Teamwork challenges: Secure document collaboration

Lucy Hilton 17 Nov 2023

From start to finish, a single document could pass through dozens of people, several teams and even a few time zones. A lot could go wrong on that journey if you do not have a secure document collaboration system. ‘Secure’ means that the quality and the confidentiality of your work is protected, as well as people’s access to it. It also means that the collaboration process itself is risk-free. 

Is the document collaboration process in your company as secure as it could be?

Six questions you should be asking:

1. Do you have a watertight audit trail?

When collaborating on documents, your organization should have auditable proof of any changes or decisions behind contributions, providing an extra layer of security and accountability for all parties involved.

Top risks:

• Loss of important information: Key details can be overlooked or even lost, and can have serious consequences for patient care.
• Inaccurate or conflicting information: When multiple reviewers are working on a document without a clear record of changes, it is easy for conflicting information to arise, which can lead to errors and inconsistencies in the final document.
• Contributor accountability: A reconciliation report not only helps to prevent errors and inconsistencies, but it also holds individuals accountable for their actions and decisions.

Solution:

An accurate reconciliation report provides a detailed account of all changes made to the document, ensuring that no information is lost or overlooked. This transparency and single source of truth, along with open communication between collaborators, will help to prevent any conflicting information from arising.

Having a reconciliation report, and in turn a watertight audit trail, is essential for effective collaboration on medical documents. These measures help to mitigate risks and ensure the accuracy, consistency, and security of important information.

2. Who needs to contribute to your documents?

How do you make sure everyone can play their part without interfering in each other’s contributions or making several versions of the document?

Top risks:

• Access impossible: If people cannot contribute to documents when and where they need to, it is impossible to keep projects on track.
• Unauthorised edits: The quality and accuracy of content drops when edits go unchecked.
• Invisible comments and changes: This can increase the workload if participants are going over the same things without realising it.

Solution:

Make sure everyone’s role in the document collaboration is clear and controlled. This starts with the document owner assigning authors, contributors and reviewers. Ideally, their ability to see and do anything in the document should be limited to their specific role in the process.

Collaboration only truly works if you have a platform that can be accessed by the whole team. This includes any external parties that are involved with the document. A cloud-hosted tool is the easiest way to give people that access anywhere, anytime they need.

3. How does your team communicate during document collaboration?

Emails. Conversations. Hand-written notes. Collecting content and feedback can become a confusing mess when it is spread across a range of insecure places. This can have a huge effect on the speed, accuracy and efficiency of your document creation process.

Top risks:

• Lost comments and data: Errors are much more likely to make it through to the final edit when feedback slips through the net.
• Wasting time on managing feedback: There are more productive things to do!
• Projects put at risk: Your business could lose a competitive advantage if teams cannot collaborate quickly and easily.

Solution

Keep the entire workflow in one place. Document collaboration is not just about having access to the same documents, it is about tracking who does what and when. This is much easier to do if all feedback is communicated within the document, so nothing gets lost or missed.

Some document collaboration platforms also allow you to automate workflows. Project owners can assign tasks and deadlines so that people get automatic alerts when due dates approach or it is their turn to act. Everyone gets to focus on the quality of the content rather than the logistics.

4. What kind of data is contained in your documents?

All organizations hold personal and commercial data that is best kept under wraps. That does not mean it could be unsuitable for publication: some people in the document collaboration process might be unauthorized to see it.

Top risks:

• Personal data breach fines: Your business must be able to audit all personally identifiable information that it handles – or face penalties
• Commercially sensitive data leak: Your unique content could be the key to winning new business.
• Lost information: Overwriting each other’s work, duplicating documents and human error can all make data disappear.

Solution:

Control and redact. If you are able to control which parts of the document people can see and the actions they can take, this may be enough to protect confidential information. It will also help people to focus on the sections that are relevant to them.

PDF redaction tools go further and may be essential if your final document is made publicly available. Some document collaboration platforms have built-in redaction tools, while others will need to be integrated with other software like the Adobe suite.

5. Where are your documents kept during the collaboration process?

The more versions of a document there are, the greater risk of error. There is a good chance it is duplicating the workload too. Things get even more complicated if you have multiple documents in one review.

Top risks:

• Version control chaos: Merged changes, uncontrolled feedback and localized versions are all a recipe for disaster.
• Inappropriate access: Do you know who is doing what to your documents and why?
• Lost work: Live collaboration on a master document could create changes you cannot undo.

Solution:

We have already looked at the benefits of collaborating within a single version of a document. But where should that document be kept? If you are all working from the master document on your company’s server, this could be risky – there could be no way back to the original if things go wrong.

Working on a ‘proxy’ version of the document gives you more security when it comes to content quality and access. This means you are working on a copy of the original document that sits in your online collaboration software. Changes can only be made if formally accepted and nothing gets lost.

6. Is your document collaboration software secure?

The shift to remote and flexible working means there is a greater demand for cloud-based collaboration tools. Common choices are SharePoint and Microsoft Teams, as many organizations have these in place anyway. But they are not designed for secure document collaboration.

Top risks:

• Lack of control: A collaboration free-for-all can only lead to a messy document and too much admin
• Service disruption: Insecure, inflexible systems can cut off your access to documents at crucial times.
• Security breach: Can you stop people from seeing and sharing information they are not supposed to when collaborating?

Solution:

If you operate in a highly regulated industry and handle large amounts of technical and sensitive content, then control is also a security issue.

Software that is specific to document collaboration rather than general teamwork will give you a more secure environment. It will also come with more settings for controlling access and permissions. In terms of network security, third-party cloud hosting gives you security without the need to manage infrastructure.

Your next steps to improving your document collaboration

The level of security, quality and efficiency you need for document collaboration depends on your team’s workload and the nature of the content they are handling. Use the questions above to audit your current document collaboration tools.

Finding a document collaboration system: Ideagen PleaseReview and SharePoint

Want to continue your journey in auditing your document collaboration tools? Take a look at our blog.

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