Cloud Filing

Hello again.

I’ve talked a little about going paperless in my last post, so this time I want to give you some ideas on resources when it comes to shifting your filing system online. No more file boxes, ringbinders, Codex files, shelves, filing cabinets, you name it! Seem like an impossible dream? A little scary?

Good! Get scared and keep reading. I’m pretty sure you’ll just be excited by the end (winking).

Here are four of the more well known systems out there, by no means comprehensive or the last word of course, just the ones I know something about to date.

How you use them will decide on the size and budget of your business. All I can do is encourage you to read up on each of these yourself and know that an investment now will mean way more productive hours in the future. If your business is tiny sized there is a free version that will be all you need! If you are worried about security and losing stuff, read up on the risks first but each of these have world class security and storage systems. (I will talk about online risks and how to mitigate them in my next post.)

Evernote:

I have been using this system for my own personal and business files for quite a while now. I love it! It is user friendly, plenty of scope for categorizing, tagging things with multiple categories if it doesn’t fit into just one, and a simple search will find the one you want (instead of searching through concertina files or fileboxes which is what we had before at home!) You can keep projects in a separate ‘notebook’ to your usual business or personal stuff. It is a master of internet clipping, so anything that can be viewed on the internet can be ‘clipped’ and saved wherever you want. This function adds into your browser window and is there at a click – so convenient! You can share and discuss with staff or clients, and you can sync across phones and computers.

For larger businesses you will want to use the Evernote Plus or Premium versions – more work space and features galore – check them out here: Evernote

Office365/OneDrive:

For Microsoft fans (or even not!) this is the ultimate business platform, and OneDrive has business versions at very low monthly costs. OneDrive is built into Windows 8.1 and comes free – you can learn how to get started with it here.

I used the home version for a while and have used the business version when working for a medium sized business (240 clients) and it worked well. Especially as we had staff all over the country who could log in from wherever they were. As long as everyone kept their files in the cloud, the information you need for your client is always on hand. (This is the key for all of these platforms – making sure all staff use it!) The business version can be viewed here and also look at the blog on this site which will provide the best picture for you as to how it could be implemented as other businesses share their success stories: OneDrive Customer Success

Google Drive:

Microsoft’s biggest competitor in the cloud filing market is Google Drive – many schools have been using this platform to share files and access them from anywhere as well as many businesses both large and small. I have the free home version and a very small business could operate on this alone. I use it to sync personal files across my laptop to computer without the files being actually loaded onto the laptop, so that I don’t end up with two versions of files on two computers (my son’s genius idea). It is very good for collaborative environments as “you can quickly invite others to view, download, and collaborate on all the files you want–no email attachment needed.”

Read all about it and get excited about the Google cloud

DropBox:

I am currently using DropBox as a means of file storage for my own professional development courses. As a business tool it requires your clients or colleagues to have a login and then you can decide what to share with them (e.g. I could share important business tips that only my clients will be able to access), or individually drop their reports or other files requested to them. In turn they can drop off information to you. That way it doesn’t get mixed up with all the other emails and it arrives in the format needed for filing.

This is all free and suits me well. You can work on presentations and send folks videos or anything without them needing a login too.

See how it works for business here: DropBox

There are dozens of other online filing and business systems out there you can easily research or look into. The key attributes are – not having to have the software installed on each computer or pay large annual fees for, not having just one person or organisation able to provide support for the system (i.e. there IS online help from multiple sources including forums), easy to use but also secure, able to access from anywhere at any time and by phone/tablet as well.

Do let me know if you use another system you are happy with (or not happy with!) or come across something new.