Google today introduced Graph for Understanding Artifact Composition (GUAC), an open source tool for centralizing build, security, and dependency metadata.
Developed in collaboration with Kusari, Purdue University, and Citi, the new project is meant to help organizations better understand software supply chains.
GUAC aggregates metadata from different sources, including supply chain levels for software artifacts (SLSA) provenance, software bills of materials (SBOM), and vulnerabilities, to provide a more comprehensive view over them.
“Graph for Understanding Artifact Composition (GUAC) aggregates software security metadata into a high-fidelity graph database—normalizing entity identities and mapping standard relationships between them,” Google says.
By querying this graph, organizations can improve their audit processes and risk management, can better meet policy requirements, and even provide developer assistance.
GUAC, the internet giant explains, has four areas of functionality, including metadata collection (from public, first-person, and third-party sources), ingestion of data (on artifacts, resources, vulnerabilities, and more), data assembly into a coherent graph, and user query for metadata attached to entities within the graph.
By aggregating software security metadata and making it meaningful and actionable, GUAC can help identify risks, discover critical libraries within open source software, and gather information on software dependencies, to improve supply chain security.
The open source project is in its early stages, with a proof of concept (PoC) now available on GitHub, offering support for the ingestion of SLSA, SBOM, and Scorecard documents and for simple queries for software metadata.
“The next efforts will focus on scaling the current capabilities and adding new document types for ingestion. We welcome help and contributions of code or documentation,” Google says.
The internet giant has created a group of ‘Technical Advisory Members’ that includes SPDX, CycloneDX Anchore, Aquasec, IBM, Intel, and others, to help expand the project towards consuming data from many different sources and formats.
Related: Google Launches Bug Bounty Program for Open Source Projects
Related: Academics Devise Open Source Tool For Hunting Node.js Security Flaws
Related: Google Open Sources ‘Paranoid’ Crypto Testing Library
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Are you a fan of kanban-style task management features to visualize workflows and customer leads? If so, two project management tools lead the fray — Pipedrive and Trello. Both rely on kanban cards as their primary visualization tool, making them both incredibly user-friendly and approachable.
From assigning and monitoring task progress to customer relationship management, both Pipeline and Trello offer unique advantages for both. Yet, due to their inherent similarities, it can be a tad difficult to determine which project management software will best suit your company’s needs. Which you end up going with will depend on a few factors, including:
Key features
Pricing
Integrations
User experience
Automation capabilities
To help you with your decision, we’ve put together this comparison guide pitting Pipedrive vs. Trello. We’ll compare and contrast each deciding factor to help you determine which software you need to implement at your business.
While both programs have some inherent similarities, they are two different types of software that serve different functions. Trello is a project management software primarily used for task management, as it uses a kanban board and cards to represent projects, tasks, and assignees. Pipedrive is a CRM (customer relationship management) software aimed at directing leads through your sales pipeline. It uses a similar visualization style (kanban cards) as Trello, but its primary purpose is different.
Yet, Trello can also double as CRM software, and some companies use Pipedrive to manage projects, which is why the programs are often lumped together in the same category.
Without further ado, read on to discover who’s victorious in the matchup Pipedrive vs. Trello.
Pipedrive is an innovative cloud-based CRM software that allows you to visualize your entire sales process at a glance. The stages of the pipeline are visualized as cards (referred to as deals) on a kanban board. Users can import deals from their computers or build new deals from scratch.
The program uses a simple drag-and-drop interface to move deals around, update deals, and add new deals to the board. It’s a straightforward user interface, meaning anyone can pick up and start using it without much training.
Pipedrive also sends automatic alerts and reminders to keep you in the loop whenever there’s an update. Your sales forecasts will also update every time you move a deal down the funnel.
You can also segment your leads by using filtering, segmenting, and categorization tools. That way, your salespeople will know which leads are gaining the most traction with a single glance at the board. You can also create targeted lead lists to engage in personalized communications with clients.
To capture even more leads, Pipedrive has a lead generation toolset that includes the following:
A chatbot. Automatically engage with your leads 24/7. It also has the capability to route leads to sales reps, which is a plus.
Live chat. Besides the chatbot, you have the option of switching to live chat on the fly.
Prospector. This tool contains a database of 400 million profiles you can use to find new leads.
Embeddable web forms. You can easily embed surveys and other forms to increase lead generation on your web pages.
While these features are indeed impressive, they don’t come as part of any standard Pipedrive plan. Instead, you’ll need to pay an additional $32.50 a month per company — which may go over budget for some (especially small businesses and startups).
Yet, if you do have the extra money, there’s no denying that these extra features are helpful for generating more leads.
Another add-on offered by Pipedrive is web visitors — a tracker that will allow you to monitor the visitors to your website.
Besides letting you know who’s browsing your content, the add-on automatically ranks each lead based on their activity — so you’ll know which leads show the most potential. You can also customize how it ranks leads, including by:
Country
AdWords campaign
Webpage interaction
This additional flexibility ensures you’ll be able to rank your leads the way you want. For instance, you may want to only focus on leads from a specific geographic area, which is where the country filter comes into play.
Like the lead booster, this add-on isn’t free (although you can try it out free as part of your 14-day Pipedrive free trial).
The pricing is a tad different, as it’s based on the number of identifiable organizations that the app picks up on.
Here’s the breakdown:
200 identified organizations: $49 per month (0.25 per organization)
201 to 500 organizations: $99 per month (0.20 per organization)
501 to 2,000 organizations: $299 per month (0.15 per organization)
If your company has the additional funds, being able to track web users is a desirable feature — albeit an expensive one.
Trello is a dedicated project management software that uses a kanban board for projects, columns for phases, and cards to visualize projects and tasks. It’s a cloud-based platform, so your team can access it from anywhere. The Trello board allows for team collaboration, customizable task management, and superior time management.
While boards, columns, and cards are the bread and butter of the application, Trello also makes use of:
Task assignments
A timeline view for planning projects
Productivity metrics
A calendar view for better time management
Automation
A table view to connect work across multiple boards
Trello is a favorite amongst small businesses, startups, and freelancers. It’s the ideal tool for keeping track of projects handled by small teams. While it’s entirely possible to manage larger teams with Trello, many companies opt for other project management tools, such as Asana.
Yet, companies love Trello due to its simplicity, amazing customer support, and ease of use. You can pick up Trello and start using it without viewing a single tutorial, which is a testament to its intuitive user interface.
Trello cards are the heart and soul of the program, and their features and capabilities are pretty robust.
A Trello card is more akin to a living ecosystem than something static.
Each card can contain a wide variety of:
Checklists
Due dates
Attachments
Conversations
Cards are also quite versatile in what they can represent. Besides concrete tasks, cards can also represent ideas and policies. For instance, you could create a card for a blog post that needs writing, including the deadline, assignee, attachments (such as a style guide or other requirements), and more. Or you could create a card for crucial company policies that you don’t want anyone to forget. Both are perfectly viable uses for cards, so don’t limit them only to represent tasks.
While Pipedrive and Trello differ in their business functions, they do bear many similarities. Both platforms use kanban boards as their primary tool to visualize workflows, which is why they’re both so user-friendly.
They also both feature workflow automation capabilities that allow you to automate repetitive tasks. Both Trello and Pipedrive enable users to create custom fields to trigger numerous workflow tasks, such as setting up personalized emails to send whenever you create a new deal.
Their primary difference lies in the audiences they appeal to. Pipedrive is a favorite of sales teams, and Trello is favored by smaller teams and businesses (freelancers also). Sales managers will appreciate Pipedrive’s ability to create email marketing campaigns, while Trello freelancers love its calendar view to stay on top of their daily tasks.
