Archive for the ‘Benefits’ Category

File Sharing with OfficeDrop

Friday, May 4th, 2012

OfficeDrop makes file sharing easy. You can share both files and folders, and OfficeDrop gives you several options to help you control how your data is shared. You can share via an unprotected link or share with specific people via email, restrict the length of time that a files is available via a share, revoke a share and audit if the user you shared with has seen the file or not. See the video below to learn more, or visit the help links at the bottom of this post.

Video: File Sharing with OfficeDrop

You can learn more about how to do file sharing with OfficeDrop on our help pages for both file sharing and folder sharing.

New OfficeDrop Feature – Trash and Restore

Monday, April 23rd, 2012

With the newest OfficeDrop update you can now see deleted files in the “trash” and restore files from the trash to you inbox!

Basically, if you click on the “Trash” you see in the top left of the new OfficeDrop web application you’ll see the files that you’ve deleted. You can either permanently delete them or restore them from the trash using the arrow drop down next to each file.

Here is a quick video that explains how the trash & restore features work.

Cloud Computing Drives Mobile and Vice Versa

Thursday, April 5th, 2012

The press is starting to understand something that we’ve known here for a while at OfficeDrop – Mobile and Cloud Computing go hand in hand. Check out this chart on top reasons for an enterprise to adopt a cloud strategy:

why adopt cloud computing

Why Adopt Cloud Computing

Mobile is the top reason enterprises are moving applications to cloud computing platforms.

We’ve seen this here at OfficeDrop, with the success of our mobile applications and the huge engagement we get with our cloud connected mobile apps like the OfficeDrop iPhone PDF app and our Android scanner app. If you don’t have them yet, you should download them now – they are free and come with your OfficeDrop online cloud account – with both the paid or free accounts!

The article says, “With the increasing number and diversity of mobile computing devices, which have much less on-board storage than traditional end-user computing environments, there is a shift toward moving much of the functionality of an app into a centralized environment, like a cloud. This allows storage, computation, data access, security and management to all be handled in a centralized fashion.”

In other words, the cloud and mobile computing go hand in hand, where the mobile device can simply access the large amounts of data stored in the cloud at anytime, from anywhere.

Accessing the Cloud from Mobile Devices Growing

Another great piece of information in the article comes from ABI research, who suggest that “240 million business customers will access cloud-computing services via mobile devices by 2015 and that number could approach a billion.”

The article goes on to talk about the difference between native mobile apps and cloud connected apps – “But applications that run on mobile devices are often limited in functionality and are generally not business-class applications; it’s very rare to find native smartphone apps used as serious front ends for database queries, for instance.

In contrast, mobile cloud computing applications run on servers that reside in the cloud. Application data also lives in the cloud and results are fed back to the mobile device via an over-the-air network such as 3G or 4G. Users access apps and data via the browser on their mobile devices.”

You should visit the Computerworld to read the entire piece here.

Small Business Innovation

Wednesday, March 28th, 2012

Sparking innovation in a small business isn’t just a matter of sitting around waiting for good ideas to pop into your CEO’s head. Innovation comes from a lot of places, and the right environment can turn all of your employees into idea generators.

Recently Karl Start and Bill Steward of Avondale Strategic Partners, a business advisory company, posted an article on Inc about reigniting innovation in a business (read it here). It was a great post that focused on getting ideas from the field – customers and employees who spend time with customers. The three principal actions they proposed were:

  1. Get cozy with customers
  2. Empower your team
  3. Execute fast and revise quickly

Excellent ideas and you should read the post. It also reminds us of a post that our CEO & resident cloud computing expert wrote a couple of years about entitled “4 Tips to Spark Innovation in Your Small Business.”

Prasad’s small business innovation ideas

Prasad’s ideas were different, but along the same lines as the executives from Avondale. Prasad said, “Small businesses are the major driver in both job growth and innovation in the United States. But when you are actually running a small business, finding the time to foster innovation can be overwhelmed by cash, economic, resource and time constraints. Here are four tips that I have found that foster innovation at my company and that I believe can be applied to most businesses.”

  1. Encourage all employees to solve company problems
  2. Allow individual employees time to work on a project of their choosing
  3. Provide employees experiences in every aspect of the company
  4. Consult customers for improvements and new ideas

Innovation can happen in a vacuum, but usually it is driven by the right work and team environment. We hope that another way you can generate innovative ideas to grow your small business is by letting the power of cloud computing free up your time and resources so that you can focus on solving problems for your customers.

Forbes on the Cloud and Startups

Monday, March 26th, 2012

Another great article on how startups are using cloud computing to lower costs and launch products, this time on Forbes. Lightweight businesses can be created now without the need for expensive IT investment using cloud computing resources and SaaS services that are available on a monthly basis for no contract, at low prices.

Two key quotes from the article: “With the rise of cloud computing, we’re seeing more of a new breed of extremely lightweight company…”

and

“With so many low-cost resources at entrepreneurs’ beck and call, the groundwork is being laid for the next generation of businesses. Plus, the beauty of this extreme lightweight business model is that it isn’t just limited to startups. Innovators within larger enterprises, seeking to test or explore new markets, can also take advantage of cloud resources to assemble and package services for consumption by customers.”

How Cloud Computing Helps Get Startups Off the Ground

Friday, March 23rd, 2012

I came across a cool write up on an HP blog about how small companies can get ahead of the game using cloud computing. It’s called “What Your Company Can Learn From Startups: How Cloud Computing is Helping to Get Them Off the Ground.”

