Co-editing tips to improve collaboration

Getting your teams working together on documents enhances productivity, but not if everyone’s operating in silos. Establishing robust document collaboration practices is an effective way to unify your team, reduce miscommunication, mitigate costly delays, and boost engagement. 

That’s why we’ve compiled a list of co-editing tips. Read on for new ways to enhance collaboration and improve overall efficiency at your organization. 

What is co-editing, and why do you need it? 

Co-editing is a collaborative process in which multiple people work on a document at the same time. This type of workflow involves real-time editing, allowing everyone to make changes, provide feedback, and track revisions. 

Co-editing is important because, according to an IDC survey, 38% of employees experience challenges in collaborating with internal colleagues. Without proper collaboration tools, your team will likely face such document editing obstacles. 

• Duplicated efforts and wasted time as a result of working in silos 
• Errors and oversights when document reviews aren’t collaborative 
• Low-quality content due to a lack of streamlined feedback and editing 

How to co-edit a document with your team 

Strong collaborative editing requires clear communication and the right tools. Here are the best tips to help your team co-edit more effectively. 

1. Choose a centralized document sharing platform 

Using cloud-based platforms to co-edit in real time boosts productivity and collaboration. But if your team uses multiple disjointed tools simultaneously, confusion, version control issues, and inefficiency can often occur. 

Adopt cloud document storage to create, manage, and share content from a centralized location. When choosing the right solution, focus on: 

• Easy-to-use features accessible to all team members, no matter where they are or what devices they use 
• Integrations with other apps in your tech stack so everyone can work on documents from multiple sources, like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, all in one place 

2. Protect your data with robust content controls 

Cloud platform content control settings, like access permissions, sharing roles, and password protection, reduce the likelihood of human errors that compromise document integrity and damage your reputation. Here’s how: 

• Preventing unauthorized access to files by automatically classifying content and ensuring only authorized users view and edit sensitive information 
• Restricting inappropriate distribution by controlling download permissions and preventing unauthorized sharing 
• Maintaining document version control by tracking changes to keep everyone in the loop 

Leverage document audit trails and analytics to monitor content usage at the administrator level. Detailed analytics let you see how everyone works together on a document and will quickly alert you to trends, such as excessive downloads, which could indicate a security breach. 

Plus, ensure that your editing collaboration platform includes enterprise-grade security with threat detection to keep your documents safe and compliant. 

Discover the top enterprise features of secure collaboration tools. 

3. Lean on your platform’s native collaboration features 

The features of cloud-based collaboration tools streamline how your team works together. For example: 

• Collaborative editing lets teams work on different sections of a file simultaneously, speeding up workflows 
• Enhanced visibility enables you to see who is currently editing a file and where in the document the edits are happening 
• Comments and suggestions on live documents help you reduce miscommunication and streamline content reviews 
• File locking features prevent you from saving over in-progress work or duplicating efforts 
• Tracked edits let you see who made what changes and when 
• Virtual brainstorming helps your team generate ideas and work through problems collaboratively 

Enterprise file-sharing systems simplify the secure sending of documents to clients and external stakeholders. With end-to-end encryption, data leakage prevention, and access controls, you ensure the content stays safe and in the hands only of those who need it. 

4. Simplify the collaborative process by automating workflows 

Communication keeps all collaborators on the same page. 

Suppose your copywriter has finished drafting a document and now needs to send it for revision. With enterprise workflow automation, you simplify collaboration, making the review process intuitive. Automation also keeps the project on track even if someone happens to miss an alert or forgets to tag a stakeholder manually for final review. 

Your automated workflows should address these three elements: 

• Setting document timelines that provide structure to the process so that increased collaboration doesn’t reduce productivity 
• Streamlining content reviews with notifications that ensure collaborators know when to provide feedback and your team knows when feedback is available to be actioned 
• Requesting secure electronic signatures and tracking their status so client approvals happen within timelines 

5. Keep your cloud storage organized 

An Elastic survey revealed that 60% of professionals spend more time looking for documents than replying to messages. The takeaway here is that failing to keep files properly organized significantly reduces productivity. 

When working on collaborative documents, establish guidelines for your team to follow. Beyond a style guide to ensure tone, formatting, and terminology consistency, implement file attributes such as standard naming conventions and customized metadata. For example, consider adding a date or client acronym to all your file names. Creating a uniform structure will make it easier to find documents when you need them. 

Find out how to keep your team’s cloud organized. 

Improve your collaborative document editing process with Box 

Box offers an all-in-one platform to help you establish a robust collaboration strategy. The Content Cloud centralizes your team’s content workflows, from creating and storing, to co-editing and sharing files in the cloud — anywhere and on any device. With Box, you: 

• Assign sharing roles to manage document editing 
• Lock files to prevent edits while you work on them 
• Track all edits with version history features 

Our enterprise-grade security features — like granular permissions and classification-based access controls, user authentication, and vector-based watermarking — ensure you keep everyone on the same page while maintaining the integrity of your content. 

Contact us and let’s discuss how to enhance and secure your document collaboration with Box. 

While we maintain our steadfast commitment to offering products and services with best-in-class privacy, security, and compliance, the information provided in this blog post is not intended to constitute legal advice. We strongly encourage prospective and current customers to perform their own due diligence when assessing compliance with applicable laws.