Now let’s directly compare Pipedrive vs. Trello in terms of:
Features
Automation
Integrations
Pricing
By the end, you should know which platform best suits your needs.
First, let’s take an in-depth look at the primary features of both Pipedrive and Trello to see which platform provides the most value in their base plan.
Due to its nature, Pipedrive contains more features geared toward perfecting your sales cycle, including:
Visualized sales pipeline. You’ll get to see all your leads and deals in one convenient location. The simple drag-and-drop controls make it effortless to update deals and progress them further down the sales funnel.
Team collaboration. You can work on deals with colleagues straight from Pipedrive, whether you’re located in the same place or not. It’s a great way to share updates and wins with your coworkers.
Activity reminders. You can schedule automated reminders, so you never forget about your sales activities.
Lead segmentation. One of Pipedrive’s most helpful CRM features is the ability to segment leads based on a number of factors.
In-depth contact history. For each lead, you’ll be able to view your complete history of notes, calls, emails, and meetings in one convenient location. That makes it effortless for someone new to come in on a deal, as they can check the contact history to learn everything they need to know about a lead.
Revenue forecasting. Pipedrive will automatically forecast future revenue and sales volume based on your pipeline, saving you the trouble of having to do so yourself. Every time you update a deal, the forecasting will also update.
Detailed reporting and analytics. The Pipedrive Insightsdashboard contains many helpful sales reports that your team members can use to identify winning patterns.
As you can see, Pipedrive comes with a ton of helpful CRM features but doesn’t offer much in the way of sheer project management.
Yet, its Essential plan includes all these features, which is an incredible deal.
Trello is, by nature, a straightforward tool, which is part of its appeal to its user base. Here’s an overview of its main features:
Trello boards. In seconds, you can set up a Trello board (representing a project). Its columns represent the stages of the project, and Trello cards represent tasks or ideas. It’s a simple yet highly effective way to visualize workflows.
Multiple board views. With Trello, you can view your board in various ways. Besides the board view, there’s also a calendar view, table view, and timeline view for an efficiency boost.
No-code automation. Trello allows users to automate repetitive tasks with Butler, its built-in automation assistant.
Trello cards. Cards are especially versatile in Trello, as they can contain attachments, checklists, conversations, due dates, and more.
Templates. To make things even easier for new users, Trello offers templates that allow you to get started in seconds. Templates come from both Trello and third parties, so a wide variety of them are available.
Trello power-ups. Trello’s power-ups are a bit of a double-edged sword. They’re fantastic in that they add new capabilities to Trello, including Crmble, a CRM power-up. Yet, not all power-ups come from the Trello team, and the quality of third-party power-ups can be questionable at times.
Trello is by far the simpler tool of the two, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If you want to manage projects amongst your team, Trello is the way to go.
Still, it’s hard to deny that Pipedrive offers more robust features in its base plan, so it takes this round.
Winner: Pipedrive
Now let’s take a closer look at the automation capabilities of both platforms.
Pipedrive allows users to set triggers and assign them to preset actions to automate tasks.
How does this work?
Let’s consider an example. Say that you want to notify your sales manager whenever a deal gets completed automatically. In this scenario, the trigger would be whenever a deal gets added to the ‘won’ section, and the action would be to notify the sales manager. By assigning the task to the trigger, emails will begin sending to your sales manager, notifying them of completed deals.
That’s how easy it is to automate tasks with Pipedrive, which is a plus.
Trello’s automated features work very much in the same way. You can also assign actions to triggers to automate mundane tasks to save time.
Yet, Trello takes things a bit further with its built-in automation assistant, Butler.
It’s an AI-driven assistant that observes your actions on Trello boards at all times. Along the way, it identifies repetitive tasks you could automate and notifies you. That’s especially handy because it can point out tasks you can automate that you may have missed otherwise.
For this reason alone, Trello takes the cake in terms of automation.
Winner: Trello
Next, let’s take a look at the applications and platforms that Pipedrive and Trello integrate with to see if they can mesh with your existing workflows.
Pipedrive undoubtedly leads the fray in this regard, as it integrates with over 350 apps, including:
Zoom
Asana
Zapier
Hubspot
Slack
Salesforce
Google Drive
Trello (that’s right, you can integrate Pipedrive with Trello for the best of both worlds)
Many others
With all the integrations, Pipedrive is bound to fit into your business workflows with ease.
While Trello can’t compare with Pipedrive’s 350+ integrations, it’s still no slouch — with over 200 of its own.
There are integrations for campaign management, email, internal collaboration, reporting, and document management.
Integrations include:
Microsoft Teams
Gmail
Slack
Mailchimp
Google Drive
Evernote
Still, there’s no denying that Pipedrive knocks this round out of the park.
Winner: Pipedrive
Now let’s take a look at the pricing plans of each. Right off the bat, Trello has a noticeable advantage since it has a totally free version you can use. Pipedrive has a 14-day free trial, but after it runs out, you’ll have to purchase the Essential plan at least.
Here’s an overview of the Pipedrive pricing plans:
Essential. Coming in at $14.90 per month (per user), Pipedrive’s essential plan yields you 3,000 active deals, 30 custom fields, and 15 reports.
Advanced. At $24.90 per month (per user), you get 10,000 active deals, 100 custom fields, and 30 reports.
Professional. At $49.90 per month (per user), you get 100,000 active deals, 1,000 custom fields, and 150 reports.
Enterprise. At $99 per month (billed annually), you get unlimited active deals, unlimited custom fields, and unlimited reports. You also get unlimited user permissions, making this an ideal choice for larger organizations.
While there’s no free version, the Essential plan is affordable and comes with an impressive number of features.
Here’s an overview of Trello’s pricing:
Free version. The free version still contains a ton of features, such as unlimited cards and unlimited storage.
Standard. At $5 a month, you get custom fields, advanced checklists, and 1,000 workspace commands per month.
Premium. At $10 a month, you get additional board views, unlimited workspace command runs, admin security features, and more.
Enterprise. At $17.50 a month, you get unlimited workspaces, multi-board guests, attachment permissions, and more.
In addition to its fantastic free version, nearly every Trello pricing plan is cheaper than Pipedrive, making it the clear winner for this round.
Winner: Trello
It’s been a long, complex comparison, but there must be a winner. While both programs are different in nature, they’re similar enough that comparison is just.
Considering all the factors we’ve gone over, the score stands at:
Trello: 2
Pipedrive: 2
The winner: A tie
Yes, it comes down to a tie between Pipedrive vs. Trello.
Both platforms offer unique advantages for different types of customers. If your primary focus is generating, tracking, and converting leads — Pipedrive reigns supreme.
Yet, if project management is your ultimate goal, Trello is the way to go without a doubt.
Our recommendation?
You can integrate Trello with Pipedrive to enjoy the best of both worlds.
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Keeping up with the endless barrage of technology jargon can be a difficult task. Loosely-defined terms and industry-specific vernacular muddy the waters even further. It may seem like a matter of trivialization, but properly defining enterprise technology solutions and the associated terminology has real-world implications. That’s where Solutions Review comes in. Our job is to scrub every available inch of relevant information on the web to bring you the leading library of content. It is our hope that these resources help you gain a better understanding of what is becoming an increasingly complex technology environment.
To that end, we’re going to take a deep dive into the world of big data in an attempt to uncover the similarities and differences between data and content management.
