As a product marketing manager, I have a love-hate relationship with content. Regardless of the type of project I am working on, there are files to be managed, created, and collaborated on. And it’s not just marketers – if your work relies on content, then you’ve been there: searching for a file, second-guessing whether you’ve got the right version, spending an hour on a call reviewing content changes just to run out of time before you can finalize. Without the right tools, these challenges are as inevitable as they are painful.
Content is at the core of every business, and the ability to organize, review, and create through its lifecycle is key to leveraging content to its full potential. Any workflow involving content suffers when files are hard to navigate and action-on. With a high demand for a wide variety of assets, from images and videos to contracts and invoices, companies across industries are swamped with more to handle than ever before. On top of the growing number of files, content is often siloed in varying systems, completely separate from where work is actually being planned, tracked, and shared. As a result, content-dependent projects fall behind, and files quickly become a liability.
“Organizations without a system in place to ensure all stakeholders access, review, and collaborate around the same version of an asset predicts significantly lower satisfaction with the content lifecycle.” - 2024 State of Content Collaboration Report
To create a more complete CWM experience, we’re introducing file library. First coming to workspaces, file library brings files into focus. By placing content closer to your projects and programs, we’ve made it much easier to close feedback loops, finalize content faster, and reference the files that are needed to drive work forward.
File library is a place that brings files into the context of work, making it simpler to find, share, and collaborate from anywhere in the world, at any time without ever having to leave your work management platform. With file library, you can:
- Leverage asynchronous collaboration with built-in annotation and conversation features to streamline content reviews and approvals. Users can comment, annotate, and @mention directly on an image, video, presentation, or PDF file, meaning less time spent juggling fragmented feedback loops and more time focused on actually getting work done. This looks like fewer meetings, less back and forth, and a smoother path to the final version — speeding up the entire process.
- Unlock your content's full potential by centralizing files alongside projects, ensuring they are easily accessible and actionable for your team. Cut down on time spent toggling between systems, and instead, access your files where they are most impactful - next to the work.
Take control over the accuracy and availability of files with robust versioning, search, and tagging features. Bulk upload, tag, and manage file versioning to ensure your team has easy access to the most up-to-date content. This way, you have peace of mind knowing you will maintain consistency across assets and always present a unified, cohesive brand identity.
“It doesn’t really make sense to me to have documents stored in a drive, when, if we’re doing all of our work in Smartsheet, we could just store them in Smartsheet.” - EAP Member, File Library
We aren’t stopping here. Smartsheet is continuing to invest in capabilities that will further connect, streamline, and enhance your content workflows. We’re building a future that empowers content, bringing it to life rather than simply organization it.
To get started uploading and collaborating on files, navigate to the workspace panel within a new or existing workspace to access file library! File library is currently available to Early Adopters and will be available to all customers on our new user subscription model at the end of October 2024.
Thank you!
Emily Davenport, Product Marketing Manager II