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Using Web Tools For Creating and Managing Contracts

Celine Roque — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:49 +0000

When doing business online it’s always safer to have your agreements in writing. Fortunately, there are now a variety of tools that allow us to draft, share and sign contracts online. Here’s a roundup of some of those tools, and some tips on using them.

Contract Templates and Wizards

The hardest part in getting contracts in place is the drafting of the agreement itself. Unless you already have a lawyer who has created your documents for you, finding the best template can take a lot of time and effort. No matter how good a contract template is, it’s rare to find one that perfectly suits your situation. The good news is that there are some useful resources that can do this for you at the fraction of a cost of hiring a lawyer. Do-it-yourself solutions such as FastDue and RocketLawyer are good places to start, and we’ve covered both of these in the past.

RocketLawyer has a collection of business legal forms ranging from consulting agreements to articles of incorporation. You fill out a simple questionnaire and a document is customized based on your answers. Other features include e-signature and the ability to collaborate on documents. Google Docs users can also use free RocketLawyer templates, but you’ll have to customize them yourself. If you want to know more about RocketLawyer, start by reading Imran’s review.

FastDue also provides templates for contracts and agreements, although not as many as RocketLawyer. One advantage, though, is the variety of forms on offer, including past due notices, invoices, expense reports, and receipts. The forms also include interactive messaging, allowing your clients and colleagues to make comments directly on the document itself. The free service offered is enough for a freelance contractor, but you can sign up for the premium service if you want something more robust. Thursday covered FastDue’s services in a previous article if you want to learn more.

Sending and Signing

Once you have your contract ready, it’s just a matter of sending it and having it signed. Some contract creation wizards offer free e-signature functionality as part of the service, but there are plenty of other e-signature apps. Here are some of them:

EchoSign. There are two ways to sign a document via EchoSign. Users can simply type in their initials or, if they prefer an “old school” analog approach, they can print the document, sign it and fax it in. EchoSign can also integrate with Google Docs and Zoho Writer.
DocuSign. Just like EchoSign, DocuSign is a web based e-signature service. Additional features include CRM integration the ability to embed your signable documents within your web site. It also offers mobile signing if you want to use your cell phone or BlackBerry.
E-lock. E-lock has signature solutions for both the web and your desktop. The desktop application integrates with MS Excel, MS Word, and Adobe Acrobat.

For colleagues and clients who prefer a written signature rather than a digital one, you could send your contracts via online faxing solutions such as MyFax and eFax. To make the process easier, I just pull up one of my scanned signatures on file and paste it into the document. Then, I export the entire contract as a PDF and send it off as an e-fax, avoiding any printing on my end.

There are a couple of disadvantages to e-signing, however. Some people might not read their contracts thoroughly. To prevent this you should attach a note emphasizing the importance of reading the entire document or even discuss it on the phone paragraph by paragraph, if needed. Also, you need to make sure that e-signatures are legally valid in the states and countries where each signatory resides.

With all these available tools, we no longer have an excuse to take contracts for granted. Getting the right document and the necessary signatures is only a few clicks away.

How do you manage your contracts and other legal documents? What tools do you use?

Photo by stock.xchng user wagg66

Compare Multiple Documents With CompareMyDocs.com

Will Kelly — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:00:33 +0000

One of the banes of many writers’ existence (including my own!) is inheriting a slew of documents where the people working on them previously haven’t paid much heed to document versioning, leaving you trying to make sense of a mishmash of documents. On more than one occasion, I’ve been left hoping for a tool that would enable me to compare documents in bulk so I can get a mess of a documentation library under control before I can begin the real work on a project.

While word processors like Microsoft Word often include a one-to-one compare documents feature, what if you inherit a whole library of documents? Enter CompareMyDocs.com, a new web-based service from Nordic River, the makers of TextFlow, a version management tool. It enables you to compare multiple .rtf, .doc, and .docx documents.

Unfortunately, while it’s still in beta beta, CompareMyDocs.com works best on text-only documents (word processing documents without a lot of formatting) without images or tables. Therefore, while the service would work better on my draft WWD posts, it’s not yet suitable for the technical documentation I create by day.

