No common approach to collaboration
Free for up to 20 users, Commons from Perforce is a new collaboration tool that claims the ability to keep track of version management for a wide range of document types, including Microsoft Word and PowerPoint
It has been designed to assist with document collaboration issues, such as merging multiple edits into a single document or confusion over the most current version of a file.
The company has conducted its own survey of 1,004 knowledge workers in the United States and United Kingdom which found that document collaboration problems in the workplace are pervasive, frustrating and the cause of costly productivity issues—even when document sharing tools are in place.
Commons includes tools to track if a file has been edited, moved, deleted or altered; who made the change; what version that person was working on; when the change was made and why.
It can automatically merge different versions of a Word or PowerPoint file into a single clean document or presentation.
"We've found that version management issues are the cause of most collaboration problems,” said Christopher Seiwald, CEO and founder of Perforce.
“And yet none of the existing approaches for document collaboration put enough emphasis on doing versioning the right way. Having solved these sort of problems for developers working in the world's most complex collaboration environments, we're now glad to extend our expertise to business users working on everyday documents. Commons gives them an easy way to take the conflict out of collaborating on any type of file."
Commons is available as an on-premise or hosted solution. Pricing starts at $US12 per month above 20 users.