netDocShare Sync

Bi-Directional Synchronization of NetDocuments with Microsoft Teams, SharePoint & OneDrive!

netDocShare Sync automatically performs bi-directional/one-way sync of everything or selected folders/files, including metadata fields, between Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Teams Files, OneDrive Libraries, and NetDocuments Workspaces/folders.

• Bi-directional / One-way (either direction) sync files from the Microsoft Teams Files Tab to NetDocuments workspace/folders (Standard Channel).
• Bi-directional / One-way (either direction) sync files from the Microsoft Teams Files Tab to NetDocuments workspace/folders (Private Channel).
• Bi-directional sync files from SharePoint to NetDocuments workspace/folders.
• Bi-directional sync files from OneDrive to NetDocuments workspace/folders.
• Save & Move documents from SharePoint List (Attachments) & Document Libraries to NetDocuments workspace/folders.
• Save documents from OneDrive Document Libraries to NetDocuments workspace/folders.
• As an administrator view all the scheduled jobs that have been set up by or on behalf of users.
• Administrative capabilities of audit, job utilization, and error handling.
• Ability to apply for permissions from SharePoint/Teams/OneDrive to NetDocuments.
• netDocShare Sync Admin desktop app allows users to synchronize SharePoint Server 2013/2016/2019 on-premises List Attachments & Document Libraries to NetDocuments workspace/folders.
• netDocShare Sync OneDrive desktop app allows users to synchronize their OneDrive Document Libraries to NetDocuments workspace/folders.
• netDocShare Sync SharePoint extension allows users with contribute access within Document Library to initiate the sync with NetDocuments workspace/folders, right from within the SharePoint context menu.

We see that most customers even today, do not want copies of the NetDocuments content outside of NetDocuments because when it lives within NetDocuments there is governance, compliance, and security. This is the reason why law firms buy DMS products like NetDocuments. The key principle is the content that lives in DMS should be seen only by the people who are supposed to see it.

Now, netDocShare has a great software called netDocShare Sync which provides the ability to see that content securely in SharePoint and Microsoft Teams, without necessarily copying it over to SharePoint and Microsoft Teams.

In scenarios wherein the modern tools that Microsoft ships, the attorneys live within Microsoft Teams, to some extent in Microsoft SharePoint, or within their OneDrive for Business.

For example, an attorney is outside in a place where he is disconnected from the Internet, and he starts working on an NDA document (a non-disclosure document) or a Master Services agreement document (MSA) in his OneDrive offline client. He would create a document there and would assume that it would synchronize back to OneDrive when he comes online or eventually press the send button assuming that the contract would go to the customer. There are chances of two problems with that, one is that attorney will have content that is not stored in the attorney’s File drive/OneDrive or NetDocuments. In either scenario, the matter-centric contract document doesn’t live in the DMS NetDocuments. Technically, it could get stolen or shared accidentally or could be different scenarios otherwise.

This is where the netDocShare Sync plays an important role here where it has the ability to simply move the document into DMS NetDocuments once the attorney comes online. Therefore, the attorney doesn't need to worry about highly sensitive documents being on their local machine or OneDrive floating around when the matter-centric content should really be in NetDocuments. This is how the important files from an attorney’s OneDrive can be seamlessly backed up.

So, the most important use case of netDocShare Sync is the ability to move documents out of Microsoft Teams or SharePoint, or OneDrive into NetDocuments.

Within netDocShare Sync, while configuring a sync process, an IT manager or an attorney can update the date time stamp. *Date time stamp means that we can preserve the modified data and the created date and that could be very important because the attorney wants to track when they created the document, the original created modified date.

Sometimes attorneys prefer to do bi-directional synchronization of NetDocuments with Microsoft Teams, SharePoint & OneDrive because this could be very important in the code of law. In netDocShare sync, let us assume that you have some documents stored in a folder. When you select the entire folder to sync, it will continuously synchronize all the files in this folder into the NetDocuments, which means in this case it's not synchronizing, it is moving it. Whereas if you select a specific document, it will synchronize the content that you selected. If you clicked on “select all”, it will automatically synchronize all the content. This is a very important distinction.

Also, when you click on the “folder”, you are moving the entire folder and its content into NetDocuments. But, when you click the “move”, it will still leave behind the folder in SharePoint and is not going to delete it. It will move all its contents and will a generate URL for that folder. When you click on this URL, you can see that it now opens the document in NetDocuments. Basically, with netDocShare Sync, you can configure “move job”, which moves files from that respective location into NetDocuments. By doing this, an attorney is free to use whatever software they want to their heart’s content and do offline collaboration and communication. Therefore, compliance will be implemented through netDocShare sync, so that content is always in the NetDocuments. This is one of the first key business use cases of netDocShare sync.

In recent years, collaboration in law firms mostly starts in Microsoft Teams and this is why matter-centric teams are getting created in Microsoft Teams. Let’s consider a scenario wherein three members in a law firm are simply clicking a document within Teams and are collaborating in different sections. So, the co-authoring is happening live, and to do so is extremely easy in Teams. This is why a lot of attorneys prefer working in Teams. So, every time when one of the members drags and drops a document into a Team channel post, or even attaches; automatically, this leads to uploading the document into the SharePoint document library. It's a big deal because now the content authored by these three members might be a client-centered important document and should really live in NetDocuments. This is where netDocShare Sync makes sure that their documents should sync, and collaboration continues in Teams.

So, with the tool of netDocShare sync, it becomes super easy to synchronize the content magically behind the scenes, so that attorneys are going to work on and ensure they are adhering to content governance and compliance.

Let us consider another scenario, where a company that doesn’t have a DMS or any matter document-centric team like a law firm could have a situation where there might be a chance of a spillage of confidential data. Let’s see how netDocShare Sync takes this into consideration.

For example, let us consider moving a Team's job to NetDocuments, but at the same time allowing other members to collaborate. You would ensure that this content is part of the client matter workspace and NetDocuments from a governance enforcement perspective. This is a perfect scenario for bidirectional sync, where you would proceed to select the general tab, and set up a sync job. During this synchronization, this document will be permanently checked out in NetDocuments. This prevents race condition so that nobody can check in NetDocuments while collaboration is happening in Microsoft Teams. In this way, you ensure that your document will not get overwritten because the Teams is where the collaboration is happening. So, you don't want people to go into NetDocuments and collaborate on the document. Therefore, once the collaboration is complete in Teams, they can repurpose the Team job to a different source and destination between Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Teams Files, OneDrive Libraries, or NetDocuments Workspaces/Folders.