I did like the ability to compare multiple versions of documents via the web interface. Bonus points go to the easy upload routine. However, I would have liked to see a bit more clarity in the interface, because, as shown in the following illustration, I only had access to Bold, Italic, and Underline controls, but to nothing else — including help. I can only assume this is due to the beta nature of the service.

Despite the limitations of the product in beta, CompareMyDocs.com is a promising tool that is worth a spot in every web worker’s bag of tricks when it comes to resolving document versioning issues, especially if you ever find yourself having to compare multiple documents at once where word processor compare documents features will take too long.

Have you tried out CompareMyDocs.com? Share your experience below.

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WatchDox Makes Document Security Simple

Aliza Sherman — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:00:21 +0000

Every so often, a new app hits my radar that gives me that “Wow! Awesome! Right On!” feeling. Launching into public beta today, WatchDox by Confidela is such an app. If you want to share a document securely with someone, WatchDox can do that. But it also does much more, namely letting you specify permissions on the document, such as the whether it can be printed, copied or forwarded. Then you can track all the activity of your document so you can see all the places your document has been sent, by whom and when, who opened it and when, who printed it and when — a complete document activity audit. Yet its features are practical, sensible and uncluttered.

Watchdox uses a secure Flash-driven viewer that requires no special software download or login. When you send or receive your first WatchDox doc, you simply enter your email address to start the quick authentication process. Access to documents is controlled via email; you are authenticated when you receive an email from the site and click on a link. Easy. Of course, you must have full control over your email address and inbox — and be confident that is also true of anyone you share your documents with — for this security model to work.

If you edit a shared document, all the recipients will see the newly updated document the next time they access it. You can revoke permissions from any recipient at any time. You can also add an expiration date to documents, after which they won’t be viewable by the recipients.

All of the documents you send and receive are stored in your “My Documents” box. You can store up to 50MB on WatchDox with the free version, and documents automatically expire after 30 days. At any given time you can send up to two documents for a total of 15MB. The system is based on Amazon Web Services, so should scalable for enterprise-level needs. WatchDox provides document security for Box.net, so you might already be using it.

Watchdox is free to use while in beta. There will always be a free version for individual users, but Confidela will also introduce premium plans starting at $15/month per sender (there is no limit to document recipients).

Right now, to send and view documents, you must visit the WatchDox site unless you have Microsoft Outlook; a plugin is available that automates the document sharing process from your inbox.

One neat security-enhancing feature is that if you click away from a Watchdox document browser window, the document is instantly blurred by a virtual “curtain.” This is a clever way to mask private and confidential content from people peeking over your shoulder.

While services like Scribd have made it much easier to share documents online, WatchDox takes things to the next level by adding no-hassle (no password required) security, including a virtual paper trail.

Of course, I concede that just sharing a document online reduces its security; however, for documents that don’t have “National Security” stamped at the top, this app seems like a winner.

How are you sending your documents securely?

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doingText: Getting Text Collaboration Done

Darrell Etherington — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 13:00:32 +0000

The key to successful document collaboration, as far as I’ve been able to gather in my many attempts, is making sure that the process is as simple as is absolutely possible. People only seem able or willing to work together on text projects if it takes only marginally more effort than not collaborating at all. A newly open-to-the-public web app called doingText, which Mike Gunderloy took a brief look at when it was in closed beta, might be the best and simplest method yet, even beating TextFlow‘s latest web-based tool.

They’ve since added some features, ironed out some kinks, and set up a multi-tiered pricing plan that offers something for everyone, including a basic free version that will probably be enough for most individuals. I wanted to run it through its paces now that it’s been officially released, and see if it really was as hassle-free as advertised.

Things started well. I didn’t even need to set up an account to begin, though I chose to in order review all of doingText’s features. Sign-up was simple, too, and they didn’t ask for any unnecessary information like my phone number or street address. You can also use your OpenID to register, and apparently doingText supports Gravatars, because mine showed up on my dashboard page once I’d completed registration.

