Getting More Out of Documents

Jive is a powerful tool for creating and uploading documents, collaborating on them with others, and managing versions.

You can create documents in Jive or upload documents from outside of Jive, such as Microsoft Office documents or Adobe PDFs. (For information about uploading external files to the community, see Uploading a File.) Documents can be available for viewing or editing only by you, a group of people you designate, or the entire community. You can also view and manage the changes between versions of a document, including restoring a previous version so that it is the current version.

To create a document, click Pencil icon > Document and start writing.

Choosing Where to Publish a Document

When you're ready to save the document, you can decide how and where to make it visible.

Choosing a place such as a space or social group will make the document more visible to group members who follow the place where you publish it. For example, publishing your schedule document in the Sales Kickoff Planning group will highlight your planning for anyone who's following that group in a stream. Your document will also inherit the permissions of the place where you publish it. Publishing in a private group, for example, limits the viewers of your document to the people who are members of the group. If you want community users to be able to search for and stumble across your document, don't publish it in a private group. On the other hand, if you need a document to be confidential, a private group could be the right place.

Even when you publish your document in a public place, you can still control who can edit it. After you add the text for your document, scroll down the page and use the Collaboration Options to set the editing and commenting permissions. You can also specify that another user must approve the document before it is published. To learn more about this, see Document Approval.

If you want to be the only one who can see your document, select Hidden. You can add more people as viewers or collaborators later if you change your mind.

Managing Versions

When a document has been edited and published multiple times, you can view and manage the differences between versions and delete specific versions, or restore a previous version so that it is the current version. To manage a document's versions, navigate to the document and then click Manage Versions. Now you can view the changes between versions, restore a version to be the current version, or delete a version.