New Dropbox 'Groups' Helps Businesses Collaborate

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Dropbox has been making many improvements to its Dropbox for Business service, and it doesn't look like the company is going to stop anytime soon.

After launching features ranging from a new admin dashboard to integration with new apps and business solutions — Salesforce, Wunderlist, Any.do and Microsoft Office, to name a few — the company is offering yet another enhancement to its cloud-storage and file-sharing services.

Dropbox announced this week early access to its new "groups" feature, a tool that aims to make it easier to manage teams using Dropbox for Business. The new tool offers several capabilities that aim to help administrators and project managers take better control of projects, so that, using the platform, team members can "collaborate much faster and more efficiently."

The company says that groups is beneficial to both team members and admins. The tool ensures that team members have secure, designated access to the right files, and gives admins more control over sharing settings and restrictions on who can access which types of content.

Here's what the groups feature brings to Dropbox for Business and how it can help growing companies.

What team members can do

Team members can waste a lot of time looking for files and folders in a company-wide cloud-storage and file-sharing service. Groups eliminates this problem by keeping content more organized and granting team members access to specified files and folders, so they can cut through the clutter and quickly find what they are looking for.

Sharing with large numbers of people is also more efficient. Users can invite groups of people who share similar functions or even entire departments to view files and folders. Dropbox gives an example: When you need to share content with the sales department, instead of typing in each individual sales rep's name, type in the entire department, and you're good to go.

Additionally, depending on admin settings, designated group owners and team members can also add their own groups to shared folders, create new groups, and control viewing and editing access.

What administrators can do

Groups makes it easy for administrators to manage teams and individual team members. As group owners, Dropbox for Business admins can save time setting up teams and team members, while also having more control over who can access which group and which files across the platform:

• Quickly add and remove group members to designated groups that are only relevant to those members' roles and access levels.
• Easily change roles for group members by simply updating their information and sending an invitation.
• Assign additional group owners to give multiple team members admin access, for instance, if roles change in the office or if official group owners are on vacation.

To start using the new groups feature, check out Dropbox's early access page or sign up for a free Dropbox for Business account.