In this case, document version control can serve as an audit trail of your teams’ work during a project, detailing revision history at every stage. Once a project is complete, version history can also be crucial when reviewing your team’s work. A well-organized version control system allows you to be certain that what makes it into the final version is final, not added after work hours without all collaborators knowing. You can check for differences between versions and ensure that all changes are approved. The core benefit of version control is the ability to retain every single version of a document or file throughout a project workflow-from start to finish. Using the right software and versioning properly can safeguard against time loss and accelerate processes in organizations of all sizes. To sign off on a completed document, you have to know which file is the final version, but it goes far beyond that.

When it comes to working on collaborative documents, having some form of version control is crucial to alignment. Five reasons why version control is essential for teams It could also help a graphic designer track which design is final for a client.

For example, document version control could help a writer manage different drafts of a book. The uses for version control go far beyond creating code. A version control system could also be a set of rules for working with files such as a folder architecture to store different versions. It could simply be software that tracks changes and allows you to access all previous versions of a file at any time. Now they aren’t as complicated as they sound. Version control systems initially appeared in software development to manage changes to code. Version control manages different versions of files over time. How many documents labeled “FINAL” are swiftly followed by “FINAL V2”? If your team is losing time locating the most recent files and tracking changes, it may be time to establish a version control system. Despite how common this setup is, these same teams often struggle to manage the many different versions of their work files. Teams in organizations today collaborate across departments, offices, borders, and time zones-all while working from the same set of documents.

Paper dropbox how to track changes