Web Collaboration provides a friendly and secure space for your group to capture and organize files today. But as important, it will help your group to retain knowledge and keep a history of past projects. This content is extremely valuable, and Web Collaboration can help you put it to work.
Here a four quick tips to put your content to work that are easy to learn and that you will find valuable:
1. TAGGING
Use the tag cloud to build a consistent taxonomy
When starting a new discussion or uploading a file, add two or three relevant tag words. Tagging your content will make it easy for your group to find discussions and files using the search tool located in the header of your site.
When typing a new tag word, the system will save it into your tag cloud. So the next time that someone from your group adds a new discussion or file, they will simply click the relevant words from the cloud to tag their content. The more a word is used, the bigger that it will appear in the tag cloud.
This will help ensure that everyone in your group is using the same taxonomy and spelling when tagging words. It will make your content easily searchable as your group builds a history of projects, files and discussions.
2. SEARCHES
Find content quickly from any page within your site
Use the search box on your siteʼs header to quickly find content and action items produced by your group. When searching for a word or phrase, the system will return results by looking through tag words, discussions, file names, projects and tasks.
If you have access to a dashboard (because you are part of multiple group sites), a search box will also be available. Making a search from your dashboard will return results from all your group sites.
The importance of the search capability in Web Collaboration was highlighted in a recent article by TJ McCue of SmallBizTrends.com
“What I liked about this product was its powerful search options. You don’t always remember what a project was named or who was in it, but with a robust search tool, you can easily find it.”
3. PROJECTS
Link discussions and files to existing projects
When you create a discussion or upload a new file, you have the option to save your content as a stand-alone or link it to an existing project. By doing the latter, the content that you link to a project will also be available to other users from the project page, centralizing all the relevant project information on one page.
4. DASHBOARD
Use your dashboard to communicate with multiple groups
If you are a member of multiple groups, you get access to a dashboard that consolidates recent activities across all your sites.
The dashboard is also very useful to communicate with multiple groups at once. If you need to post a message or upload a file to multiple group sites, just look for the “Add a new message” or “Add a new file” link on the right-hand side of your dashboard.
Before you publish your message or save your file, check the names of the groups that should receive your new content. There is no need to visit each site separately to share the same message or file.
