If you’re using a traditional spreadsheet for document or digital asset management, it only gets the job half done. A spreadsheet can list file names and other relevant information, but the files themselves need to be stored somewhere else. It’s easy to make changes in one system and forget to make them in the other, which can quickly render your management system useless.
Spreadsheet.com solves this problem by taking your document and digital asset management storage a step further and letting you store attachments directly in workbook cells. Important details about documents live in the same rows as the documents themselves, and a simple spreadsheet can act as an end-to-end asset database and single source of truth for your entire organization.
And the best part of all? It’s easy and fast; so fast that you can create a document management system from scratch quicker than you can brew your morning coffee. Let’s take a look:
Here, we’re starting off with the basic framework of a document management workbook:
We have some basic information about each file like an index number, name, document type, and author. If we were using a traditional spreadsheet, we’d have to stop here. Luckily, we’re using Spreadsheet.com, so we can include document files in each of these rows.
Attachments can be added to workbooks by changing a cell, range of cells, or column to the Attachment data type, one of more than two dozen rich data types supported by Spreadsheet.com.
To convert a column to the Attachment data type, double click the column header and select “Attachment” from the dropdown list in the Update column dialog. Here, we’re converting Column E - Document.
Now, our workbook is ready to store attachment files in our new Attachment column.
Once you’ve created an Attachment column in your workbook, all that’s left to do is upload your attachments. If your attachments are stored on your desktop, you can simply drag-and-drop them into Attachment cells.
Or, click the paperclip icon in an Attachment cell to import files from other cloud services like Google Drive, Box, OneDrive, and Dropbox.
Attachment cells support all sorts of files like PDFs, JPGs, PNGs, and even GIFs. Click on an image thumbnail to view the attachment at full size, as well as download it.
Attachments work with other powerful Spreadsheet.com features like Automations to make your document management workflow even more powerful. You could set up an automation that logs the date and time that an Attachment cell is updated to easily track changes, or an automation that notifies a document author when new attachments are added to their file records.
Turn a document management system into a document approval system with the Checkbox data type and conditional formatting, keeping your entire team updated with document revisions and approvals.
Use a Kanban view to prominently feature document thumbnails on a note card-style layout, or a Form view to let team members submit new documents to your workbook.
Ready to upgrade your document and digital asset management workflow? Get started today with a template from Spreadsheet.com’s Template Gallery, or start with a blank workbook to begin building your management system from scratch.