For a startup organization where processes are unheard of and writing emails is like asking the newly arrived “PK” (an alien character from a Bollywood comedy flick) to talk in earthly language Hindi, asking employees to document everything that they do is a huge task. Innovative ideas keep floating at in almost every discussion from all enthusiastic employees, but thankfully all of my engineering colleagues understand the importance of documenting not only the requirement and design docs but all the important discussions reaching a concrete conclusion.
A big factor taken into consideration when implementing any initiative across the whole organization is cost and budget, in such scenarios Google sites (Part of Google Apps) comes to the rescue of startups. Using Google sites employees can keep uploading their documents with restricted access maintaining the confidentiality and security aspect of any organization.
Be it creating simple HTML pages or uploading docs, all features are simply available for use even by a novice. One can even customize the site by uploading a profile pic or company logo. Ready templates do make life easy and give a head start.
One use case at Inuxu is maintaining the checklists, standard operating procedures followed in various departments, storing the design document up to the requirements, test cases and test results by the QA team. One can simply upload the excel file or word doc, but then you miss out on the search features that can be the saviour in case you want to find docs based on “keywords”, that’s where storing in HTML form is preferred by some. So make an informed choice of storing your docs as needed.
Some quick wish-list items would be:
- Multilevel filtering
- Export and import to other tools like OpenWiki
- Email Alerts when quota exceeded.
So simply go ahead and create your company website or create a project site for your team without writing a single piece of code and Happy Collaborating! Enthusiasts who are curious to find out more about Google Sites and other such tools can visit this link and make your hands dirty with different tools.