Zoho Workdrive Reviews: Features, Pricing And More 2023

Zoho WorkDrive is a cloud-based content collaboration platform designed for individuals and teams to store, share, manage, and work together on files of any size. With Zoho, you can store, organize, and manage all your files in a single place and access them from any device.

Zoho WorkDrive lets enterprises use data administration modules to personalize documents, transfer file ownership, discover forgotten files, retrieve lost documents, and more. Administrators can create dedicated team folders based on several metrics such as tasks, projects, teams, or departments. They can also provide access to specific users for reading, writing, commenting, and collaborating across files.

Key features of Zoho WorkDrive include audit trail, feedback, TrueSync app, Labels, analytics, notifications, and external file sharing. The solution comes with a built-in Zoho Office Suite, which allows teams to create, edit, and publish spreadsheets, documents, and presentations. Additionally, enterprises can maintain several versions of the same file or compare existing and previous versions for changes.

Overview of Zoho WorkDrive

Zoho WorkDrive is a cloud-based file storage, sync, and collaboration solution for teams of any size. WorkDrive’s Team Folders provides a secure shared workspace to help teams organize and manage all their files in a single place.

It also offers other features including real-time notifications, document drafting, file sharing with configurable access controls, a smart desktop sync, file versioning, analytics, and much more. Native iOS and Android apps give users the flexibility to access and manage files on-the-go from their smartphone.

Zoho WorkDrive organizes and stores files in dedicated Team Folders for different projects, tasks, teams, or departments. Team Folders can be made public or private, and users can assign appropriate roles to members based on their function to ensure that only permitted members can read, write, or comment on files.

All members of a Team Folder receive an instant notification when changes are made to any of the files in that folder. The check-in/check-out feature prevents other team members from editing a file that a user wants to work on alone.

Zoho WorkDrive also enables users to provide feedback by leaving comments in context on a teammate’s work. The draft feature allows users to draft or create files in the Zoho Office Suite before publishing. Bulk upload functionality gives users access to files as quickly as possible while sorting tools and advanced search options allow users to keep everything in order and locate files quickly and easily.

With WorkDrive’s TrueSync, your hard drive storage limit is no longer a concern. You can access your WorkDrive files and folders right from your desktop while leaving every bit of your local storage intact.

Zoho WorkDrive also supports previews of 160 file types, allowing users to view multiple different file formats.

Features of Zoho WorkDrive

Zoho WorkDrive’s main focus is business productivity as its main focus. With a team account, you can create favorites and labels to help sort and keep a team organized. There are also detailed folder management tools, as well as a large collection of native apps.

File Previews

Zoho WorkDrive puts a lot of functionality into a file preview, as file preview goes beyond just seeing the contents of a file in a web browser. Nearly all file types, including video and music playback and text files, can be previewed. Every file has the same array of options, including internal or external sharing. You can open files within the web or a desktop app.

Along the right-hand side are options for adding comments or data templates (which allow you to create searchable custom values).

Clicking the three-dot menu icon reveals a dropdown full of options. One is “properties,” which opens a separate display with granular information about the file, including versions. You can also check out a file, which locks it and prevents other team members from editing it until you check it back in.

File Conversions

File conversions are a handy way to make documents compatible, especially if you’re vested in the Zoho ecosystem.

Zoho WorkDrive supports files from other sources, such as Word documents. An option within the admin console lets you convert some file types into a Zoho-editable file; again, Word is a good example.

However, file conversions don’t work with everything — namely, Google Docs.

Native Apps

Zoho has an impressive app marketplace, none of which involves third-party connections. Connecting to an app is as simple as selecting it from the menu icon in the right-hand corner.

A good example is the Zoho Writer app, a full-featured, web-based word processor. When selected, it opens a new web browser tab that displays any previous documents you have worked on or created. Additionally, you can share and collaborate within the document, much like with Dropbox Paper.

Other native apps include one for spreadsheets and presentations. There is also a mail client and a networking app (to connect with people, not the internet). However, those examples just scratch the surface of Zoho’s native app catalog. While you can connect to outside ecosystems, Zoho makes it easy to stick with them.

Third-Party Connections

Zoho WorkDrive’s preference is that its users stick with its ecosystem of business and productivity apps. However, it does not alienate teams that have some external preferences and offers only three third-party integrations: Microsoft Office, Gmail, and Zapier.

Each of these options brings increased flexibility to Zoho WorkDrive. The Microsoft Office connection is only available for Windows, but the Gmail connection is a Chrome browser extension that grabs email attachments and brings them to your Zoho account. Unfortunately, this is the only integration with Google Workspace.

With Zapier, you will need to connect your two accounts.

WorkDrive Genie

WorkDrive Genie connects the desktop app with your cloud account and allows you to work directly in any app — Zoho’s or another. When you make changes and save them, WorkDrive Genie updates the file across your account, keeping everything up to date.

Open a file on the web browser using the three-dot icon dropdown to start using WorkDrive Genie, and select “open with” and choose the app. A page opens that allows WorkDrive Genie to interact with the document.

Once you’re in the app, as you work on and save your document, WorkDrive Genie updates the changes for that file in your account.

