Document Management in Google Drive

A document management system (DMS) is software that helps you store, share, track and collaborate with various documents - both online and offline digital files.

Organizations use DMS to make it easier for their employees to access relevant documents, track changes and make requests for updates.

The main features of a DMS include:

• File storage
• Version control & audit trail
• Access permissions
• Advanced sharing options

Can Google Drive be used as a document management system?

Google Drive is an excellent option for people who need a simple DMS for their documents.

For starters, Google Drive is part of the Google Workspace suite which includes Google Docs, Sheets and Slides. This native document creation suite provides you with out-of-the box tools for different types of documents with a tight integration with each other and Google Drive.

Additionally, Google Workspace has the following features for document management:

• File storage. Google Drive includes plenty of cloud storage with a powerful search for all of your documents and files.
• Access permissions. Google Drive offers strong permissions for editing, viewing, commenting on, and sharing documents.
• Version control and audit trail. See all of the changes made to a document and revert back to a specific point in time.
• Real-time collaboration. Edit, comment and communicate in real time on any Google document.
• Workflow automation. Use 3rd party add-ons or create your own workflow script to automate actions for your documents.
• Advanced tools for documents, such as Document AI which “ extracts data from, classifies, and splits documents through a suite of pretrained models or through Workbench custom models. Finally, it uses Warehouse to search and store documents.“

Why you should use  google drive

Google Drive is the obvious choice for most organizations when it comes to a DMS. It offers several advantages beyond the basic DMS features mentioned above.

Google Drive is part of Google Workspace and includes a very tight integration with Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Gmail, YouTube and the very large Google Workspace ecosystem/

There’s no lock-in if you’re already a Google Workspace user. Many other DMS require you to store your documents with them which can lock you into their platform.

Google Drive is affordable as it’s part of Google Workspace which is often less expensive than a traditional DMS.

Why Neatly completes the Google Drive DMS

Google Drive gives you a great DMS but adding Neatly to it gives you by far the best experience for document organization and collaboration.

Neatly is a digital asset manager built on Google Drive. It makes it easy to find and share all of your online files and links, especially those stored on Google Drive. With Neatly, you can aggregate every shareable file & link (from Google Drive, Dropbox, figma, etc.), manage permissions and avoid the clutter every Google Drive user suffers from.

Advantages of using Neatly DAM + Google Drive DMS

One of the advantages of using Neatly is that you can curate files & links for each team in your organization. Team members will only see files that are relevant to them when they view their Neatly dashboard.

You can easily create a client portal using Neatly. Simply create a Neatly category or project and invite a client to it. Then add your Google Drive documents and the client will be able to find all of their documents, files, and links in one place.

The majority of files and documents we create are only needed for a short period of time. Neatly has a project management feature designed to organize those temporary files and remove them once you’re done.

Some examples of using Neatly on top of Google Drive

• Content management system for work-in-progress content
• Client management or portal
• Storing media mentions, press releases and testimonials
• Creating team-oriented document and file portals for marketing, sales, design, operations, human resources, etc.

Conclusion

Document management in google drive is very powerful and provides all of the basic DMS needs you may have. 

Using it alongside Neatly gives you the complete DMS package at a fraction of the cost of traditional document management systems.

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