How I Automated My Daily Routine With One App
By: Collabio
Tags: Effectiveness, Collaboration, Office, Office Automation

Hi guys! Today, we decided to share a story of our subscriber who kindly agreed to become our interviewee and shared her experience of using Collabio! :)

My name is Alice, I’m a Content Lead at a fintech project under NDA, and I’ve been dealing with office suits all my life. Even when I was studying at the university, I had to process gigabytes of content every month. Back in 2007 it was extremely difficult. We haven’t had all those tools we have now. Let me tell you how it was before and what I do now to automate routine work. In the end, you’ll discover how to save up to 4 hours per day by omitting those boring time-consuming activities. ;)

More than 10 Years Ago, Great Results Demanded Much Time

In 2010, we exchanged documents via email. All the content production took place on my laptop and then I had to e-mail copies of documents. As far as I remember, there was the Google Docs app and they even offered some collaboration features. However, not many people used it, which may seem strange, as almost all my acquaintances had Gmail accounts! It was very slow and there were problems with export of documents. If you opened several documents at once, it was a disaster, even the newest MacBook didn’t cope. I bet you hate slow work too. So did I. It was faster to create a document in a desktop app and e-mail a copy, at that time I used MS Word.

What do you think it resulted in?

A mess in the inbox.

Confusion of document versions.

Complete chaos in edits from different people.

So, which option are you betting on?

The correct answer is… All of the above was happening and caused constant delays. I had to collect everyone’s comments and edits, then sort out the versions, send the correct one to everyone… I still cringe thinking of it! Sometimes it took long hours to “come to a common denominator”.

Creating content was quite a tough challenge! Naturally I have a strong feeling of responsibility, so I always made sure to send the final cut in time, but all the efforts and resources needed for that — they were just HUGE!

The Era of Collaboration

Time passed, new tools appeared, people became used to the Internet and even my grandpa switched to online. Evolving collaboration tools were my salvation. After graduating from the university where I created far more than a required minimum of 500 documents (including short speeches, presentations, abstracts, reports, scientific papers, term papers, theses, and even scientific articles), I started my content work.

Everything I did was content-related, so if I had to use emails to exchange documents, my work would take me 12 hours per day instead of 8.

Content production became easier, we could make a single flow with colleagues. I sent them a link, they made edits and left comments, then I could see who made the changes and accept or decline them. We forgot about the messes in the inbox and were happy with the new way.

Google Docs was my main tool for a while, but then I had to switch to Office 365, as Google’s tools didn’t provide so much security and privacy for NDA projects that contained a handful of sensitive information. However, those tools were tangled and cluttered.

I had to explain to every new employee how to share a link to a document, as the interface was not very user-friendly and intuitive. Some newcomers even didn’t know that there was such a feature!

how to share a link to a document, as the interface was not very user-friendly and intuitive. Some newcomers even didn’t know that there was such a feature! Some glitches interfered with collaboration — a document would freeze and lose the changes. Anyway, we were still happy that it didn’t happened too often.

— a document would freeze and lose the changes. Anyway, we were still happy that it didn’t happened too often. Privacy and confidentiality were higher but not the best. Financial and legal documents (contracts, account reports, etc) were still sent by email, like in good old times.

Around that time we had to digitise documents through a large machine — we scanned and e-mailed them and only then we could use them on a computer. It took time, as there was no software to connect scanners to office suits and every time you had to sign a document, you couldn’t do it in software as well. So, every day, when our sales managers signed contracts with clients, we had to do all this procedure — sign, scan, send, save as PDF. :)

At least, we could collaborate online and keep all the documents in one place.

New All-in-One Collaboration Tools

In October 2020 my colleagues found out about Collabio Spaces. At first, it seemed to be just an app for fast scanning and keeping some documents in it. In a month, we learned how to use the ad-hoc collaboration technology and now we’re using their cloud solution on Mac too.

Why did we decide to use this app?

First of all, it can fully replace both Google Docs and Office 365, which it has done for us. My content team and I needed a simple and user-friendly solution to create stylish text documents with images and spreadsheets for reports. Text editor and spreadsheets have the same features and perform well on both my iPhone and MacBook.

which it has done for us. My content team and I needed a simple and user-friendly solution to create stylish text documents with images and spreadsheets for reports. Text editor and spreadsheets have the same features and perform well on both my iPhone and MacBook. I enjoy the mobile office. It has unique features that a desktop version doesn’t have, and since I have my phone with me all the time, it is super convenient. The mobile Collabio Spaces app includes a mobile scanner (I don’t have to email scanned documents from a multifunctional printer), e-signatures for signing documents and even audio-comments to text files. Btw, the latter saves me a lot of time, as it is much faster than typing comments to the colleague’s. Now I can say a couple of words to convey the sense to them and save it.

It has unique features that a desktop version doesn’t have, and since I have my phone with me all the time, it is super convenient. The mobile Collabio Spaces app includes a mobile scanner (I don’t have to email scanned documents from a multifunctional printer), e-signatures for signing documents and even audio-comments to text files. Btw, the latter saves me a lot of time, as it is much faster than typing comments to the colleague’s. Now I can say a couple of words to convey the sense to them and save it. Collaboration is another great advantage. We collaborate within one office, and use ad-hoc collaboration technology, which is limited to one’s device’s hot-spot power. It is very convenient when it comes to co-editing contracts with lawyers or getting approvals from the boss, who is sitting in the next room. I also see who made the changes and can either keep or decline them.

We collaborate within one office, and use ad-hoc collaboration technology, which is limited to one’s device’s hot-spot power. It is very convenient when it comes to co-editing contracts with lawyers or getting approvals from the boss, who is sitting in the next room. I also see who made the changes and can either keep or decline them. Privacy is one more huge benefit. We now can keep calm and know that no one can access the file if they are not authorized. The owner of the documents is the one who decides with whom to share the passcode to the document. And only those who have it can access the necessary document.

I like spaces, created by Collabio team, they are basically advanced folders, though I don’t use them on a daily basis. I’m waiting until the access levels will be added, then we will be able to use them at a full capacity.

As you can see, I don’t send documents via email anymore, don’t travel across different rooms throughout the working day to visit colleagues and the scanner/printer.