Virtual office document version control - help!
January 14, 2010 6:26 AM Subscribe
What are the best tools for running a virtual office, especially document version control?
I have a friend who will be running a small virtual office, perhaps about 4 people, but who is not super tech savvy. I do not believe their will be an IT person on staff. The ultimate desire is to use a remote located central server to store documents and such, version control of those documents are a big concern, but something like Subversion will probably not work as its too "technical". So...
1) What else can be used for remote document version control?
2) What companies are out there that could perhaps run the IT side or at least admin a hosted server, as well as, possibly the companies laptops - i.e. installing software remotely and such? (does this even exist?)
3) What other software might be useful? I have thought of things like 37 Signals Backpack and BaseCamp, but am wondering what I am not thinking of.
Oh and to make things more confusing this may involve a mix of Macs and PCs.
I have a friend who will be running a small virtual office, perhaps about 4 people, but who is not super tech savvy. I do not believe their will be an IT person on staff. The ultimate desire is to use a remote located central server to store documents and such, version control of those documents are a big concern, but something like Subversion will probably not work as its too "technical". So...
1) What else can be used for remote document version control?
2) What companies are out there that could perhaps run the IT side or at least admin a hosted server, as well as, possibly the companies laptops - i.e. installing software remotely and such? (does this even exist?)
3) What other software might be useful? I have thought of things like 37 Signals Backpack and BaseCamp, but am wondering what I am not thinking of.
Oh and to make things more confusing this may involve a mix of Macs and PCs.
Response by poster: Word documents, Powerpoint...Office Type stuff mostly. But possibly occasionally a graphic, video file, proj mgmt file or other file that must be shared. There will also possibly be a 1,000+ client database. Most of these will be "checked out" ala SVN, if possible.
posted by IzzeYum at 7:28 AM on January 14, 2010
posted by IzzeYum at 7:28 AM on January 14, 2010
I would suggest Microsoft's SharePoint product, it sounds like it fits in well with your friend's requirements. For ease of deployment, you can purchase hosted solutions. It looks like the users will be able to work without hassle in this environment too.
posted by NordyneDefenceDynamics at 8:15 AM on January 14, 2010
posted by NordyneDefenceDynamics at 8:15 AM on January 14, 2010
I just noticed I missed out the last link:
It looks like the Mac users will be able to work without hassle in this environment too.
posted by NordyneDefenceDynamics at 8:34 AM on January 14, 2010
It looks like the Mac users will be able to work without hassle in this environment too.
posted by NordyneDefenceDynamics at 8:34 AM on January 14, 2010
They may want to look into dropbox - it does some version control, lets files be hosted remotely and synched locally, and has an iphone app if they're into that.
posted by korej at 10:46 AM on January 14, 2010
posted by korej at 10:46 AM on January 14, 2010
There are clients like TortoiseSVN that make subversion a little bit more user-friendly. There are probably similar clients for distributed version control systems like mercurial or git as well.
posted by gunslingingbird at 12:20 PM on January 14, 2010
posted by gunslingingbird at 12:20 PM on January 14, 2010
Google docs can be used by users running any operating system, and has version control features.
For businesses, there is the Google Apps service. The Standard Edition is free; the Premier Edition, which "includes Gmail for business [25GB storage per user, 99.9% uptime SLA, sync with Outlook . . .], Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Sites, and more for $50 per user per year". The service is hosted by google. They offer a 30 day free trial.
posted by James Scott-Brown at 1:06 PM on January 14, 2010
For businesses, there is the Google Apps service. The Standard Edition is free; the Premier Edition, which "includes Gmail for business [25GB storage per user, 99.9% uptime SLA, sync with Outlook . . .], Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Sites, and more for $50 per user per year". The service is hosted by google. They offer a 30 day free trial.
posted by James Scott-Brown at 1:06 PM on January 14, 2010
"There will also possibly be a 1,000+ client database"
Ah. Didn't see this requirement. Do you mean that the database will be accessed by more than a thousand users, or that it will contain details of more than a thousand customers?
If the latter, perhaps an online general-purpose database (like DabbleDB) or contacts manage/CRM (like Highrise or Salesforce) could do the job.
posted by James Scott-Brown at 1:15 PM on January 14, 2010
Ah. Didn't see this requirement. Do you mean that the database will be accessed by more than a thousand users, or that it will contain details of more than a thousand customers?
If the latter, perhaps an online general-purpose database (like DabbleDB) or contacts manage/CRM (like Highrise or Salesforce) could do the job.
posted by James Scott-Brown at 1:15 PM on January 14, 2010
Confluence provides version control for both the pages within the wiki as well as any attachments uploaded. It's $10 for a 10 user version if you're hosting it yourself (fairly easy to get running); hosted models are also available.
posted by Remy at 6:45 AM on January 15, 2010
posted by Remy at 6:45 AM on January 15, 2010
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posted by entropic at 7:23 AM on January 14, 2010