Desktop and Mobile App

Zoho WorkDrive has several desktop apps for both Mac and Windows computers. It also has mobile apps for iOS and Android. However, you have a choice when it comes to the desktop apps.

With Zoho, there are three desktop app options, each serving a different purpose. We covered the WorkDrive Genie in the features section. The other options are WorkDrive Sync and WorkDrive TrueSync.

WorkDrive Sync synchronizes files between the desktop app and your Zoho WorkDrive account. It downloads files to your computer, taking up space. If you have a team plan, WorkDrive Sync works with team folders.

WorkDrive TrueSync creates a virtual drive on your computer. This lets you work on files within the desktop app without taking up hard disk space. You can set whether a folder is online-only or available offline. It’s worth noting that WorkDrive TrueSync is the default when you download the desktop app.

Versioning and Bandwidth

No matter which paid plan you choose, all come with unlimited versioning, even the Zoho WorkDrive free plan. Access to every saved file version makes it easy to revert if needed. The main issue could be the storage space required for large files with many versions. The number of versions for each file does count against your overall shared storage allotment.

Just like versioning, Zoho WorkDrive does not limit your bandwidth. However, there is an option to throttle bandwidth speeds in the desktop app. You can’t dictate a specific speed within the settings, but you can choose from low, medium, or high speeds for uploads or downloads.

Additional Features of Zoho WorkDrive

Access files anytime

Set files offline to access them even without an internet connection.

Categorize your files

Create labels to organize your files right from your mobile. You can tag files and folders to labels and manage existing labels from a single place.

Locate files quickly

Search and filter files based on location, file types, and time, to locate them faster. Rename, trash, and organize files right from your smartphones. You can also set files as favorites to access them quickly, preview files and add comments to them to discuss documents.

Sharing large files is quick and simple with WorkDrive. You can share files via email and assign required permission based on what you want them to do.

Upload files faster

Upload photos from your mobile camera or audio recordings and save files from other apps to WorkDrive to manage everything in a single place. You can also scan documents to the cloud using your camera, and digitalize your bills, whiteboard discussions, and notes.

The following features are exclusively available for WorkDrive’s Starter, Team, and Business plans.

WorkDrive offers Team Folders — a shared and secure space for teams to work together. You can create Team Folders for a particular project or a department, and add all the relevant members to it. Any file added to the Team Folder will then be automatically available to each team member.

Always stay updated

Keep track of changes at the Team Folder level using the Unread section, and at the team level using global notifications.

Collaborate with external stakeholders

Create external share links to work with people outside your organization. Also, you can set a password and an expiry date to the link to ensure secure file access.

Monitor document changes closely

Enable notifications to see when changes are made to a specific file or a folder stored within WorkDrive. You can either choose to see the bell notification within the product, receive an update through email, or enable both.

Roles with responsibility

Share files and folders with anyone within your organization. Assign role-based access based on what you want members to do. You can also share WorkDrive files as email attachments.

Work as a team

Create Team Folders, add members, and assign role-based access to them. You can modify settings, monitor trash, and restore deleted files with a tap.

WorkDrive supports 40 plus languages including Hindi, Tamil, Arabic, Japanese, Italian, German, Vietnamese, French, and Portuguese.

Zoho WorkDrive Pricing

Paid

Zoho WorkDrive offers a free plan, as well as three plan options: Starter, Team, and Business. Choosing the Starter plan will give a minimum of three team members 1TB of shared storage for $2.50 per user per month when billed annually, or $30 annually. However, if you prefer to pay month-to-month, you’ll pay $3 per user per month.

The Team plan increases the shared storage to 3TB for $4.50 per user per month on an annual billing cycle. The Business plan comes with the most features and shares 5TB for a team at $9 per user per month, billed annually.

Organizations with more than 200 users can contact Zoho for detailed pricing information. The platform also extends support via email and other online measures.

Zoho WorkDrive offers add-ons if you need more storage or want to add external clients. Pricing could jump up, as adding additional storage is not cheap. An extra 10GB of storage costs $60 per year, while 100GB is $144 and 1TB costs $348, paid annually. For some, it may be more cost-effective to choose the next higher plan.

Still, it is good to know you are not limited to the initial storage amount if your team and business grow.

When you sign up, you will see the data center assigned to your account in a small font just above the red signup button. Normally, you do not have the option to choose the location; however, if you use a VPN, you can dictate the location since it uses your IP address to determine the data center.

Free

Zoho WorkDrive has a free individual plan, although it’s not readily apparent from the main page or its pricing page. Zoho WorkDrive is designed for teams, and that’s what it would prefer you to use.

To find the individual plan, hover over the “solutions” dropdown menu from the top of the page, then “size” and finally, “individuals.” Or, you can just click on the individual plan page.

The free individual account comes with 5GB of storage, although it has fewer controls and less functionality than a team plan. You won’t have an admin console to see analytics or customize workflows. However, all the sharing and native app functionality works with a free plan.

Zoho Workdrive Reviews: Features, Pricing And More 2023

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Overview of Zoho WorkDrive