Hello,
I’m currently using DEVONthink to manage my documents and would like to set up a collaborative workflow with our office secretary. I’m looking for advice on the best approach for our specific situation.
Our requirements:
• The secretary will work primarily from the office
• I need mobile access and will sync remotely
• Both of us will be importing and managing documents
• We need reliable synchronization between our systems
Option I’m considering:
Installing a DEVONthink Server in the office that we can both sync with - the secretary locally and me remotely when I’m on the go.
Questions:
• Is DEVONthink Server the recommended solution for this use case?
• Are there any potential issues with both of us actively importing documents?
• What would be the best sync configuration to avoid conflicts?
• Are there alternative approaches that might work better for our scenario?
I’d appreciate any insights from those who have set up similar collaborative workflows with DEVONthink.
Thank you in advance for your help!
If you have a server installed, that should ideally run 24/7, you can simply access the server, which might obsolete the need to sync.
Perhaps. But it’s probably more geared towards people with differing environments, like Windows and Apple. If you’re Apple-only, you might as well use DT and DTTG on all your devices and sync.
You can’t avoid conflicts. With no sync setup. If you and someone else change a document at the same time, the conflict is there. It can be solved by either keeping the most recent document or both. Regardless of the sync setup.
And as to the most reliable sync method – the jury is still out on that. As numerous forum threads on that topic illustrate. I’m happy with my local WebDAV server. Others have no complaints with Dropbox or iCloud.
Overall Bonjour, WebDAV and Dropbox.
I have used Devonthink for years collaboratively with several of my employees.
The functionality of DT Server differs considerably from that of a Mac with a synced database.
DT Server’s main advantage is that it works via web - thus it works with either a Mac or a PC and there is no need to install DT software and sync/maintain databaases.
DT Server’s main disadvantage is that it is dramatically less feature rich than DT on a Mac.
Most of my employees use Devonthink only for simple uploading/downloading of documents - DT Server is ideal for that. Those employees use inexpensive Windows PCs.
But one of my employees is much more involved in searching/editing existing documents. He would be much less efficient with Devonthink Server. He has his own Mac synced to Devonthink via WebDav on the office NAS.