Data Management solutions meet at the intersection of big data and business analytics. There are inherent risks in moving, mixing and matching data to meet the needs of an enterprise. The data management market offers a broad spectrum of products that can be used to analyze data from disparate and increasingly diverse sources. Traditional data warehousing techniques are slowly being phased out with the adoption of data lakes, and cloud connectivity has emerged as a differentiating factor in a growing number of deployments.
Organizations are adopting dedicated data management tools for running complex analysis on disparate data more than ever. These demands are being filled with hybrid and cloud platforms that allow for flexible deployment, ingestion, integration, and security. As a result, providers have adopted technologies and techniques from vendors on horizontal markets, such as security, backup and recovery, and even data analytics.
The concern over effective data management has reached a fever pitch, in large part due to a continued push for data privacy and protection legislation in Europe and the United States. There’s also the ever-present threat of data breaches that have impacted some of the largest organizations in the world. As regulations grow stricter and compliance frameworks become more common, organizations will grow increasingly interested in dedicated data management tools, ensuring that they are keeping their data in a way that safeguards it from internal and external threats.
There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to big data. Solutions come in a variety of flavors—ranging from data management solutions for analytics to operational database management systems. Each features a particular set of capabilities, strengths, and drawbacks.
Content management platforms aims to accomplish regulatory compliance and risk management, retention and dissemination of business knowledge, and cost and process efficiencies. An ECM solution is utilized to create, store, distribute, and manage unstructured content to analyze and deliver it to users whenever and wherever necessary. On the other hand, a CSP can be delivered as an integrated product suite or as separate applications that have similar APIs and repositories.
The difference between ECM and content services boils down to a centralized approach versus a more universal one. The goal of ECM is to accomplish a range of operational goals through the use of a single centralized platform. On the other side, content services are meant to improve efficiency by relying on multiple strategies and tools. Content services have less of a focus on content storage for the enterprise, and instead, focus on how the content is used by individuals and teams and uses that information to gain insight into business operations.
The changes in this space represent a shift from self-contained systems and repositories to open services. Content services solutions enable a range of functions, including the capture and ingestion of content in digitized file formats, business processing of digital content, management and retention of digitized content files and associated metadata, user productivity working with digital content, platform services for digital content, and the administration of digital content platforms. CSPs also support all content types and formats throughout the content life cycle.
Organizations often determine that they need a content management or content services solution after identifying an overarching business challenge, which often relates to an abundance of paper documents and/or unstructured information. CSPs are recommended to organizations with use cases and activities such as document management, records management, team-based productivity, and business application enablement.
According to projections from IDC, 80 percent of worldwide data will be unstructured by 2025. Unstructured data creates a unique challenge for organizations wishing to use their information for analysis. It can’t easily be stored in a database, and it has attributes that make it a challenge to search for, edit and analyze, especially on the fly. Those factors (and there are many more) are part of the reason why this is such an important topic.
Traditional unstructured data stores are made up of text documentation and other file types, including photos and audio. The new wave of unstructured data is increasingly coming from sources outside the organization, usually in the form of social media data, or real-time streaming data from IoT ‘smart’ devices. There is also geographic data, search engine queries, and many other kinds, with new varieties coming online daily.
There is a topical overlap that exists between data and content management, there are also key differences, specifically regarding use cases and the practitioners that handle each. Organizations struggling to keep up with this data deluge are increasingly turning to content management and content services technologies to handle the rush of unstructured data. If that sounds like you, we recommend starting with this resource.

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Whether you’re a freelancer or supervise small teams for enterprise-level companies, project management tools are a must if you want to stay efficient and organized. Today, two apps that dominate the project management workspace are Trello and Asana. Both are industry-leading applications used by both startups and Fortune 100 companies for team collaboration, and they each feature free versions that you can start using right now.
Yet, the two have critical differences in functionality, integrations, workflow, pricing, and features.
At a glance, Trello is the go-to platform if your primary project management tool is a kanban board, as that’s what it undoubtedly does best. Its kanban board is highly user-friendly, and you can add other functionalities to Trello through power-ups.
If you’re after more features and flexibility, you may prefer Asana.
Why is that?
It’s because Asana lets you break down projects into specific categories and groups of tasks with particular assignees. Other features include Gantt charts (starting with the Business Plan), subtasks, and customizable dashboards.
Asana also has kanban-style planning, but it’s not as robust as Trello.
However, neither application can do everything, so it’s crucial to familiarize yourself with both to determine which is best for you. That’s why I’m pitting Trello vs. Asana in a detailed breakdown of each platform’s features, pricing, and support.
If you’ve never used any project management apps before, you may not know anything about Asana or Trello. Both offer project management solutions for freelancers and companies, but the key difference lies in the features they focus on. In particular, Trello relies heavily on its kanban board for work management.
What’s a kanban board?
It’s a visualization tool that uses cards to represent tasks (along with due dates for each card), columns to represent workflow stages, and swimlanes to represent different teams and activities. A kanban board is one of the most effective ways to monitor progress on a project due to its simplicity, and it’s what Trello focuses on the most.
Asana, on the other hand, also features a kanban board, but it’s not the main focus of the application. Instead, Asana has more robust features for task management, including lots of customizability.
With Asana, users can assign individual tasks to assignees in a feature, story, or project. There’s also a calendar view and a to-do list for each team member containing their current tasks (as well as their deadlines).
In short, Asana works better for more complex projects requiring lots of teamwork, while Trello excels at more straightforward tasks. As such, which app you choose will depend heavily on the scope of your project.
Due to its simplicity, Trello is excellent for freelancers wanting to keep track of a few daily assignments. It’s also an excellent tool for smaller teams that don’t want to spend much time dealing with a steep learning curve.
That’s because the Trello board view is so user-friendly and simplistic that anyone can learn how to use it without needing tutorials.
If you’d prefer to hit the ground running on a new project instead of learning the ins and outs of Asana’s more robust features, Trello is an excellent option. It’s also free to use (as long as you don’t add any power-ups), making it even more appealing to freelancers and small businesses.
Yet, if your work is a bit more complex and involves many moving parts, Asana may be the better choice.
If you’re juggling managing a ton of tasks and projects at once, Asana can help you keep track of it all. Compared to Trello, Asana can do much more with task dependencies.
What are those?
In project management, task dependencies refer to the specific order in which certain tasks must be completed.
An example would be specifying that a blog article cannot proceed to the publishing phase until editing/image creation is complete. Another example is stating that electrical work can’t begin until the drywall installation is done.
With Asana, you can easily add dependencies to any task, which is a definite plus. That way, you won’t have to worry about certain phases of the project getting done out of order.
That’s why many large companies choose Asana over Trello due to the wide variety of features and customizable options.
Now it’s time to take a closer look at the core features of both applications to determine which suits your needs better.
Right off the bat, it’s crucial to note that Asana offers more features out of the two by default. While it’s possible to add more capabilities to Trello, they involve power-ups (either by Trello or a third party), and these tend to be hit-and-miss.
Trello’s key features
As stated previously, Trello’s interface revolves around its kanban-style features, which consist of:
Boards. Trello’s kanban board is where every project lives. They keep all your tasks organized along each stage of the project, from ‘things to do’ to ‘completed tasks.’ The boards are highly visual in nature and are easy to read, even if you’ve never used a kanban board before.
Lists. Each board will also have a list view, which represents the stages of each project. These include to-do, doing, and done — but you can also create custom fields. That way, if your project has unique stages, you can edit the list to reflect them.
Cards. Lastly, the cards on each board represent individual tasks. Each card contains all the information that a team member needs to get the job done, including the due date and any special requirements. To visualize progress on each task, you move the cards through each stage (to-do, doing, done).
As you can see, Trello provides an extremely straightforward approach to project management that’s effortless to pick up and use.
