The Ultimate Guide to Dropbox Business Features

Wilson • December 15, 2021

Dropbox Business Team Productivity Features

Modern businesses use many tools for communication, project management, and file storage. These tools increase productivity, making it easier and faster to complete tasks.

But they come at a cost; it’s hard to manage, share and collaborate across so many apps. The files you need can be anywhere, on your desktop, Google Drive, attached to a Trello card, or live inside Slack.

The files you need can be anywhere, on your desktop, Google Drive, attached to a Trello card, or live inside Slack.

You need one source of truth.

Dropbox Business solves this problem by deeply integrating all apps into one place. Plus, Dropbox can handle almost any file you throw at it. For example, Dropbox automatically converts scanned images and PDF into searchable text. (using Optical Character Recognition or OCR.)

That means you can search for the text inside your images and PDF files. You won’t have to remember the file names anymore.

Dropbox Business has one of the best integrations with business tools in the market. There are simply no other apps that can compare.

1. Dropbox Business Integrations With Popular Apps

Let’s start with two of the most popular business apps in the world, Google Docs and Microsoft Office. You can create, edit, and comment on Google and Microsoft documents inside the Dropbox app.

That means you don’t need to switch back and forth between Google Docs and Office. (or any apps for that matter, Dropbox Business integrates with almost every app)

Instead, you can work on any files within the Dropbox app.

Plus, your team members in the same folder can collaborate with you automatically. So there’s no need to set permissions manually on each document.

You can share files to Slack, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Outlook right from Dropbox. You can even create or join Zoom meetings directly from Dropbox and share your files.

While you’re having the meeting, you can drop a Dropbox file inside the Zoom chat.

All your files are in one place, saving you a lot of time and hassle. And once you’ve finished the meeting, the Zoom recordings will be automatically saved to your Dropbox.

The same goes for Slack. It’s easy to share Dropbox files to any Slack conversation, or you can just click the attach button on Slack.

You can even create and share Dropbox files right from Slack. The deep, two-way integration is seamless, quick, and convenient for everyone involved.

Dropbox Business is also tightly integrated with HelloSign, allowing you to sign legally binding agreements inside Dropbox.

The whole process is done within Dropbox secure folders, including sending and receiving signed documents. That means all of your legal agreements are in one place that’s easily searchable to relevant stakeholders.

Since it’s synced instantly and automatically, it speeds up the workflow of everyone involved – increasing productivity and growth for the whole company.

Sending relevant files are also secure and easy.

2. Large File Transfer

You can share large 100 GB files using Dropbox Business’ secure file transfer feature.

With Dropbox Business’s Link Permission, you can set passwords, expiry dates, and downloaded notifications.

It’s equally secure and easy for clients or vendors to send you large files. Share a File Request link, and they can dump all the files into a protected folder.

But what if you run out of space to send large files? Dropbox Business has the right plan for you.

You can start with a standard plan with 5TB of secure storage, but you can upgrade anytime to unlimited storage. So you won’t have to worry about running out of space anytime soon.

3. Smart Sync

This brings us to my next favorite Business feature, the smart sync. Your Dropbox might have unlimited storage, but your computer doesn’t, so Dropbox only syncs selected files to your computer.

You can even send files to the cloud, freeing up disk space while still seeing the files on your desktop.

You are effectively using very little disk space, but still able to access your files, including team folders on your desktop.

Project Management & Collaboration

It’s easy to keep track of progress and manage multiple projects with features like:

Dropbox Paper
File Sharing
Team Folder

Let’s start with my favorite Dropbox-only feature.

4. Dropbox Paper

Dropbox paper is like Word doc and project management app combined into one.

You can use it to:

Write and track meeting notes
Track milestones and timelines
Assign tasks and due dates
Manage approvals

It’s very flexible so you can use it for almost anything.

Creative briefs
Project management dashboard
Video production plan
Bug tracker
And many more

You can also embed almost anything into Paper; Google Maps, YouTube, Sketch, Invision, and many more. (Just paste the link into Paper, and it will automatically do its magic.)