Ok, so that’s a long title.

But the article is very solid.

cloud for smb

Basically, small companies can leverage the power of cloud computing to get the advantages of having a large IT department – without having to spend a lot of money. As the article states, “It’s where the cloud can be a business equalizer and help your small- or medium-sized business move to the next level by bringing in IT capabilities you may only have dreamed of in the past.” It goes on to talk about several startups and new products that companies have launched for very low costs by using cloud computing and outside cloud vendors. Great piece – check it out!

Why Go Paperless?

Monday, February 13th, 2012

A new study by AIIM, which we mentioned previously, has some great charts and information about the key drivers behind businesses’ desires to go paperless. It seems that the most important reason to go paperless has nothing to do with the costs of paper, but instead is focused on the increased productivity that your employees get when going paperless.

Top Reason to Go Paperless

The biggest reason to go paperless, cited by over 50% of companies, is that improved search & sharing of business documents. In other words, it’s easier to find and share digital files vs. paper.

Increased productivity, faster response time to customers are also in the top 5 reasons. In fact, the only reason given in the top 5 for going paperless that had to do with cost savings was focused on saving physical storage space.

Here is a list of the reasons, and you can learn more here & access the study:

why go paperless

ScanDrop in TechCrunch

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

OfficeDrop and ScanDrop Mac were written up in TechCrunch yesterday by TechCrunch reporter Rip Empson. TechCrunch covered the new ScanDrop Mac’s ability to scan, screenshot, save to the cloud and share via social networks.

officedrop in techcrunchAs Rip explains it, ” announcing updates to its ScanDrop Mac and ScanDrop Lite apps (ScanDrop Lite is free) that let any Mac user integrate scanned paper with digital screenshots to create multi-age, searchable PDFs. But what’s really cool about this is that, with a single click, users can now share these scanned docs via social networks or store them in Evernote, Dropbox, OfficeDrop, and Google Docs.”

He also gives an example of possible workflow that users can take advantage of using the ScanDrop Mac app: “ within ScanDrop, users can merge scans, screenshots, and image files into a single, multi-page PDF to then share as they choose. If a user scans a receipt, he or she can then grab a screenshot of a corresponding spreadsheet of receipts and share that as a single PDF document through Facebook or Twitter, for example.”

Finally, the article mentions our recent, dramatic growth.

Read the article here!

After you’ve read the piece you can get ScanDrop Mac and ScanDrop Lite in the app store by clicking on the buttons below:

How I Manage It: Scott Orn: VC & Social Impact Co-Founder

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012
scott orn

Scott Orn

He’s Principal at venture capital firm Lighthouse Capital by day. Co-founder of the social impact organization Ben’s Friends by night. How does Scott Orn manage it all?

Well, OfficeDrop can’t take all the credit for Scott’s rockstar status, but we can take partial credit for his ultra-organized workflow.

“Juggling Ben’s Friends around our day jobs is a huge challenge, but keeping paper documents stored in the cloud where they can be easily searched and shared with others is an important part of staying organized,” said Scott.

Here are a few examples of how he uses OfficeDrop.

VCs travel. A lot. Scott likes using OfficeDrop’s iPhone app while he’s on the road to help manage his expenses. OfficeDrop for iPhone turns your phone’s camera into a scanner to the cloud. You can capture documents and tag, file and search them within OfficeDrop’s cloud filing cabinet.

“It’s really simple to take a photo of the receipts I accumulate on a business trip and file them directly into my expenses folder for the month,” said Scott. “I can share the folder with anyone who needs access to it, like our finance and administration teams. It saves a lot of time at the end of the month when I scrambling to get expenses filed and I never have to worry about expenses falling through the cracks and not getting reimbursed.”

And, remember, this VC also moonlights as a social impact leader. He’s the co-founder of Ben’s Friends, an organization that builds communities for patients that have rare diseases.

“Many people with rare diseases don’t have a network of folks who understand exactly what they’re going through,” said Scott. “We started Ben’s Friends to serve people who have no other options. It’s amazing how much love and support people get through our communities. It’s a life changing group to be a part of – for me and the patients. ”

Scott processes the hundreds of donations Ben’s Friends receives throughout the year, along with getting donors the appropriate receipts and perks. Donors are constantly mailing checks – which is a good thing! – but managing it all can be overwhelming.

“Since our group is a lean, 100 percent volunteer-run organization, it’s critical we handle the donations as they come in,” said Scott. “I can’t tell you how important it’s been for me to just search my OfficeDrop account on my iPad so I can find out things like how many donations came in during the month of November, who sent in the donations and what perks we need to send them. These are the kinds of things you don’t remember off the top of your head, but can be crucial when you need a quick answer.”

Cheers, Scott! We’re proud to have you among the OfficeDrop elite! To learn more about Scott’s network of patient support groups, Ben’s Friends, visit: www.bensfriends.org.

Getting Files into OfficeDrop

Friday, December 30th, 2011

It’s easy to get files into OfficeDrop. We offer several ways you can quickly get your important documents into the OfficeDrop cloud filing system.

Here are the different apps you can use to get files into OfficeDrop:

OfficeDrop on Android
OfficeDrop on iPad
OfficeDrop on Windows Desktop (note: download starts immediately)
OfficeDrop’s Windows ScanDrop Scanner Software
OfficeDrop’s Mac ScanDrop Scanner Software

And, of course, you can always login to OfficeDrop via the web to upload and manage your documents.

We’ve recently created a video explaining some of the ways you can get your files into the system.

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