Technology integrators face a challenge managing all of the files related to a project. On any given project, team members manage and share numerous files of many file types, including Excel, Word, Visio, PowerPoint and PDF. Recently, we discussed some best practices for managing project files.
SalesDoc Architect (SDA) – our configuration, pricing and document generation solution – has long AUTOMATED the process of naming quote files and saving them to a folder structure, including auto-creating folders according to a client-defined folder schema. SDA has also been able to auto-save files to a network location and, if the network is not available, to instead save quote files to the user’s local drive.
The shortcoming of this approach is that if the user is offline and the files are saved to their local drive, either the user needs to manually copy thele(s) to the shared network location or a sync process has to be set up to automatically copy the files to the network location.
Our new offline/online file management functionality has enabled us to overcome that shortcoming. With our new offline/online file management functionality,…
- Quote files are always auto-saved to the local drive (i.e., they’re never saved directly to a network location). That means file saving is always very fast.
- When the user is “online” with the network location, SDA will copy the file to the network location and auto-create folders (if necessary) based on the client-defined folder schema.
- When the user closes the locally-saved file, SDA will DELETE that file from the local drive, ensuring that there is only ONE copy of the file (i.e., in the network location).
We’ve also added the ability to auto-save OUTPUT files in the same way that quote files can be auto-saved. Just like quote files, output files (Excel, Word and PDF) will be transferred from the user’s local drive – where they’re initially saved – to the shared network location.
The benefits of the new functionality are numerous…
- Instantaneously auto-save quote and output files. No more typing in file names or searching for (or creating) the folders into which the files are saved.
- Auto-place all quote and output files in logical project folders. Now you can find all project-related files in one place.
- Share project files with other team members – rather than storing them on local hard drives – so that team members can collaborate on the project files.
- Open quote files via SDA Cloud, assuming the user has access to the corporate network drive or cloud-based drive (via a service like DriveHQ) where the quote files are stored.
- Maintain a single set of quote and output files in the shared file location.
Setting up the new offline/online file management functionality is super-easy. Simply install or update the SDA Cloud application on user PCs, then define your automatic file-saving scheme if you haven’t already done so.
To learn more about SDA’s offline/online file management, be sure to check out our webinar, “Turbocharge Your File Management with SalesDoc Architect.”.
For more information on this blog post or any other CorsPro functionality, please email us.