Each Trello card contains tons of helpful information, including:
Members. These are the assignees for each task, letting you know who’s in charge of completing what at all times.
Due dates. Keep your team members motivated and on track by including clear deadlines for every Trello card.
Attachments. This is a convenient feature, as it lets you attach anything to the card as you would to an email. That way, your team will have all the files, resources, and attachments they need to get the job done straight from Trello.
Checklists. This feature allows you to break tasks into smaller ones on Trello. You can provide a checklist for each card containing all the stages to completion. That will enable you to monitor progress in real-time, which comes in handy.
Besides these core features, Trello also boasts some impressive integrations, including:
Salesforce
Slack
Dropbox
Outlook
Gmail
InVision
Jira
These integrations make tracking your team’s progress effortless without having to change any of your regular tools. For instance, if your team regularly uses Salesforce, integrating it with Trello will allow you to send info easily between the two.

If you’re a fan of Trello’s simple visual style but want more features, you can opt for its power-ups. These are integrations that come from both Trello and third-party developers.
For this reason, Trello’s power-ups can vary in quality, sometimes drastically. On average, the power-ups provided by Trello tend to be the most reliable and high-quality. Third-party power-ups are more of a risk, but that doesn’t mean that all of them are bad.
It just means that it can be tough to tell if a power-up will be worth it or not, which is a risk you won’t have to take with Asana.
With that said, here’s a look at some of the most popular power-ups you can add to Trello.
Calendar. The most downloaded Trello power-up is Calendar, an app that places all your active projects on one central calendar. That makes it easy to identify projects and tasks that are falling behind schedule so you can get them back on track. The Calendar app also incorporates color-coded organization to Trello cards, and you can export your calendar to integrate with other third-party apps.
Board Sync. Another popular power-up is Board Sync, which lets you sync projects together (including all cards, lists, and boards).
Crmble. Do you wish your project management software could double as a CRM (customer relationship management)? If so, Crmble is the power-up for you. It’s an easy-to-use CRM that you can use straight from Trello, which means you never have to leave the app to manage customer relations.
Plenty of other power-ups are available, including Google Drive integrations and Gantt charts.
It’s crucial to note that not every Trello power-up is free. Some are, but a majority are considered premium power-ups and require an additional fee. Considering this, Asana has the advantage here as all its features come by default without the need to spend money on add-ons.
Instead of a kanban board, Asana centers around its patented Asana Work Graph® model. It uses a series of graphs, boards, and calendars to visualize your work projects, your team, and the people doing the work.
In particular, Asana represents your work timeline as a graph that’s filled with all your tasks.
You can assign each task to an assignee — as they have their own dashboard. There, they can see their assigned tasks, the deadline, and lots of other information about the project.
You can include attachments and hotlinks in each task description to ensure your team has everything they need to complete the project.
The timeline view is completely adjustable and uses drag-and-drop controls, so you’re able to make tweaks to it on the fly (such as for unexpected setbacks or getting ahead of schedule). You can use these timelines to streamline marketing campaigns, event planning, product launches, and more.
Other features include:
Convert spreadsheets into Asana timelines. A highly useful feature (especially if you’re migrating from using Excel as your project management tool) is importing a CSV file and converting it automatically into an Asana timeline. That way, you can quit using cumbersome spreadsheets without having to input them into Asana manually.
Powerful automation tools. With Asana, you can automate much of the busy work involved with project management. You can automatically direct new tasks to the right project, auto-assign teammates, automate due dates, and more.
Built-in calendar view. Unlike Trello, Asana comes with a calendar view that you can use without downloading an add-on. Its visualization tools make it easy to identify gaps and overlaps in your schedule, which is a plus.
Like Trello, Asana can integrate with many third-party applications and tools, including:
Microsoft Office 365
Slack
Jira
Zapier
Canva
YouTube
Loom
Adobe Creative Cloud
Many others
To see a complete list of apps Asana can integrate with, click here.
Asana has so many valuable and customizable features that it easily wins this matchup. Yet, if simplicity is what you value above all else, you may prefer Trello.
Now it’s time to compare Trello vs. Asana in terms of pricing. First, I’ll start by comparing Trello and Asana’s free plans.
In this regard, Asana is the winner. That’s because you get a lot more features from its free plan than you do from Trello (once again, power-ups are what’s holding it back).
With Asana’s free plan, you get the following:
A list view
A calendar
A kanban board
Unlimited projects
Unlimited cloud storage
With Trello’s free plan, you get:
A kanban board
10 projects
Unlimited cloud storage
Two-factor authentication
As you can see, you get unlimited projects with Asana’s free plan (Trello limits you to 10), as well as a handful of other features missing from Trello.
Here’s a look at Trello’s paid plans:
Standard plan. Tello’s first paid option is the Standard plan, which is $6 per month or $60 annually ($5 per month). The pay is on a per-user basis, so you’ll need to pay for additional users. With the Standard plan, you get unlimited boards, advanced checklists, custom fields, single-board guests, 1,000 workspace command runs each month, and saved searches.
Premium plan. Next up is the Premium plan, which is $12.50 per month or $120 annually ($10 per month). New features include unlimited workspace command runs, table, and calendar workspace views, workspace-level templates, collections, observers, and priority support.
Enterprise plan. Lastly, the Enterprise plan runs $17.50 per month, or $210 annually (still $17.50). Exclusive features for this plan include unlimited workspaces, organization-wide permissions, multi-board guests, attachment permissions, and free SSO and user provisioning.
Realistically, there isn’t much use for the Premium or Enterprise plans for most users. If you’re a freelancer or small team using Trello, 9 times out of 10, the Standard plan or free plan will suffice.
Asana’s pricing structure looks like this:
Premium plan. Above the free plan is the Premium plan, which costs $13.49 per month or $131.88 annually ($10.99 per month). Exclusive features include unlimited essentials, four project views, automated workflows, reporting, community support, and scaled security.
Business plan. Next up is the Business plan, which is $30.49 per month or $299.88 annually ($24.99 per month). Features include advanced workflows and advanced reporting.
Enterprise plan. Like Trello, Asana also has an Enterprise plan. Yet, it’s not a standard plan and requires you to contact their sales department to learn more. This plan is for larger companies that need more visibility, control, and support than Asana’s Premium and Business plans.
As you can see, Asana’s plans are a bit pricier than Trello, but they tend to offer more functionality, especially the Premium plan.
Lastly, let’s compare how both applications handle customer support. After all, if nobody is around to answer your questions, why even bother downloading the app? Here’s a look at the support options for both platforms.
In this category, Trello is the clear winner by a long shot.
Why is that?
It’s because Trello has a far more robust and active customer support system in place. Should you have a question, you can get an answer relatively quickly through live chat or over the phone.
On the other hand, Asana places almost all its support focus on its knowledge base, which consists of guides and tutorials. Should you have questions, you can contact support, but they tend to reply slower than Trello.
By now, we’ve looked at Trello vs. Asana in terms of features, pricing, and support – so it’s time to look at the judge’s scorecards for a final verdict.
Let’s tally it up:
Features: Asana
Pricing: Asana
Support: Trello
While both applications are project management powerhouses, Asana takes the win by a split decision. It’s a more robust and customizable tool than Trello, which is why it gets the nod. Yet, Trello remains the ideal app if kanban boards are your thing and your projects aren’t too complex.
