Your team doesn't need to deal with complicated, expensive collaboration tools just to work together on a document.
All you need is Fwd:Vault and an email address. Done.
Other collaboration technologies require custom software and hardware, which your team has to learn and possibly install/configure on their own. These roadblocks only waste time and increase costs. To make matters worse, the biggest offenders include complicated security profiles, which have a bad habit of blocking anyone not positioned next to the IT office.
Since people always seem to fall back on email when these "solutions" invariably fail, we thought:
"Why not start with what works, and build up from there?"
Email and the web are the most pervasive platforms for digital communication on the planet. Fwd:Vault leverages their untapped power to provide all the functions and abilities outlined above.
By radically reducing the effort required to manage an online collaboration effort, you can simply get to work, instead of dealing with the IT department. Your team doesn't need to learn new technologies or install software. They don't even have to create an account!
Stop wasting time re-learning how to work together. Use Fwd:Vault and get back to work!
Create a new file
A file in Fwd:Vault represents the document upon which you and your team will collaborate. A Fwd:Vault file will ultimately contain lots of individual revisions submitted by you and your team.
You can create a new file from any page by clicking the "New File" tab at the top after logging in. From there it's 1-2-3...
1. Give it a title
Assign a unique, descriptive name to your file. Downloads are automatically named according to your chosen title.
2. Choose a team email
The team email address is unique to your file. Team members can email their revisions as attachments to this address. This means authors can submit revisions from any device that sends email, no additional software or hardware required.
3. Pick a filetype
The filetype is your way of ensuring that your team submits the right file, and our way of filtering out superfluous email attachments, like signature images. Only uploads and attachments with a file extension matching the chosen file type will be added as new revisions.
Example: A file with "Microsoft Word" filetype will accept files ending with ".doc" and ".docx"
Add your team members
The person who creates a file — called the owner — can invite other people to contribute to their file. These additional contributors are called authors. Only recognized authors may submit revisions using the file's team email address.
Enter their email address
You can invite additional authors to contribute to your file by entering their email address from the author management page. New authors will receive an email notice confirming the invitation, and may begin submitting new revisions right away.
Authors do not need to create an account on Fwd:Vault in order to contribute to a file. As long as you identify the email address of an author, that person may contribute. The process for adding new authors is the same whether a person has a Fwd:Vault account or not.
Perks for having an account
Authors that choose to create a free Fwd:Vault account gain additional functionality:
| Registered Users |
Unregistered Email |
| May submit revisions from multiple email addresses. |
May only submit revisions from identified email address. |
| May submit revisions and receive notifications via txt message. |
No txt functionality. |
| May alter or stop revision notifications. |
Cannot alter notifications. |
| May upload revisions directly through website. |
May only submit revisions using team email address. |
| Download any saved revision through website. |
Only receives revisions via notification email. |
Authors can sign up any time
Authors without a Fwd:Vault account can choose to create one at any time — for free — regardless of their current author status (attached to none/one/lots of filess).
Creating an account grants immediate access to the benefits outlined above. Existing files attached to their email address will be carried over automatically.
Submit & track revisions
The file owner may submit revisions as soon as the file is created; authors can get started as soon as they are associated with the file. There are two ways to submit revisions:
1. Attachment to team email address
A file's team email address accepts file attachments from all registered authors. Incoming messages from unrecognized email addresses are automatically discarded. The filetype (set by the owner) filters out bogus attachments and fluffy email content, like signature images.
2. Upload via website (registered users only)
Each file homepage has an upload link, allowing authors to skip the email. Filetype filtering applies to uploads the same way as the team email (the file extension must match).
Only authors with a Fwd:Vault account can upload new revisions directly from the website.
Keeping up with changes
There are three ways for a team to access the revision history for a file, keeping them in sync:
- The file homepage includes a direct link to download the latest revision.
- The file homepage has another link to view and download all the latest revision submissions.
- An email is sent out to the team with each new revision. Registered authors have the option to include/omit the latest revision as an attachment on the notification message, or disable the message entirely.
NOTE: The first two options require a full Fwd:Vault account, so unregistered authors automatically receive the notification email with the revision attached.
Share your work others
When you are ready to distribute your file to others outside your team, you can create a Public Share for your file. A public share provides you with a unique, globally-accessible URL for your file. Click the "Public Shares" link from the file homepage to view and create shares.
There are just two questions to answer when creating a share:
- Use the title of the file to name the share, or give the share a unique title.
- Set the share to always download the latest revision of your file, or a specific revision.
Shares come from a unique shortened domain, fwdv.co, allowing your URL's to fit better on Twitter and generally saving you typing. The distinct part of your share URL comes after the last slash "/" and is cAsE-SEnsITivE.
The following example URL's would all lead to different files:
- http://fwdv.co/FGH123
- http://fwdv.co/fgh123
- http://fwdv.co/FgH123
