This is a Guest Post written by Thomas Smith of TechEn enterprises llc, a Google Apps Authorized SMB Reseller.
A great positive about Google DRIVE, is the simple collaboration it enables via being able to share amongst any group of people.
Could be as simple as some friends, family members and hobbyists with a common passion that want to assemble a big trip. Maybe work colleagues, (company internal and external) in different parts of the country that need to join together to share knowledge and expertise on a topic.
Whatever the case, a wide variety of people can make all types of modifications to documents using desktop, laptop or mobile devices. And do so in a continuous manner over short or long time periods. The result – which can be viewed as a Negative - is having a very difficult time deciphering what changes happened to a document, by whom and when.
“Log files” are the magical invisible note-keepers that track activity. The are not actually invisible, only in the sense that virtually no-one looks at them. They are large, and often cryptic but they are critical in regard to disaster recovery and other file repair capabilities. Log files contain the info necessary for reconstructing or returning documents to a previous point following a crash or disruption. But who ever thinks of or makes use of log files? Boring BORing BORING!
Google’s new Activity Stream feature taps this huge storehouse of log file data to provide useful real-time feedback. Starting January 14, 2014 a new DRIVE feature (Activity Stream) will provide one, easy-to-view place to see actions taken on your DRIVE files and folders (by you or anyone you share files with).
Open your DRIVE’s web page and look for the ⓘ button in the top right corner. Clicking that button causes an activity stream to appear on the right side of the file list. It shows who performed an action on selected files in My Drive, including editing, commenting, adding or renaming of documents and etc.
People with a large number of high activity files on their Google DRIVE realize the stream itself could be overwhelming. So, Google made it easy to limit the stream to selected files or folders. Using the check box (see graphic below) you can select one (or more) files and/or folders, and the stream instantly changes to show only activity relevant to the selected items.
Anyone who has suffered the pain of being the master “document keeper” for a project that has spanned weeks or months, and has had people entering or leaving the team knows what a nightmare it can be to figure out past edits.
The activity stream seems to be limited to displaying a simple chronological list of all events with respect to selected files. I imagine it will not be long before Google adds extra filtering to: show the stream for edits by one selected person, or a selected time frame, or one type of action and so on.
Go try this new activity stream feature, doesn't cost you anything and it's simple to just turn it off if you want to. Since the Cloud is doing all all the heavy work, it does not impact local device performance. We want to know your thoughts, and would appreciate having you type your impression or thoughts into the comment box below this post.
—–– TechEn enterprises llc – for 15 years we’ve viewed technology from the user’s perspective. Considering what business process and need the technology must serve, then applying the technology. TECHnology ENablement is a force that can reduce cost and empower new revenue opportunity.
