Usage of Dropbox Team folders

[Jonathan Wexler]

For my new company, I am trying to decide between (i) some cloud-based team approach, (ii) just having people e-mail back and forth.  You may imagine this a simple choice, but the last time I tried a cloud-based solution - with just personal Dropbox accounts - it quickly devolved into e-mail, shared Dropbox folders, uncertainty as to authorship or revision dates. No way to curate anything. And it is worth mentioning that there really are no business processes involved, more like research and development, with the goal always moving and the components always mutating. And correspondingly, the individuals involved have little patience for computer protocols and procedures.

So the notion of a single team-oriented storage folder has some attraction. But the feature lists that Dropbox provides are eyewash - vague and uninformative. And I simply do not have time to sign up for a trial, simulate multiple users, and try to reverse-engineer an understanding of usage patterns. 

Does anyone have any comparable experiences or can anyone point me to a complete documentation set. 

Thanks

Jonathan

[Lusil]

Hi @Jonathan Wexler, thanks for dropping by. 

If you haven't already, you can check out this link which has more info on how to use Dropbox Business. 

In any case, I'm more than happy to leave this thread open so that other users can jump in and share their experience. 

In the meantime, if you have any other questions for us, don't hesitate to give us another nudge. Cheers!

[Jonathan Wexler]

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

I went through everything in the suggested link - and, well - learned nothing (I do have a couple of years of Dropbox usage under my belt).

I am still looking for information on administering a team folder.  I doubt I can generate a complete list, but I would want the ability to:

a) delete an erroneous, outdated, or subsequently reorganized document, so that team members would not inadvertently access it

b) send an e-mail (or other form of notification) to the entirety (or subset) of the team (for clarity, it would not be suitable to rely on a "What's New" document that everyone would have to open)

c) reorganize the entire space of documents (in response to a change in project direction) in a way that would eliminate the chance that any team member would attempt to use the prior document organization.

I hope those examples are clear enough ... and thanks again for your attention.

Jonathan

[Walter]

Hi Jonathan; how are you today?

I'm sorry to jump in here, but have you considered using groups along with team folders to achieve this? 

Regarding the changes (edits) you'll be making on files when managing your team folders, those will be synced across all the team (or specific group) members respectively. 

Let me know if I'm missing something here @Jonathan Wexler. 

[Jonathan Wexler]

Walter

Thanks for your response.  The team is compact enough that segregating into groups would be irrelevant. 

And yes, I expected that any changes I made would be visible to team members.  My question is broader - and motivated by prior DropBox experience where no stored file ever went away, turning every attempt at retreiving information into a dumpster dive.

So, does the prior document arrangement/content become invisible after I reorganize it -and can I in fact lock the team folder while I am updating it?

Jonathan

[Lusil]

Thanks for getting back to us, @Jonathan Wexler. 

In general, any changes you make should be reflected on your and other members' accounts, as well as any connected device, as long as you are connected to the internet and the apps are running. 

As for locking content, you can currently lock files to prevent others from editing it. 

I do understand though that you'd prefer locking whole folders, and thank you for taking the time to voice your feedback. 

If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to give us another nudge. Cheers!

[Jonathan Wexler]

Thanks for your response.  I will wait to see how our project develops