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Workflow Management Software Module Market Research 2022-2025 highlights comprehensive insights on sales revenue, growth strategies, sales pattern, production, consumption and supply-demand analysis of industry with recent developments. It also covers basic information on competitors, market performance, product specifications and demand scope of top Key Players – Oracle, bpm’online, Open Document Management System SL, Advanced Software Designs, Inc., Salesforce, Nintex, Bizagi
Global “Workflow Management Software Module Market” report provides in-depth insights on growing opportunities, current and future market trends and challenges in industry. The research report provides competitive information on business developments, demand scope, industry dynamics, and company’s financial data based on regional segments. The Workflow Management Software Module market report aims to deliver best marketing strategies of top key players with latest technologies, new product launches, and geographical expansion. It also covers analysis of industry size, share and growth segments with industry revenue, CAGR status, and SWOT analysis.
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Workflow management software is a software application that sets up and monitors a defined set of tasks and their order. It helps users collaborate and automate processes, as well as define different workflows for different types of processes and applications. Workflow management software also helps reduce the manual work involved and automate redundant tasks.
This report elaborates the market size, market characteristics, and market growth of the Workflow Management Software Module industry, and breaks down according to the type, application, and consumption area of Workflow Management Software Module. The report also conducted a PESTEL analysis of the industry to study the main influencing factors and entry barriers of the industry.
Scope of Workflow Management Software Module Market:
Get a sample PDF of the Workflow Management Software Module Market Report
Prominent Key Players Operating in the Global Workflow Management Software Module Market Are:
This report studies and presents the process of manufacturing and products specifications. Different facts and figures are included in this report for a basic understanding of the businesses. Different global key players of Workflow Management Software Module market are listed in the report, which provides a detailed description of higher-level industries.
On the basis of types, the Workflow Management Software Module market from 2015 to 2025 is primarily split into:
On the basis of applications, the Workflow Management Software Module market from 2015 to 2025 covers:
Highlights points of Workflow Management Software Module market:
The report delivers a comprehensive study of all the segments and shares information regarding the leading regions in the market. This report also states import/export consumption, supply and demand Figures, cost, industry share, policy, price, revenue, and gross margins.
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Geographically, the detailed analysis of consumption, revenue, market share and growth rate, historic and forecast (2015-2025) of the following regions are:
Research Objective of Global Workflow Management Software Module Market Are:
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Detailed TOC of 2020-2025 Global Workflow Management Software Module Market Report – Production and Consumption Professional Analysis (Impact of COVID-19)
1 Workflow Management Software Module Market – Research Scope
1.1 Study Goals
1.2 Market Definition and Scope
1.3 Key Market Segments
1.4 Study and Forecasting Years
2 Workflow Management Software Module Market – Research Methodology
2.1 Methodology
2.2 Research Data Source
2.2.1 Secondary Data
2.2.2 Primary Data
2.2.3 Market Size Estimation
2.2.4 Legal Disclaimer
3 Workflow Management Software Module Market Forces
3.1 Global Workflow Management Software Module Market Size
3.2 Top Impacting Factors (PESTEL Analysis)
3.2.1 Political Factors
3.2.2 Economic Factors
3.2.3 Social Factors
3.2.4 Technological Factors
3.2.5 Environmental Factors
3.2.6 Legal Factors
3.3 Industry Trend Analysis
3.4 Industry Trends Under COVID-19
3.4.1 Risk Assessment on COVID-19
3.4.2 Assessment of the Overall Impact of COVID-19 on the Industry
3.4.3 Pre COVID-19 and Post COVID-19 Market Scenario
3.5 Industry Risk Assessment
4 Workflow Management Software Module Market – By Geography
4.1 Global Workflow Management Software Module Market Value and Market Share by Regions
4.2 Global Workflow Management Software Module Market Production and Market Share by Major Countries
4.3 Global Workflow Management Software Module Market Consumption and Market Share by Regions
5 Workflow Management Software Module Market – By Trade Statistics
5.1 Global Workflow Management Software Module Export and Import
5.2 United States Workflow Management Software Module Export and Import (2015-2020)
5.3 Europe Workflow Management Software Module Export and Import (2015-2020)
5.4 China Export and Import (2015-2020)
5.5 Japan Export and Import (2015-2020)
5.6 India Export and Import (2015-2020)
6 Workflow Management Software Module Market – By Type
6.1 Global Workflow Management Software Module Production and Market Share by Types (2015-2020)
6.2 Global Workflow Management Software Module Value and Market Share by Types (2015-2020)
6.3 Global Workflow Management Software Module Production, Price and Growth Rate of Risk Management (2015-2020)
6.4 Global Production, Price and Growth Rate of Integrity (2015-2020)
6.5 Global Production, Price and Growth Rate of Forefront Portfolio (2015-2020)
6.6 Global Production, Price and Growth Rate of Third Party Liability (2015-2020)
6.7 Global Production, Price and Growth Rate of Others (2015-2020)
7 Workflow Management Software Module Market – By Application
7.1 Global Workflow Management Software Module Consumption and Market Share by Applications (2015-2020)
7.2 Global Workflow Management Software Module Consumption and Growth Rate of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) (2015-2020)
7.3 Global Workflow Management Software Module Consumption and Growth Rate of Large Enterprises (2015-2020)
8 North America Workflow Management Software Module Market
8.1 North America Workflow Management Software Module Market Size
8.2 United States Workflow Management Software Module Market Size
8.3 Canada Market Size
8.4 Mexico Market Size
8.5 The Influence of COVID-19 on North America Market
9 Europe Workflow Management Software Module Market Analysis
9.1 Europe Workflow Management Software Module Market Size
9.2 Germany Workflow Management Software Module Market Size
9.3 United Kingdom Workflow Management Software Module Market Size
9.4 France Market Size
9.5 Italy Market Size
9.6 Spain Market Size
9.7 The Influence of COVID-19 on Europe Market
10 Asia-Pacific Workflow Management Software Module Market Analysis
10.1 Asia-Pacific Workflow Management Software Module Market Size
10.2 China Workflow Management Software Module Market Size
10.3 Japan Market Size
10.4 South Korea Market Size
10.5 Southeast Asia Market Size
10.6 India Market Size
10.7 The Influence of COVID-19 on Asia Pacific Market
11 Middle East and Africa Workflow Management Software Module Market Analysis
11.1 Middle East and Africa Workflow Management Software Module Market Size
11.2 Saudi Arabia Workflow Management Software Module Market Size
11.3 UAE Market Size
11.4 South Africa Market Size
11.5 The Influence of COVID-19 on Middle East and Africa Market
12 South America Workflow Management Software Module Market Analysis
12.1 South America Workflow Management Software Module Market Size
12.2 Brazil Workflow Management Software Module Market Size
12.3 The Influence of COVID-19 on South America Market
13 Company Profiles
13.1 Company 1
13.1.1 Company 1 Basic Information
13.1.2 Company 1 Product Profiles, Application and Specification
13.1.3 Company 1 Workflow Management Software Module Market Performance (2015-2020)
13.2 Company 2
13.2.1 Company 2 Basic Information
13.2.2 Company 2 Product Profiles, Application and Specification
13.2.3 Company 2 Workflow Management Software Module Market Performance (2015-2020)
14 Market Forecast – By Regions
14.1 North America Workflow Management Software Module Market Forecast (2020-2025)
14.2 Europe Workflow Management Software Module Market Forecast (2020-2025)
14.3 Asia-Pacific Workflow Management Software Module Market Forecast (2020-2025)
14.4 Middle East and Africa Workflow Management Software Module Market Forecast (2020-2025)
14.5 South America Workflow Management Software Module Market Forecast (2020-2025)
15 Market Forecast – By Type and Applications
15.1 Global Workflow Management Software Module Market Forecast by Types (2020-2025)
15.1.1 Global Market Forecast Production and Market Share by Types (2020-2025)
15.1.2 Global Market Forecast Value and Market Share by Types (2020-2025)
15.2 Global Market Forecast by Applications (2020-2025)
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by DP Taylor | Updated Aug. 5, 2022 – First published on May 18, 2022
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Those stacks of paper scattered throughout your office may not seem like they’re costing your business money, but you’d be surprised.