When I say “dashboard,” I use the term loosely, because doingText’s interface isn’t really complex enough to deserve that title. All you really get is a text box and an “Edit Profile” button. Pasting text from any source into the box on the right will get you started. doingText automatically formats and divides the text into boxes based on its existing formatting. The source document I used was an .rtfd file I originally created in Bean. I was pleasantly surprised to find that doingText recognized line breaks and new paragraphs automatically, so I didn’t have to rework the text at all before collaboration could begin.

Each paragraph becomes a new “block” in doingText’s editor, and hovering over one brings up an options panel on the right that allows you to make changes to, or alter the color of, each. You can also add comments to explain the changes you’ve made to the work’s original author or your co-editors. The options panel also tells you which version of the document you’re working on, so you can easily keep track of changes across iterations.

You can share your document via a randomly generated unique URL, or by embedding specially-generated code in your own web site. You can also add specific individuals as co-editors, or set a password to limit access to your document even more. Every discussion (doingText’s term for an active document) has a revision history which you can access to quickly see what’s been done and by whom. Finally, you can download the work as a .txt or .pdf file at any time. A built-in messaging system allows you to communicate with other doingText users, even if you’re not currently collaborating on anything with them.

It’s not all roses, though, and there are still some bugs to iron out. When I tried to use doingText’s search function, which supposedly looks at your discussions, I couldn’t get it to return results, either using terms in the document’s title or its body. And there’s no way to hide the “Upgrade” reminder on your dashboard, which I find mildly annoying.

doingText is quick, easy, simple and clean. People can’t complain about having to register or learn or install new software to collaborate in your documents, since registration isn’t required (even by a document creator) and there’s virtually nothing to learn or install. doingText is the best thing I’ve come across for working with other writers and editors quickly on the fly, and the free version suits my simple needs quite nicely.

Have you used doingText? What did you think?

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TextFlow Gets In-Browser Collaboration

Darrell Etherington — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:00:33 +0000

A while back I reviewed TextFlow, an Adobe AIR application that allows you to establish a collaborative document editing workflow quickly and easily, without messing about with servers or larger enterprise solutions. Recently, the folks behind TextFlow introduced a version with editing in the browser, so people don’t have to have AIR installed to join in and collaborate.

I liked the original version of TextFlow, but it ended up not being very useful precisely because no one I wanted to work with was particularly interested in having AIR installed on their machines. Not that they were actively against it, either, just that they didn’t feel it was worth the bother for just this app (obviously I’m not talking about TweetDeck or Twhirl users here!). Now they can edit documents directly in their browser via a private link, so they don’t need to mess about with AIR to help out with the collaboration.

It’s a very nice update, but it leaves me wishing that I didn’t have to kick things off using the AIR application to begin with. Regardless, that’s just what I did to test the web-based version. If you’d like to try it out, TextFlow offers a Test Drive which has the same functionality.

All you have to do to share your document from within the AIR app is add members to your group in the “Share” sidebar, and then click “Share” whenever you make changes that you’d like distributed to all parties.

Anyone on your list receives a unique URL that will load up a TextFlow editor instance right in their web browser. It has all the same features as the document editor of the AIR app, but your collaborators won’t need to download anything and can get to work or see your revisions right away.

Even if you took a pass on TextFlow the first time around, it might be worth another look now that it’s largely platform independent. And it’s still free for the Personal edition, though a Professional license will cost you $99.

Have you tried TextFlow? What did you think?

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Zoho Writer 2.0: A User Interface That's More User Friendly

Darrell Etherington — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:30:13 +0000

There is very little reason to depend on a hard drive-based application for your word processing needs these days. Google Docs provides everything most users will ever need; you already have it if you have a Gmail account, and it works offline, thanks to Google Gears. Another solution, Zoho Writer, which also works offline thanks to Gears, just got a major interface overhaul in its 2.0 incarnation, and now is more poised than ever to provide a complete alternative to Office and other similar programs.

The problem with Zoho, until now, has been one of constant improvement. That may not seem like a problem at all, but when that improvement involves adding more and more features, but keeping the interface the same, it can get a little unruly. The new redesign tries to make sure Zoho doesn’t overwhelm you visually, which in turn makes it easier to work with.

