Worldox has just released the ability to integrate with Teams. The basic integration package is simple: you export a Worldox document to Teams (either by copying it or checking it out, which means that the document would not be editable in Worldox). After the document has been worked on in Teams you can then import it back to Worldox, either as a version of the original document (best practice) or copying it over the original.
There are basically two scenarios here. First, you can use Teams as a client portal to transfer documents to clients and to receive and upload client documents to Worldox. This is obviously more secure than email. When sending documents, you can also message team members with notifications, requests, etc.
Second, you can edit the documents in Teams collaboratively. With actual offices dispersed and people working from home, this may be an increasingly attractive option.
What are some of the issues with the integration?
First, obviously, the client/recipient has to have Teams. While this is increasingly common in a business/law firm environment, individual clients may not have Teams.
The Worldox integration is lacking a key feature, namely the ability to create comments about the document (who worked on it, etc.) when importing a document back into Worldox. This feature is supposed to be added in the near future.
There are no management features within Worldox to control or track the Teams users at the firm have created. Although it is quite understandable that Worldox didn’t want to get into the business of managing a sprawling Microsoft product, the end result is a chaotic free for all. Management features are available only from within Teams. There is no way for the firm to determine centrally what teams have been created in Worldox.
The two features within Teams that firms might want to implement most frequently are, first, the creation of centralized groups, so that when a Team is created, instead of each user having to manually add several people as team members in multiple operations, they could add a defined group. Groups must be created in Teams administration: end users cannot create groups. Secondly, a firm might want to restrict who has the ability to create Teams. This must also be done through Teams administration.
In short, implementing Teams will require a fair investment of IT time and training in order to optimize the Worldox integration.
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