One study found that, on average, 7.5% of paper documents get lost completely, and 3% are misfiled. And it costs about $2,000 annually in terms of work hours just to maintain a single, four-drawer filing cabinet.
The way we deal with documents these days is totally different from how it was 20 years ago. Our electronic signatures and electronic record-keeping systems bear no resemblance to the rows of folders packed away in filing cabinets. There’s no reason to be stuck in the old ways of doing things.
If you don’t have an electronic document and record management system (EDRMS), you’re probably losing a lot of money without realizing it.
This stems from valuable documents being lost into the ether, or your employees spending a significant amount of time dealing with documents when they could be doing other things. This guide will help you understand how to use EDRMS to streamline your business.
An EDRMS is a process which organizations use to organize all important information in one central location.
Organizations often use an EDRMS (also referred to as an electronic document management system or EDMS) not only to make it easy to locate documents and records, but also for document control and advanced record management.
The system creates an audit trail showing who has accessed certain information, how and when it has been altered, and any other pertinent information.
EDRMS software solutions integrate all current business document management into one seamless, centralized electronic records system, sometimes hosted in the cloud for convenience and easy access.
An EDRMS is more than just an electronic filing system — it is a fundamental part of running your organization.
This is the most basic purpose of electronic data systems. At any organization, paperwork tends to pile up over time, making it difficult to find that permit you got a year ago or an employee record.
An EDRMS either receives user input or automatically files paperwork electronically, placing all of that documentation in one convenient place so it isn’t taking up space on your shelves or in miscellaneous folders spread out across various computers within your organization.
A key part of good records management is making sure all of that paperwork is in order and can be found easily and quickly. An EDRMS sorts and categorizes paperwork so it can be found with just a few keystrokes. This feature alone will save an organization hundreds or even thousands of work hours.
Some documents are highly sensitive, and having vital organizational information sitting on a shelf or in an unsecured computer folder is a recipe for disaster. An EDRMS keeps everything in one centralized place and prevents unauthorized users from accessing it.
Most EDRMS software allows the administrator to set different permissions for different files, so one person who needs access to one file doesn’t get the keys to the kingdom.
An EDRMS often has communication features, such as alerting a department that a specific relevant document has been uploaded to the system, or automatically sharing a file with individuals tagged on it. Some systems may allow users to directly message each other through the system, or even to mark up business documents.

eFileCabinet
has a communication feature within the document management system for sending and receiving files. Source: eFileCabinet.
Document management may not seem like the most important part of your business, but these four benefits explain why it can have such a huge impact on how your organization runs.
In the digital age, keeping information safe is difficult. You face numerous threats from people around the world who want to steal sensitive information. An EDRMS makes sure that data are safe and secure with features that require permissions to access certain information.
And by tracking changes to documents, an EDRMS can alert managers to any unauthorized changes so that they can revert the document to its previous forms.
An EDRMS also ensures that companies are in compliance with laws and regulations requiring information security, such as HIPAA with medical records and GDPR for protecting data of citizens of the European Union.

Box allows you to see what kind of changes are being made to which documents. Image source: Author
Businesses must be organized — it’s hard to operate if you’re not. When all of your documentation is organized, you add a veneer of professionalism to your organization.
This helps everyone’s mindset since it’s easier to work when you feel like everything is at your fingertips. As the old saying goes, a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind. By streamlining your documentation, you take a big step toward streamlining your business as a whole.

M-Files provides a top-down overview of your files so you can quickly navigate to the right document. Image source: Author
Your employees will be able to access documents much easier thanks to an EDRMS. They won’t have to dig through stacks of papers in a cardboard box tucked away in a closet, or even search multiple computers for a file hidden somewhere in a random folder.
Instead, they’ll have one centralized system they can use to locate a file with just a few keystrokes. This makes it easy for them to do their jobs and allows them to focus on more important tasks.
When all of your paperwork is organized and accessible, your business is more efficient and therefore more productive. Your employees will spend less time manually entering data and searching for necessary documentation.
Also, you’ll spend less money on document management expenses because everything is digital, and many of the processes are automated.
It's impossible to say how much a system will cost because it depends on the nature of your business, how much documentation you need organized, and what extra features you need. Generally, the amount you spend on an EDRMS will be driven by:
An EDRMS may cost thousands of dollars or more each month if you need an extensive file management system. However, if you're a small business, you can manage your documents for much less than that.
For example, DocSend offers a plan for business teams for $45/month per user. And Box (For Business) offers a long-term free version with a 10 GB storage cap that could be enough if you're running a one-person shop. You can bump that up to 100 GB for just $5 per month.
If you are a medium or large organization, you need an EDRMS. An organization of any reasonable size will have oceans of documentation, and many of these records will be sensitive or have legal ramifications, so you must have a secure system for managing them.
Even smaller organizations should have an EDRMS. You can find an inexpensive system, and it will give you peace of mind to know all of your documentation is in one secure place.
The only time an EDRMS might not be necessary is if you are a one- or two-person shop with almost no documents. But that's a rare situation, and even then you can opt for a free EDRMS option to cover your bases.
Chances are you have some documentation that could stand protection, if only because it has personally identifiable information on it that hackers could steal.
Determining what kind of EDRMS will fit your business is trickier, and it requires consultation with your staff on what documentation you have and how it should be organized. Specifically, you should know:
With this information in hand, you can examine EDRMS options. The Ascent has reviewed some of the top document management systems, so read a few reviews and get an idea of some options that look interesting. Then give a couple of them a try and settle on one to implement in your organization.
If you’re reading this, chances are you’re tired of the chaos and clutter of your organization’s documentation “system,” if it can be called that. This is a sign that it’s time to stop putting it off.
Set aside some time in the coming weeks to start dealing with this issue, implementing document management best practices, and identifying software that can organize the mess. You’ll wonder how you ever got along without it.
Cash back, travel rewards, 0% intro APR financing: all of these can be great credit card perks for business owners. But how do you find the right business credit card for you? There are tons of offers on the market today, and sifting through them to find the right one can be a big hassle. So we've done the hard work for you.
Get started with one of our top business credit card picks of 2022 today.
DP Taylor is a business software expert writing for The Ascent and The Motley Fool.
We’re firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers. The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.
The Ascent is a Motley Fool service that rates and reviews essential products for your everyday money matters.
Copyright © 2018 – 2022 The Ascent. All rights reserved.

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With pandemic restrictions easing and the full staff heading back to the office, Laura’s boss decided the time was right to perform some workspace reorganization. He put Laura in charge of going through a bunch of drawers with instructions to make folders to organize papers of current worth, box up other documents that somebody might need down the line, and toss insignificant and old material.
Laura did not think this task sounded too difficult, but by the second drawer, she changed her mind. Many gray areas existed as to what was “important” or “old.” Afraid of making a mistake, she erred heavily on the side of caution. This hesitancy created an abundance of random “stuff” destined to sit in the basement until either some brave soul went on a hunt for something he needed or flooding from a storm damaged the cardboard boxes and rendered the papers inside unreadable.