The old Zoho Writer menu

While some liked the old UI, I found it too cluttered, because I normally like to edit in full screen, and like as little chrome as possible in my browsers. The changes to the top menu give you a bit more room, but more importantly, they group and hide a lot of commands so you aren’t left feeling crowded. The new “MenuTab” feature groups similar commands under general headings. You can access these commands either by clicking the tab, which changes the button set available on your toolbar (much like Microsoft’s “Ribbon” UI for Office) or by clicking the little arrow next to them, which opens a drop-down menu without changing your toolbar.

The new Zoho Writer 2.0 "MenuTab" interface

It makes sense, and it suits multiple tastes. You’ll be comfortable if you’re used to working with Office, or if you’re used to working with drop-down menus like you’ll find in a lot of web apps. Zoho plans to use MenuTab in all of its other applications in the future, too, so even if you don’t like it, plan on getting used to it!

I won’t go into detail about Zoho Writer, since we’ve covered it before. It’s not new, but I still love Zoho’s tabbed management of open documents. I much prefer it to Google’s opening of new browser tabs for each document, although that makes much more sense when you take into account Google Chrome’s handling of each tab as a separate process. And I still miss Google’s full-screen edit mode too much to make a permanent switch.

Still, if you’re a Zoho user, or if you tried it out before but didn’t like it because of the interface, Zoho Writer 2.0 gives you ample reason to take it out for a second spin.

Do you use Zoho Writer? What do you think of the new UI?

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Docstoc: Online Document Hosting and Preview Services

Darrell Etherington — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:01:51 +0000

Working online, you probably need to share documents with clients, partners and coworkers. You also probably wouldn’t mind having a resource at hand whereby you could search, preview, and download a wide selection of documents to use as templates, research material, or benchmarks to help further your own work. Docstoc is a new service that aims to meet both of these needs with a web app.

Docstoc is a free service that allows you to upload and share any document. It supports a wide variety of formats. The document can then be made available for others to view and download, and will be indexed for retrieval by search engines. Optionally, you can also download an uploading and syncing client for the service. You can also embed your documents into web sites and allow quick previewing for your visitors with the Docshots feature.

I’m going to go ahead and point out the worm in the apple up front, so that I can get on to the good stuff. My tests found that the Docshots feature is a little sluggish and occasionally glitchy. It’s supposed to bring up little preview windows, like those you might see with Snap‘s similar link previewing feature, Snap Shots. Generally, that’s what happens, but it can take a while to load, originally leading me to think that the feature wasn’t supported in OS X (it is), and sometimes the image is displayed in only half the viewing area. Still, it generally works as advertised, and it’s nice not to have to open Preview or Acrobat every time you want to glance at a doc’s contents.

Personally, I have two uses for Docstoc’s services with regards to my online work. First, being a freelancer, clients ask me for all kinds of documents all the time, and I don’t have the luxury of just going to the company library and pulling out our template for whatever it is they ask for. With Docstoc, I can at least find examples (basic, if not best-in-class) to base my own, customized version around. Legal, contract and proposal documents are all available, all of which are types of documents that I find myself needing frequently. Even if I already have my own templates established for any of these, Docstoc’s large library provides me with examples to benchmark with and borrow from.

Second, even though I knocked it above, the Docshots preview feature is handy if you have a dedicated documents section on your web site, since it saves people a lot of clicking, opening and closing. You can expand any image to full screen, download, search and find related docs, and the code can be embedded on your own site, so you don’t have to redirect people to Docstoc.com. It also doesn’t cost anything, which is always a big plus for me.

Docstoc is kind of an odd resource, and one which might not be useful to every web worker. That said, if your particular field of online work incurs a lot of paperwork, which can be very daunting if you’re a freelancer working without a network of support staff, give Docstoc a try.

How do you benchmark your paperwork? Have you tried Docstoc? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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From Thought to Paper (or PDF): Online Document Production Workflows

Darrell Etherington — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:00:42 +0000

One of the trickiest things to pull off when you’re working online is producing an actual document. There are any number of distractions, it’s harder to provide proofs and get feedback than if you’re working face-to-face with a client or stakeholder, and you often get the run around in terms of who you should be working with.

I’ve done a lot of this type of work for a range of clients, and over the course of those efforts, I’ve arrived at a number of conclusions regarding how best to go about it. These tips won’t tell you exactly how you should manage your own workflow, but it will help you avoid some of the more common problems.

