Ask HN: How do you organise and manage documentation/content in Google Drive

[mrgblr]

In our company (2000+ employees) we use google drive as primary means to collaborate in our company. We also use confluence for tech documentation. One challenge we face with google drive is organising documents and organic discovery. People dont create in designated folders. they create in their drive and share the URLs. It works but if the person leaves or if one has to find other documents in related area it becomes difficult. Does your organisation faces this problem? If so, can you please share the techniques or tools you have used to solve this problem. thanks.

[sigmaprimus]

2000+ people using the google drive? Yikes!!

This doesn't answer your question but my Gdrive is a mess and I'm only one person. Typically I download the the contents on an annual basis in zip files, extract them to a Month/Year named folder on a portable drive and start fresh with a clean Gdrive until the next time it gets out of hand.

I would think Downloading first then using parsing tools locally would make things much easier to organize than doing it through Googles front end.

After thinking a bit more about it, what you probably need to do is make a requirement for all internal emails to be CC'd to a central address then use that address to download and or synchronize itself to an offline drive where perma links can be issued.

[mrgblr]

may be i should clarify a little. we use google office suite like docs, sheet, slide etc, All these are created and stored in gdrive. so thats why all of us end up using gdrive. so downloading them it not really an option.

[sigmaprimus]

*EDIT*

I missed the part about people sharing from their own personal gdrives, this will surely cause problems with broken links when they leave the company and restrict access, Google drive allows multiple users to upload files to a shared folder then edit them but I don't know if there is a seamless method to create a new file or document in a shared folder.

I think what you are asking for is a solution to your problems that something like moving over to SLACK might do.

https://youtu.be/pUZzBoAbAOs

but if you are set on using emails and Gdrive only then...

I'm pretty sure there is literally is an option to download, and if you have a PC dedicated to doing this, you can use chrome and google offline drive sync to clone a google drive to a desktop and automate the process.

Not to get too far into it but what you need to do if your plan on sticking with google is have a single system/google account share out access to folders created on it that are specific to each employee. I think you may have done this already.

Then it should be a matter of following these steps.

https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2375012?hl=en&co=GEN...

https://support.google.com/drive/answer/7638428?hl%3Den

[worldexplorer]

Our organisation of strength around 500 is facing the exact same issue. I would like to know more solutions here. It's a major document management problem to solve

[harounhickman]

hey @mrgblr, we're actually trying to solve this (https://dala.ai)

if you want to chat then feel free to drop me a line: [e-mail] - would love to exchange notes/thoughts.

[mrgblr]

hey, checked out your website. couldnt find any demo video. if there link for demo video can you please share. our problem is not just search but search + explore. but would love to check your demo to see if it suits us.