Upon finishing the project, Laura expressed relief to her friend Jan at lunch. She told Jan how hard it was to figure out a good way to organize timely papers since they often fit multiple categories. She also explained that the only items she actually tossed were some electronic mail printouts from last year that were originally sent to the account of a person no longer with the company. Jan asked about the nature of these messages. Laura said that she did not read them in detail but that they seemed to be rather mean-spirited. Jan bit her lip and hoped that Laura had not accidentally tossed evidence the legal department might need in a harassment lawsuit.
Like many other workplaces, Laura’s office could benefit considerably from implementing electronic records management (ERM). Such a management system utilizes information technology to organize and store records in electronic form. Electronic information management eliminates guesswork by providing systematic storage, maintenance, and disposition of records. Electronic documents are available and retrievable when people need them, and electronic information past its usefulness gets deleted in a purposeful, orderly manner.
Organizations need to keep various records as proof of business processes and activities. These documents act as official records that certain events took place or that proper procedures were followed. Many serve as supporting evidence when the company files taxes or gives reports to other federal agencies. Some need to be easily retrievable should a government agency such as the Department of Labor (DOL) want to check employment verification or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) need to investigate an environmental concern. Internally, anyone from a manager looking for details of past dealings with a specific client to lawyers building a defense for an improper termination lawsuit benefits from the ability to quickly and easily find what they need.
An ERM system enables people to find the right information when they need it. Capturing document metadata facilitates content management and improves identification, categorization, and retrieval. The seeker need not go on a scavenger hunt to multiple places nor worry that additional information exists elsewhere. A properly maintained electronic records management system serves as an efficient one-stop-shop.
Other pros to employing an electronic format include:
Saving space. Paper records can take up a good deal of physical room.
Safety. Fires, floods, and even spilled cups of coffee can render physical copies of documents unreadable.
Access from outside the building. Many businesses operate out of more than one location. Electronic files allow approved people to get what they need regardless of where they are at.
Reducing manual workload. A records management program requiring physical filing and retrieving requires more staff effort and introduces greater potential for human error. Similarly, disposal of physical documents past their life cycle means needing to destroy and haul away mounds of paper.
Avoiding productivity loss. By keeping valuable content organized and discoverable, an audit or compliance request does not create a frenzy that necessitates pulling people away from their regular work to search for relevant material.

Effective management of electronic records requires an organization to develop specific policies. These policies act as an instruction manual for those involved in managing electronic records. This information also serves as institutional memory. Down the line, people may wonder about the rationale behind recordkeeping decisions they inherited. Knowing, say, how the records retention schedule for a type of document was determined or how individual records management practices came into being clarifies the foundation and assists with future decisions.
Defining what information your organization must keep as a record, the procedures for managing those records, their retention period, and their disposal schedule also gives your organization credibility in the eyes of outsiders. Courts and government agencies frown upon selective deletion by individual employees because such action raises concern about cover-ups. When you can show a thoughtful, organized policy to a relevant third party such as a lawyer or auditor, it backs up your decisions by demonstrating that the business follows a standardized system rather than keeping or deleting information willy-nilly.
As Laura’s situation earlier illustrated, problems can arise when employees are left to their own devices when handling records. They may keep everything because of fear of inadvertently destroying something that should be retained. Or, they may be too quick to dispose of something that to the untrained eye looks old or unnecessary. The first scenario creates a cumbersome mess where finding what you want proves challenging. The second action opens up the company to potential legal and regulatory problems.
Do not expect employees to inherently know what stays and what goes. A good company records policy must define what your organization considers a business record. Basically, the term refers to evidence of business-related activities, such as events, transactions, discussions, and communications. Some types of business records, such as tax forms and legal documents, are relatively easy to spot. Others, such as emails and social media posts, are not so obvious. Be certain employees know not only your organization’s precise definition of a business record but also the various forms such records may take.
Examining legal and regulatory guidelines provides a good foundation for establishing what types of electronic records you need to keep and for how long. Research rather than assume. Requirements may prove surprising, such as certain employee medical records that OSHA wants retained for 30 years.
Since many records pertain to tax issues, people involved in records administration may want to seek guidance from the Internal Revenue Service’s website, IRS.gov. The web page entitled “What kind of records should I keep?” provides small businesses and the self-employed with guidance about recordkeeping of supporting business documents such as gross receipts, purchases, expenses, and assets. Another web page entitled “How long should I keep records?” looks at recordkeeping in regard to the period of limitations (the period of time in which you can amend a tax return to claim a credit or refund or the IRS can assess additional tax). “Employment tax recordkeeping” details what records regarding employment taxes a company should keep for at least four years after filing a return.
Another place to check out is USCIS.gov. This website for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services provides detailed information regarding retention rules for I-9 forms, the document used to verify the identity and legal authorization to work of all paid employees in the United States.
Other common types of records to address regarding retention and deletion schedules include:
Records pertaining to time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
Accommodation requests
OSHA forms
Hiring records (including information on candidates not chosen)
Employee records
Payroll information
Job evaluations
Termination and layoff documentation
Coming up with an electronic records retention and deletion policy is a large and complex procedure. Creators must know which regulations apply to the organization and address them in the policy. This involves reviewing company and HR requirements, state law, federal law, industry regulations, government regulations, and insurance needs before developing record retention policy and procedures. Assembling a team that approaches the process from different angles and spheres of expertise can prove valuable. Gather input from senior management, human resources, IT, records management, and legal/compliance.
Legal consult proves especially helpful in matters involving the organization’s litigation hold policy. Their advice places a destruction hold on electronic documents that should not be deleted because of potential future use. This forward-thinking measure may, for instance, preserve records pertaining to an employee who has expressed concern about harassment in case he or she later takes the matter to court.
As discussed in the previous section, every record has a life cycle — a specific amount of time that it needs to be kept. Holding on to records beyond their retention period results in an ever-increasing need for storage space and lowers retrieval efficiency.
Archives are records that possess an infinite life cycle, meaning they never get deleted. The most well-known place in the U.S. for this type of information is the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which holds various government records. Archivists there follow strict protocols to ensure the maintenance and safety of these important public records. Interestingly, of all the documents and materials created in the course of business conducted by the United States federal government, only 1%-3% are so important for legal or historical reasons that they are kept forever. State archives serve a similar function at the state level.
While perhaps not as extensive, businesses also typically have permanent records and benefit from creating archives. Transferring items with this type of legal, fiscal, administrative, or historical value to a place where people can still retrieve them as necessary but do not encounter on a regular basis lowers the chance of accidental deletion.
Electronic records with a limited life cycle do not get archived. Instead, they require thought-out, spelled-out placement in your system. Their retention and deletion follow guidelines adhered to by everyone at the company.
Security
Keeping records safe from internal or external theft or unauthorized changes has always been a concern and remains so for electronic documents. While worrying about someone stashing physical copies in his briefcase is no longer the issue when using an ERM system, computer breaches are equally problematic.
Companies must take measures to prevent outsiders from gaining access to electronic files. Software applications such as encryption tools help by making a document intercepted over an open network inaccessible or unreadable. Businesses also must vehemently control access by their own employees. Only relevant parties should be set up with login permission and the information on how to get in – with strict warnings against unauthorized sharing.
Since viruses also can wreak havoc on electronic files, IT personnel should install effective security software and keep it up to date. Companies commonly make backup copies of files in the event a problem occurs. If using cloud-based storage, do research before selecting a provider. Choose a reputable provider that can clearly tell you the security measures it takes.
In addition to implementing various technical measures against theft or tampering, smart organizations also know the importance of monitoring. They run reports that track every action taken on each document throughout its life cycle, who performed the action, and when it took place. Appropriate leaders and gatekeepers can look at these reports for questionable or suspicious activity.
