Team collaboration is non-negotiable for organizational success.
But when team members are in tune with each other, they can work together with combined synergy and execute large projects on time. To promote knowledge sharing in the workplace, simply having a powerful strategy is not enough.
You also need the support of strong document collaboration tools that can help teams work under one roof with minimum friction and maximum clarity. Such a tool will help your employees collaborate on documents, making learning and working together a lot easier.
However, with the market replete with powerful tools, choosing one can be a cumbersome task.
To help you with that, we have listed the 7 best document collaboration tools along with their top features and pricing.
Let’s begin.
What Are Document Collaboration Tools?
Document collaboration tools offer a platform for collaboration, where multiple employees can work together and share feedback on a single platform. They can make edits, updates, track changes, and control article versions. It also allows users to add comments and mention colleagues, paving the way for collaborative content creation.
Online Documentation software also offers customization options to keep your content brand-aligned. In addition to this, it provides detailed insights into how effective the content is in solving employees’ problems.
Significance of Online Document Collaboration Tools
More than 50% of US employees state that their job is reliant on collaboration. This is precisely why you need to adopt the right online document collaboration tools.
The right document collaboration software can bring multiple benefits to your business, such as
Builds a Collaborative Work Culture
Studies show that top-performing employees spend 45% of their time collaborating. Collaboration is indeed an essential aspect that can help your employees grow. A powerful document collaboration tool can bolster team collaboration by giving employees a common space to share knowledge, give feedback on articles, and work together on projects.
Smoothens the Knowledge Sharing Process
A document collaboration tool allows teams across departments to share their knowledge within the organization, experiences, and insights on a single platform. It keeps the chaos of email threads at bay and makes information sharing easy and quick. It also provides instant access to modified and older versions of articles so your employees don’t have to keep asking for updates.
Read More: Internal Documentation: How to Create, Tips & Examples
Increases Team Productivity
With a collaborative documentation tool, you will notice your team productivity taking a positive turn. Employees do not have to waste hours scrambling for information across scattered documents. They can access all that they need from a single platform, which ultimately adds to their productivity.
Read more: Effective Ways to Improve Workplace Efficiency
Supports Remote Teams
A document collaboration tool doesn’t require employees to be physically present in the office to contribute to a project. The tool allows them to access documents remotely, collaborate with colleagues, and work from anywhere.
Promotes Positive Decision-Making
Employees turn into better decision-makers when they have the necessary information right at their fingertips. Whether it is subject matter expertise, client details, product details, or data about a previous project, employees can quickly get the information they need to make smarter decisions.
Key Features of the Best Document Collaboration Tools
The market is ripe with numerous document collaboration tools, which can make the selection process challenging and tedious. Knowing the best features to look out for can make your job a tiny bit easier.
Here are the notable features that the best document collaboration tools must have:
Real-time Collaboration
Modern document collaboration tools allow multiple users to work together on articles in a streamlined way. They can take up different roles, such as contributors, editors, and administrators, to collaborate and work in sync with each other.
Revision History & Version Control
This feature allows you to view the document’s previous versions and restore changes if required. This way you can access previous work and even track changes regularly.
Ability to Embed Media
The document collaboration software should allow you to add media such as images, GIFs, videos, slides, diagrams, tables, and more to the articles.
Searchability
The tool should be equipped with powerful search functionality that pulls up accurate information matching the search query of users.
Comments & User Mentions
Users should be able to add comments within articles and notify colleagues with user mentions. This boosts real-time document collaboration.
Mobile Accessibility
Accessibility across all mobile devices empowers employees to access and contribute to files anytime, and from anywhere.
Document Performance Reports
The tool should provide in-depth insights into how employees are using the document, which articles are getting the most views, and which ones need to be improved. Such a reporting system helps in the continuous improvement of content quality.
Content Review & Approval
Thorough review of all articles is important for the final output to be flawless. The ideal tool should offer features for setting workflow status for articles so they can be reviewed and published on time.
External Integrations
Integrations help in expanding the capabilities of a tool. The right tool should seamlessly integrate with project management, analytics, and collaboration software.
Top 7 Document Collaboration Tools
We have prepared a list of the best document collaboration tools, along with the features and pricing of each. Go through each of them, compare their functionality and make a well-informed decision.
ProProfs Knowledge Base
Pricing: Starts at $30/month.
ProProfs Knowledge Base is a real-time document collaboration software with stellar features that helps you create, organize and share online documentation with your employees. It allows multiple authors to work together, track article changes, and share feedback from one single platform.
With 40+ ready-to-use documentation templates, your team can easily build online documentation without the hassles of structuring and formatting. The tool is fully customizable and allows you to tailor the content just the way you want. Besides this, ProProfs Knowledge Base integrates beautifully with tools like Slack, Jira, Google Analytics, and many others, making the overall user experience even more amazing.
Key Features:
- Write and edit articles easily with an MS Word-like editor
- Boost collaboration among users by assigning roles and permissions
- Create content effortlessly with beautifully designed templates
- Track previous changes and revert to previous document versions
- Gain detailed insights into article performance and relevance with built-in reports
- Integrates with third-party tools to provide a better user experience
- Maintain document security with access controls and single sign-on
Google Docs
Pricing: Starts at $12/user/month
Google Docs is a cloud-based tool with powerful formatting capabilities. It resembles a modern word processor that is a part of Google Workplace. Users can easily import data, start working on a task and invite people to contribute through a shareable link.
