Introducing WorkDrive 4.0: Enhanced productivity. Advanced data administration: Part 1

A year ago, we released many exciting features to meet the challenges of data accessibility and content collaboration in the hybrid work environment. We at WorkDrive believe our features should bring content and people together and ensure they stay connected no matter where they are in the world.

The hybrid and distributed work model became mainstream in 2022—and it is here to stay. Our goal is to expand our feature releases and updates to cater to the needs of modern teams in terms of productivity, collaboration, security, usability, and data administration.

WorkDrive 4.0's features are built to improve each of these areas, boosting team efficiency and connectivity. By enhancing our core capabilities, we help organizations bring teams, content, and knowledge together in a hybrid work environment.

Productivity

Reduce long meetings with WorkDrive Snap

Group meetings are commonplace in most offices, though they are rarely as productive as team leaders hope. To keep decision-makers from being held up in meetings, and files from being held up by a lengthy review process, many organizations are opting for asynchronous communication.

As an alternative to lengthy meetings and a solution to your communication needs, we introduce you to WorkDrive Snap: our video-based asynchronous collaboration tool. WorkDrive Snap combines the power of video calls with the flexibility of chat.

WorkDrive Snap offers multiple recording options (screen, video, and audio) coupled with the flexible sharing options characteristic of WorkDrive. Easily record, replay, and share information while working, without slowing down productivity.

Want to brief your team on a new project? Just record your screen along with video and audio. Use video and audio recordings alone if you want to share official or personal news with your team. You can even record audio to quickly annotate files and share feedback.

More power with contextual commenting

Contextual commenting on a document helps you collaborate and share your ideas with your team. Sometimes, you may tag the wrong user or misspell a word. Now, you can edit your comments, instead of deleting them, to correct mistakes.

Collaboration and data security

OTP authentication for external share links

Whether you're sending an invoice to a client or an agreement to a partner, secure external sharing is essential. The data leaving an organization must be protected. With our new update, you can enable OTP authentication and add an extra layer of security to your externally shared files.

Take external collaboration to the next level

Collaborate with your external clients, even if they don't have a WorkDrive account! Our new update enables them to securely access, comment, reply, @mention, and download your externally shared files. They can also add and rename files in a shared folder and all the changes will be visible to both of you. You can respond to their comments and collaborate with them directly from your account.

Data administration

Manage all shared items from a central location

Knowing who shared what and with whom is crucial in an organization. But tracking this information across multiple shared files and folders can be challenging. With our new update, Admins can easily view, share, and manage all shared items from a single place. They can filter files based on the method of sharing, recipient, file location, and document type.

We have enabled this functionality for individual Team Folders too, which means you can easily view all shared items of a particular Team Folder. This way, Admins and Organizers can quickly locate shared Team Folder documents. 

We believe data administration is a collective process and everybody has a role to play. Now, every user can view and manage their shared items in their My Folders and keep track of what they have shared and with whom.

Transfer an active member's file and folder ownership

In an organization, there will be instances when your teammate transfers to another team or leaves the company. This can complicate work processes, especially if they have important files in their My Folders, such as content plans, marketing strategies, or client decks. Whether it's an active, inactive, or suspended user, you can now view all their My Folders documents and transfer file ownership to yourself or any other active member of your team. This way, you can ensure crucial documents are retained and protected.

Integrations

Bigin's File Cabinet powered by Zoho WorkDrive

Are you a Bigin user? If so, we have exciting news for you. Your days of searching through a long list of emails to locate customer files and uploading them manually to your CRM are over. Our integration with Bigin enables you to create File Cabinets for each customer and store all their files in a single place.

With the File Cabinet powered by WorkDrive, you can generate unique links to collect customer files, configure workflows to automate the process of sending links, receive notifications when a file is uploaded, securely share files with customers using OTP authentication, and manage all your leads in a more organized manner.

Share WorkDrive files in a "Cliq"

As a next step towards building a unified file system for Zoho users, we bring you the Zoho WorkDrive/Cliq integration.  

Gone are the days when you had to share files and folders through links and separately give access permission to Cliq users outside your team. Whether with an individual user or a channel, you can now share your WorkDrive files directly from within Cliq and set the necessary access permissions.

Permission level options are different for individual users and channels. 

View your emails right from WorkDrive

Tired of searching through email threads to locate that one important message? Our latest update helps you save crucial Zoho Mail emails to WorkDrive and maintain a copy in EML (electronic mail format). Once you add an email to WorkDrive, you can preview it right from your account. The file contains the email content along with other details.

New ways to classify Team Folders 

Most organizations work with multiple Team Folders, each serving a different purpose. Whether your folders were created manually or through integration, classifying them can be time consuming. If you have integrated Zoho Projects or Zoho Marketing Plus with WorkDrive, you can now list the Team Folders created in Projects and Marketing Plus in the left panel of your WorkDrive account so you can easily access the right files at the right time. 

User experience

Tree-based navigation

Searching through a long list of your company's files or folders is a tiresome process. The new tree-based navigation option in WorkDrive makes it easier to access folders in Team Folders or My Folders based on hierarchy, so you can quickly find the right file at the right time.

Copy and move files with ease

We have made the experience of adding files to your WorkDrive account seamless with our new update. Now, you can use keyboard shortcuts (changes based on the OS) and drag and drop to easily upload, move, and copy files to a folder of your choice. You just have to possess the required permissions in the folder where you'll be adding the file.

The updates don’t stop here! We have a lot more in store for you. Keep watching this space for part two of this announcement.

Introducing WorkDrive 4.0: Enhanced productivity and usability, Part 2

To give feedback or ask questions, please write to us at sales@zohocorp.com. You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Quora for interesting WorkDrive news and product updates.