With its many benefits, electronic records management certainly seems like the wave of the future. This begs the question, “Are there any documents to still keep in physical form?” Opinions vary, but experts often recommend hard copies of:
Annual reports
Insurance documents
Employer identification numbers (EIN)
Contracts
IRS and government correspondence
Tax returns
Articles of incorporation
Documents with raised seals
Business licenses and other documents required by law to be displayed
International financial documents (some countries have specific requirements about electronic vs. paper copies)
Mortgages
Leases
Whatever papers you choose to keep in physical form, make sure to store them in a fire-resistant container or cabinet placed in a dry, temperature-controlled area. Laura’s cardboard box in a leaky basement is not a good relocation choice!
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October 25, 2022 09:02 ET | Source: Intapp Inc. Intapp Inc.
Palo Alto, California, UNITED STATES
PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 25, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Intapp (NASDAQ: INTA), a leading provider of cloud-based software for the global professional and financial services industries, today announced that London-, Kent-, and Sussex-based accounting, business, and wealth advisers Kreston Reeves has selected OnePlace Collaboration & Content to provide a collaborative, engagement-centric document management solution and help the firm maximize its Microsoft 365 platform investment.

Kreston Reeves is an award-winning firm providing accountancy, business, and wealth advice to businesses, not-for-profit organizations, individuals, and families. It will use Intapp products in tandem with Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, and Office to better connect the people, processes, and data involved in each engagement.
Intapp collaboration and content products simplify collaboration, enhance compliance, automate governance, and help professional services firms deliver more productive, profitable engagements. As a part of this suite, Kreston Reeves will use the following components:
“As we adopted Microsoft 365 to play a central role in enabling a secure, collaborative, and modern work environment, it became clear that we needed to extend the capabilities of the solution for our unique needs as an accounting firm,” said Chris Madden, Chief Technology Officer and Operations Director at Kreston Reeves. “OnePlace Collaboration & Content will supercharge our Microsoft investment, enabling intuitive, centralized, engagement-specific workspaces with intelligent file management.”
“We are thrilled that one of the leaders in the midmarket accounting space is adopting OnePlace Collaboration & Content to enhance collaboration, document management, and knowledge management across the firm,” said Alan McMillen, General Manager, Collaboration and Content Solutions at Intapp. “Intapp’s alignment with Microsoft applications will boost productivity and focus for Kreston Reeves professionals by eliminating the need to switch between platforms when managing documents and communications.”
Kreston Reeves will work with Transform Data, an Intapp partner that resells and implements enterprise content, collaboration, and automation technology, to migrate existing data stores to Microsoft SharePoint. Transform Data’s specialists will strengthen the firm’s investment in Microsoft 365 by ensuring the optimal flow of data firmwide to facilitate effective document, email, and case management functionality.
About Intapp
Intapp makes the connected firm possible. We help professional and financial services firms better connect their people, processes, and data through AI-powered software solutions. Trusted by more than 2,100 of the world’s premier private capital, investment banking, legal, accounting, and consulting firms, Intapp offers an end-to-end solution purpose-built to help modernize these firms. Intapp facilitates greater team collaboration, digitizes complex workflows to optimize deal and engagement execution, and leverages proprietary AI to help nurture relationships and originate new business. Intapp helps firms increase profitability and investment returns, operate more efficiently, and better manage risk and compliance. For more information, visit intapp.com and connect with us on Twitter (@Intapp) and LinkedIn.
Intapp and OnePlace are registered trademarks of Integration Appliance, Inc., or its subsidiaries. Various trademarks held by their respective owners.
About Kreston Reeves
Our purpose is to guide our clients, colleagues, and communities to a brighter future. We help dynamic businesses, charity and not-for-profit organizations, private individuals, and families with accountancy, business, and wealth advice. Offices in London, Kent, and Sussex. Website: www.krestonreeves.com
About Transform Data International:
Transform Data’s solutions and services strengthen the adoption of Microsoft 365 and SharePoint. As a leading partner of Intapp’s Content & Collaboration suites, we have been migrating clients from legacy platforms to SharePoint for 8 years. We help organizations optimize their employees’ total productivity by combining documents, tasks, workflows, external data, and reports into one context-based user interface. Offices London & Maastricht. Website: www.transformdata.eu
Media Contacts:
Kreston Reeves
Matt Baldwin, Coast
matt@coastcommunications.co.uk
4407930 439739
Intapp
Ali Robinson
Global Media Relations Director, Intapp
press@intapp.com
678-909-0703

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by Rose Wheeler | Updated Aug. 5, 2022 – First published on May 18, 2022
Image source: Getty Images
Taking your business documents online with a document management tool is a crucial step that will declutter your office and keep your files secure.
Business documents pile up, and the opportunity for lost files or a lack of accountability in tracking is a threat in a paper-run world. However, setting up a paperless system takes planning and implementation.
Business document management lets you use a cloud-based system to store, edit, manage, send, and track electronic documents, from invoices to contracts to HR records. Business document management is the digital answer to paper storage.
By following best practices to manage documents, you can set your business up for streamlined success. Like anything new, you must take stock of what you have, make a list for what you need, and schedule time to learn so you can make the transition seamless.
Step one involves putting your plan onto paper. Before you can jump into action, you need a full outline.
After you know what you need and want, your next move is to pick the file organizer system. You must consider features, integrations, and capabilities before choosing a winner.
After you’ve done the prep work, it’s time to set things up in the office, from file transfers to how the system syncs with your current tools.
After your system is set up, it’s time to upload, store, and share files. It’s important to keep things organized. The same care and order you used to transfer files should also carry over to ongoing storage.
Ignoring maintenance and upkeep will lead to an unorganized mess. You’ll need regularly scheduled upkeep to make sure things are staying streamlined.
For document management, you need the right online filing system for your business. Considering things such as cost, capabilities, scalability, and more, here are three top choices you’ll want to explore.
eFileCabinet is built for efficiency and centralizing document management. It’s easy to set up and install, and just as easy to navigate.
You can migrate files, archive as needed, and search from a streamlined interface. Administrators can audit file histories and track edits using custom links.

Save time and desktop space by uploading simply with Sidekick. Image source: Author
eFileCabinet also uses an open source document management API (application programming interface), so any software can connect to it. You can drag and drop files off your desktop into an uploader without having to dive into eFileCabinet via a browser using its Sidekick application.
Box is an efficient and easily integratabtle solution. Beyond the basics of uploading, sharing, and editing documents, you can expand your capabilities by setting up workflows, tracking document history, creating multiple user permissions, making custom outbound links, and more.
Its interface is easy to use, as the toolbars are intuitive and straightforward. Uploaded documents have full navigation bars that can be accessed on a file-by-file basis or for entire folders at once. Directly send items or share clickable links with others that carry a range of permissions, from viewing to editing.

Sharing documents is made simple with Box’s easy-to-use interface. Image source: Author
It’s an affordable option, too, with a free plan for personal use, and its cheapest paid option being only $5/month per user, with at least three users.
DocSend places a high value on ease of use, as it syncs right into your existing software structure. By integrating with the systems you’re already using, the learning curve is super minimal.

Customized permissions, per share, help keep your data protected. Image source: Author
Plus, it lets you customize permissions that can be toggled on and off. You can set up email verification and even visibility expirations, protecting sensitive information. It starts at $10/month per user.
Taking your business into the security of the digital age is as simple as setting up document management software. You can easily transition your physical files into a searchable and secure digital bank by planning out your organization categories and conventions.
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Rose Wheeler is a content management expert writing for The Ascent and The Motley Fool.
We’re firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers. The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.
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