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Docsroom or email?
Email is where the request starts and where it ends. It is just a poor place to keep it in between.
To Marie Tunnicliffe · from Halstead Construction
Three things before you start on site
Hello Marie. Everything we need before Monday. Answer them in any order, and photographs are fine.
Public liability insurance
CSCS cards for the gang
Method statement and risk assessment
Side by side
Two ways to collect the same list.
Collecting information by email
- The list lives in the first message and is gone by the third reply
- Files arrive in five places and three formats
- Someone has to remember who owes what and write the chaser
- "Which one did you mean?" costs a day each time
- Copies of passports and bank statements sit in an inbox for years
- No record of who sent what, or when it was downloaded
Collecting information with Docsroom
- Every request is its own line with a status you both see
- Every file is attached to the request it answers
- Reminders are scheduled, list only what is outstanding, and stop on their own
- Each request says what kind of answer is needed
- Links expire, can be withdrawn, and show only what is assigned
- A dated trail of every reply, handoff and download
What does not change
The people you ask still get an email. It just has one button in it. They still reply in their own words. They still send photos from their phone. Nobody has to learn a system; the list is the system.
What about a shared drive or a generic portal?
A folder holds files; it does not know which ones are missing. A generic portal makes people create an account before they can do the thing you asked. Docsroom is the list itself, and the list is what you were trying to keep in the first place.
What about the software you already use?
Keep it. Docsroom is not an HR system, a lettings system, a case management system or an accounts package. It collects what those systems need and hands it over as one ZIP, organised by request. The activity trail and download history tell you what went where.
Move one list this month.
Free for 14 days, no card. Pick the one whose email thread is longest.