Determine Scope and Materials Up Front, in Detail

There’s nothing a client likes worse than switching horses halfway through the race. That means you should pick your applications, end products, etc. with them at the project outset. Make sure both of you know exactly what they want to get out of the project at the end. Details like whether or not they want the document to be editable, the expected shelf life of the document, whether it’s a living document or not will all be crucial in helping you decide not only what, but how you’ll be producing.

Set Up Project Milestones, Even For Smaller Projects

No matter how clearly you think you’ve determined your client’s desires at project outset, the chances that you will deliver exactly what they’re looking for, sight unseen, when it comes time to pony up at close. That’s why project milestones are important. It seems easy enough, but make sure there are check-in points, with percentage completion targets, or specific draft numbers or iterations of the document.

Too Many Cooks Spoil The Broth

Revisions are necessary, and to be expected any time you’re producing something, be it for yourself or others. What’s not necessary is an endless series of revisions and rework, which can easily happen if you don’t establish a clearly defined production process at the beginning, with specific roles assigned to specific people.

The hardest part of accomplishing this might be convincing your client to go along with it, but you need to make sure that only one or two quality assurance points exist. Those stakeholders involved should look at the work at predetermined points, and provide feedback according to predetermined procedure. Every new set of eyes that sees the work will want to add their own input, regardless of the product’s quality, just to feel as though they’ve contributed, which is why you need to set limits.

These guidelines are broad, and shouldn’t be too hard to work into your existing project management practices. Probably the most important thing to take away from this article is that communication is the key to succesful delivery. Never hide anything from the client, and make sure both you, and they, are never in a position to be surprised.

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3 Ways to Edit Documents Collaboratively

Mike Gunderloy — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 18:00:00 +0000

Working on the Web means that it’s easy to reach out to collaborators – but what then? If you actually need to work on the web with other people (as opposed to just communicating with clients and suppliers via the web), you’ll need some tool support. Take the common problem of needing to jointly edit a document, for example. In the old days (say, five years ago) most of us would do this by emailing drafts back and forth, perhaps using something like Microsoft Word’s revision marks feature to indicate who did what.

But these days, you’re not limited to such primitive serial workflows. Thanks to the web, there are a batch of ways that you can edit a document together with another person – or more than one person – to quickly home in on a final draft. There are three main groups of solution to this problem, each with their own features and drawbacks.

1. Use a Collaborative Web Editor – Web services like Google Documents and Zoho Writer have document sharing built right in. On the plus side, this means a very low barrier to entry: anyone can get an account on these services easily. There’s no requirement for users to have a common operating system, either, which is useful if your collaboration needs span multiple platforms. The downside? Although you get a visual indication that another user is editing, you won’t actually see their changes until they save the document. In the worst case, this can mean simply losing your changes in a “last save wins” situation of multiple edits. Google Documents does maintain a revision history, so you can always go back and see who typed what.

2. Use a Wiki – There are any number of places you can quickly spin up a free wiki, including PBWiki, Nuospace, and Wikidot. Advantages: easy to set up, easy to invite more people to, and you generally get the ability to track revisions and see who contributed what to the document. Disadvantages: depending on the backend you choose, you may have problems with controlling access to your document, and the editing experience may be tough for non-technical users. Also, it can be hard to convert a wiki page into something that looks good in print or elsewhere. Plus you’ll still have the problem of battling edits if two people are trying to work on the document at the same time.

3. Use a Collaborative Editor. For the best possible collaborative editing, I’ve found it necessary to turn away from the web and to client-side software. Packages that implement collaborative editing include SubEthaEdit and Coda on OS X, Gobby and ACE for cross-platform use, and the Microsoft Word add-in CoWord (Windows only). These packages aim to enable a completely common editing session, where you can see what multiple people are doing at the same time. Especially if you’re trying to collaborate on a complex document (or source code), this is head and shoulders above the “wait for a save” workflow of web editors and wikis. But on the downside, you end up tied to client-side software and particular platforms, and these packages are complex enough that they don’t always work perfectly.

If you work on documents collaboratively with other people, what’s your solution? What features do you wish you had?

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