I confess. I’m a ‘inbox-filler-upper-er’. Or at least I was... It gets the best of everyone, even those who work in an IT support services company.
Emailing attachments was my forte, I did it all the time.
But I like to think that I’m not alone here. Like most, I’m often working on content-rich documents, presentations, spreadsheets, articles, graphics and so on, that require feedback, comment and approval from our team.
And, up until now, I’d gather this team-wide input by doing what I was best at…
But these weren’t your typical lightweight attachments. These are big – and really inconvenient - multi-page files with several variations that take a lifetime to send and consume your recipient’s data – and time - for fun.
Oh, and if my files were too large to send – I wouldn’t panic. I’d just compress them into a convenient .zip file right before I’d:
But it was a pain for everyone. Comments would come through at different times, there were long email threads to track and multiple versions of the files to manage. And you never quite knew if the document you were working on was the latest version.
After one too many emails, that was the message I received from James, our MD. And it’s changed my day to day and the way we collaborate ever since.
Like many organisations, we use Office 365. Which means you get access to OneDrive – a cloud sync service that allows you to store your data in Microsoft’s cloud environment, so you can access your stuff from any device, anywhere and anytime.
But it’s way more than just a convenient way to store your syn data. OneDrive gives you the ability to share documents, get feedback and work on files - with multiple users – all at the same time.
Working with your Microsoft 365 documents in OneDrive even lets you access previous versions of your documents, so you can recover information that’s been inadvertently deleted by you or another team member. It’s simple and easy to use too. Take a look:
Note: While OneDrive is a lot of things, a backup solution is not one of them - read why here.
Better still, using OneDrive means you’ll never have to:
Oh, and all you have to do is save your documents in your OneDrive folder and share a link. You can even do it right within Outlook. And here’s how.
Your recipients will receive a link to your file where they can view your documents, leave comments, and work on the content at the same time as everyone else.
In short, sharing links is simple, quick and easy. Inboxes are lighter, collaboration is easier and file management is hassle-free.
Oh, and from one ‘inbox filler-upper-er’ to another, if you haven’t already, I highly recommend giving it a go. Your inbox - and your boss – will thank you for it.