Brighton, UK – It can be cumbersome to keep track of new or even filed documents for a construction project. Traditionally, construction-related documents can range from large designs and blueprints to small notes and receipts. Keeping all company documents in one place would be space-intensive and impractical.However, that is how things were in the past. According to James Sandwick, it is now possible to store all of a company's documents in something as small as your phone. James Sandwick, who is the co-founder of BuilderStorm and the resident IT expert, says, “The digital age has made storing documents much easier. You don’t have to carry around a heavy briefcase with you to have all your documents handy at all times. You let the virtual cloud storage do all the heavy lifting!”
BuilderStorm offers enough storage space on their trial package to be enough for a small building company. Other packages, which have different rates, can go up to unlimited storage.
What does all this storage space mean for a building company? Simply that any and all document related to a project, or even all of the company's documents, can be uploaded and saved in the cloud.
Having all documents in the cloud means ease of accessibility, from anywhere. With the BuilderStorm on your mobile device, documents can be accessed even at the construction site with just an internet connection.
What is even better, the documents can also be edited online so the users don’t need to upload updated versions over and over again. That is not to say that uploading documents is difficult. Images, design documents, and other paperwork can simply be dragged and dropped to be uploaded.
Having documents uploaded on the cloud offers another advantage. Sending a file for someone else to view or refer to involves just sending a link instead of attaching heavy files in an email.
Having everything in one place makes it much easier for people to collaborate and share information. The online editing feature means multiple people can work on a document. There can be a design discussion without people having to be in the same room, and all ideas and final decisions will be saved as the last saved version.
Because all the documents are saved in one place, with a record of who made edits at what time kept, processes become transparent and allow for clear accountability. This also makes auditing and reviewing easier.
The obvious downside to having company-wide documents saved online is losing them to accidental deletion, hardware problems, or server downtime. However, as Mr Sandwick explains, that has been taken into consideration by BuilderStorm.
“At BuilderStorm, we make sure we make several backups of your database”, he says. “We have several servers running parallel at all times. This means that you can always access your documents, even if a server is down. Plus, we also have a feature that allows you to backup your database at your end, so you have peace of mind.”
With no possibility of losing documents to technical problems comes the assurance that no unauthorised user can view anything they are not meant to. With user access, the administrator can give viewing rights to groups or individuals.
These rights can be granted or denied to anyone, and because it is completely customisable, they can tailor each user's access rights individually. This means that all the company's documents are secure not just from accidental wipe-outs but also from prying eyes.