-looking docs quickly with Bit’s pre-made and professional-looking templates.
• Content library that allows you to save images, files, and digital content you need to reuse and add often to your documents.
• Smart search allows anyone to search across workspaces, documents, and the content inside of documents quickly.
• Smart workspaces are created around projects, teams, departments, and clients to keep your documents organized.
• The ability to @mention and comment on a shared document allows team members to collaborate and work together effectively.
• Shared documents come with the option to include a lead capture form.
• All settings of a trackable document can be edited at any time and update in real-time with your audience.
• Includes personalized branding on your documents, along with your own custom subdomain so your shared document URLs include your company name.

One of the most impressive parts of Bit is that it’s collaborative and can work with any size team. Teammates can collaborate on documents and easily move Bit docs through normal workflows in your company easily and fluidly.

For example, if a marketer comes up with an idea after doing competitor analysis, they can loop in with his/her manager, bring in a sales manager to the document and make a decision on how to communicate those competitor differences better. They can collaborate and once approved can move the Bit document to the design team, finalize the copy and get the final copy ready for approval from management, legal, and the executive team.

Bit is creating the future of documents for you and your team so you don’t have to rely on multiple tools. It’s the smartest way to create, manage, and track your document all from one place.

Collaboration Tool: Microsoft Word

Who hasn’t heard of Microsoft Word? The famous editor has been around for over 3 decades and continues to be one of the most popular editors out there. Word has become second nature for most of the PC users out there when they think about writing, editing, and formatting text files. The famous ribbon-style formatting toolbar gives a bunch of options to users to edit their documents however they like.

Now with the Word online, Microsoft has taken the classic Word editor over to the cloud, trying to compete with a new generation of editors that have emerged. Word online provides collaboration features that allow people to edit simultaneously and forget about the to-and-fro email chains. Users can also translate documents in your non-native language with just a click.

Word also offers dedicated Android and iOS apps to take your work with you wherever you go.

 Collaboration Tool: Confluence

Atlassian Confluence is a document collaboration software for teams to communicate internally.

Confluence allows teams to easily create, share and collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and images. Tracking project progress is a breeze in Confluence.

Team members can share PDFs, docs, images, track every version and changes made to a page, and connect to Jira to provide insight into their development work with automatic linking, quick issue creation, and reports.

With the ability to add inline, file and page comments, you can easily leave feedback without getting lost in your email threads or chat messages. Team members can pin comments on the shared file, add their suggestions or feedback, and can edit office files right from their Confluence dashboard.

Users have the ability to organize and share company information amongst employees and with their customers.

Confluence offers two “power” add-ons, Confluence Calendars and Confluence Questions.

Confluence Calendars adds a central source of truths by offering a single calendar for the entire team. The calendar allows teams to keep track of who’s on leave and for how long, what events or projects are coming up, and switch between four calendar views, list, week, month and timeline. Users also have integration options with Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCal. Confluence Calendars cost $10/month for a team of 10.

Confluence Questions, on the other hand, lets team members ask, vote on, and answer questions collaboratively. All the content posted is searchable to avoid users asking same questions again. Team members can earn points for answering questions and can even earn an “expert” status. The gaming angle makes it fun and encourages people to collaborate and help solve queries. Confluence Questions add on also costs $10/month for up to 10 users.

Confluence is a great collaboration tool, especially if your team already uses Jira and HipChat by Atlassian, as it’s designed to work with those platforms.

Google Docs

With over 800 million active worldwide users, Google Docs is the most well-known of all the document collaboration software on this list.

However, many don’t realize that, in addition to adding comments and making edits to a finished draft, real-time online collaboration is possible with Docs.

Up to 200 people can simultaneously view a Doc, and 10 users can make simultaneous real-time edits.

All edits are automatically updated in the same master doc and saved in the cloud, so there is no need to create a new document for every draft. This version control feature prevents teams from making edits to outdated drafts.

Documents are shared via email or through a URL, and team leaders can select which specific employees can directly edit, suggest edits, or have view-only access.

The “Live Edits” feature shows real-time, color-coded updates that multiple people have made to a file. Users can track changes to see previous file versions without the new changes, approve or deny edits. They can also make comments in the sidebar, tag each other in these comments, or communicate via chat messaging.

Docs also allows users to save files in multiple formats, including PDF, plain text, web page, and rich text. It’s a wise choice for teams with a focus on user-friendly software, or for smaller companies that need a free editing tool.

Pricing and Plans

Google Docs can be purchased as a part of the G Suite product package or on its own. The below table compares the prices and plans of the free Google Docs Personal plan and the paid Google Docs Business Plan.

Features	Personal Plan	Businesses Plan
Cost	Free	$10/user per month
iOS and Android Mobile App	✓	✓
Autosave	✓	✓
Real-Time Collaboration	✓	✓
Work Offline	✓	✓
Voice typing	✓	✓
Revision History	✓	✓
Comments and In-Line Edits	✓	✓
Includes Google Meet	X	✓
Cloud Storage	15 GB per user	100 GB per user

Zoho Docs

Zoho Docs mirrors Google Docs services in that it provides a comprehensive cloud platform for small business owners. You can create documents, spreadsheets and presentations, and Zoho provides users with 5GB of free storage upfront.

In Zoho’s platform, you can create and organize folders, as well as password protect certain documents — by giving permissions to some employees and not others, you can better manage internal information security at your business. Zoho Docs provides a comprehensive cloud-based document management software that’s a good alternative to Google Docs.

Conclusion

You no longer have to email someone a document and ask them to return it as a PDF or convert it on their end. You can start a collaboration session directly from your desktop with just one click and invite someone to help you edit the document live – live collaboration – right from your desktop – no need for conversion – no redoing work. And if you’re working with multiple documents, each person will see only the documents they’re working with. So your accounting department won’t see marketing information and visa versa. There’s also chat built right into the screen so you can communicate with others