Finally, if you’re using Slack, life just got easier. You can share Dropbox Paper on Slack and search using the /paper command. Now, that’s just neat.

Next, we’ll talk about other essential collaboration features.

5. File Sharing Features

Dropbox Business is loaded with features that make it easy to work productively in a small or large team, even the whole organization.

Features like:

Advanced sharing – you know the drill, you want to share a file with a client or team members, but you’re worried they’ll edit the file.

You can share files or folders for view-only or editing with the advanced sharing feature. Not only that, you can set permissions at different levels. For example, you can share only a sub-folder instead of the main folder.

Organization – all of your folders, no matter if it’s on your desktop or online, lives in one place. It makes things so much easier and organized. Gone are the days where your files live in multiple locations.

File activity – keep on top of your team with automatic notifications when someone view, edit, move or delete files.

And if someone accidentally deletes a file, no worries, Dropbox has just the right features for that.

File and Version Recovery – protects against accidental deletion of data, files, and folders.

Now you can recover from up to 180 days of versions and deletion. And if you’re working with a large team on a folder, it can get real messy fast. So the next Dropbox advanced feature is going to be a godsend.

Automated folders – file names can be a nightmare because everyone names their files differently. Making it hard to find, sort, and organise.

This feature allows you to standardize file naming, tagging, and sorting at the shared folder level.

6. Team Folder & Management

The team folder does precisely what it says, a folder for all your team files like KPI goals, onboarding, and images. Team members can comment on files, keeping everyone literally on the same page.

They can add and edit files, with changes synced automatically to all team members. And since everything you need is in one folder, it’s easy to find what you need to.

But Dropbox Business is not just about files. It’s a central workplace.

For example, It’s easy to create Zoom meetings with everyone in the team folder. Just create a Zoom meeting right in the shared folder inside Dropbox.

Now, you might be wondering about security and privacy. How do you prevent sensitive information from leaking with so many people accessing so many files?

That’s what we’re going to find out next.

Staying Secure

Data security is critical to any organization. Whether for compliance or competitive advantage, you need a secure environment to work.

Customer information leaks can cause embarrassment at the very least and even monetary and legal repercussions.

Dropbox Business is designed to be secure but easy to use. Here’s how it secures your data without hampering productivity.

7. Enterprise-Level Security

With Dropbox Business’s enterprise-level security, you’re in good hands.

SSL encryption
256 AES
Granular sharing controls
File tracking
Network configuration
Application-level controls
Two-step verification
Single Sign-On (SSO)
Ability to disable permanent deletions.

All these mean that all your files are as secure as possible.

8. Powerful & Intuitive Admin Console

Dropbox Business also provides advanced monitoring features like a powerful admin console. It allows admin to:

Monitor team activities
View connected devices
Audit sharing activities. For example, track file sharing outside the organisation with powerful filtering capability.
Powerful tracking capabilities

Sharing files can also be made secure with password protection, expiry dates, and receive notifications.

There are also user-level security and control features. Features like:

Remote wiping devices that are lost or if the employee is leaving the company.
Device approvals to control the number of devices for each user
Granular folders and files permission at the user level
User activities tracking like sign-ins, edits, and sharing (filter with powerful admin tools)
Privilege transfer to quickly transfer roles from one person to another. Very useful to onboard new replacement hires.
Connected accounts allow automatic separation of personal and work files.

And finally, there’s a 180 day data restoration feature. It protects the organization from hacking, virus, and mass deletions. (whether it was a mistake or malicious)

Conclusion

Dropbox Business is the best choice for most organisations to increase their productivity.

If you’re a Small Medium Enterprise (SME) registered in Singapore, you can get up to 80% subsidy when you sign up for Dropbox Business via the Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG).

Web Imp is a pre-approved SME Go Digital vendor, and we are a trusted partner of Dropbox Singapore. Click here to schedule a free demo.

The Ultimate Guide to Dropbox Business Features

Dropbox Business Team Productivity Features