The tool assists your employees in writing faster and better with Smart Compose — a Google docs feature for grammar and spelling suggestions, quick translations, and voice typing. With offline editing as an option, Google Docs helps you reduce downtime, so you can work even without an internet connection. The tool also uses add-ons for e-signatures, project management, and more.
Key Features:
- Bring life to content with powerful formatting features
- Share files easily with the click of a button
- Edit even when you are out of coverage with offline editing
- Write faster and better with Smart Compose
- Improve productivity with add-ones
Read more: 10 Best Google Docs Alternatives for 2023
Dropbox Paper
Pricing: Starts at $9.99/month.
Dropbox Paper provides a central platform for your team to securely share documents, manage data, and collaborate on tasks. The tool lets multiple users simultaneously edit content, add comments, control version history, and mention users in a single document.
It is entirely cloud-based and works great for remote teams. The easy-to-use admin controls let your employees easily access and navigate through important company knowledge.
Whether you want to communicate in Slack or start a Zoom meeting, you can easily do so by securely integrating the tool with any external software of your choice. You also get pre-built templates that are carefully designed, keeping in mind the requirements of different teams like Marketing, HR, Creative, etc.
Key Features:
- Navigate the tool smoothly with easy admin controls
- Work with third-party apps using external integrations
- Organize content in no time using prebuilt templates
- Effortlessly share documents with colleagues
- Work efficiently with a simple and clutter-free interface
Microsoft Word
Pricing: Starts at $6/user/month.
The most popular tool of the lot, Microsoft Word is excellent for document collaboration. The first version of this word processor tool is more than three decades old and is still adding value to the life of its users.
The tool comes with a single-click translation feature that lets users across the globe collaborate seamlessly, thus breaking language barriers and promoting a diverse work environment. You can also insert 3D models to enhance your reports, presentations, and other such documents.
If your employees are continuously switching tabs, it can cause them to lose focus — Microsoft Word addresses this issue with the Task Pane. This feature allows users to research and write simultaneously on the same screen.
That’s not all. MS Word is a mobile-friendly tool that offers top-notch formatting and editing features to allow maximum usability.
Key Features:
- Edit easily with a top-notch editor
- Access files from anywhere with a mobile-friendly platform
- Avoid distractions with the Task Pane
- Enhance your reports by inserting 3D models
- Learn effectively with single-click translations
Zoho Docs
Pricing: Starts at $3/user/month.
Zoho Docs is a popular document collaboration software that can be used to share knowledge and work together on documents of any size. It features an advanced editor with loads of formatting options. The sharing options allow you to share files, co-author articles, and share feedback with team members.
The Tasks feature enables you to assign tasks to employees and keep track of who is working on what. Once a task is complete, the task owner receives a dashboard notification and an email.
The high-end security standards of this tool let you share files and collaborate without the fear of malware and viruses. The ease of operation makes organizing documents in folders and workspaces effortless. This tool also features a built-in chat for real-time collaboration.
Key Features:
- Share and store critical information worry-free with this highly secure tool
- Use custom layouts to quickly add and organize content
- Edit better with the advanced text editor
- Find information faster with an easy-to-use interface
- Access documents from anywhere with the mobile-friendly platform
Box
Pricing: Starts at $14.93/user/month
Box is a secure live collaboration and document-sharing tool. This tool offers internal and external file editing and allows for unlimited document storage in Box Drive. The text editor is modern and features color-coded comments and notations.
If you specifically need a tool with maximum integration options, Box is the right choice. The collaboration tool lets you integrate with Office 365, Slack, Zoom, and over 1400 third-party tools. It even lets you make video calls from the platform via Zoom.
Box smoothly executes the job of document collaboration and offers the highest number of integrations among all the tools listed here.
Key Features:
- The tool allows for the highest number of third-party integrations
- Create and edit content with a modern text editor
- Get familiar with the tool in no time with a user-friendly interface
- Video call colleagues via Zoom integration
- Effortlessly share content with a single click
ClickUp
Pricing: Starts at $5/member/month.
ClickUp is a popular project management software that offers a multitude of document collaboration features through its built-in editing tool — Docs.
With Docs, you can easily create files and share access with other users for collaboration. The tool lets you know when a user views, edits, or shares feedback on the file. It also lets you track changes by respective authors.
The editor has vivid formatting options, and the documents created are synced in real-time to ensure the same version is accessible by everyone. Users can also import data from external sources like Evernote or MS Word.
Key Features:
- Create engaging content with rich formatting features
- Share files easily with colleagues
- Ensure everyone is on the same page with real-time sync
- Never lose any changes with Autosave
- Review and restore older versions of a file with Version control
Promote Teamwork With the Right Document Collaboration Tool
Gone are the days of long email chains, disengaged team members, and high administration costs. Now we have digital solutions for almost every problem.
Document collaboration used to be such a challenge some years back, but the advancement of technology changed the scenario completely.
Today, there are tons of document collaboration tools on the market that promise effective document creation and management. However, not every tool can fit your business needs. To make the right choice, it’s crucial to look out for the right features such as text editor, reporting, searchability, and third-party integrations.
Keeping an eye out for such features will ensure that the tool you pick gets the job done. The tools mentioned above are each unique in their own ways. Jot down your requirements, compare the best document collaboration tools, and then go for the one that can genuinely add value to your business.
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