Virtual data room today is the most reliable solution for storing and exchanging business data, and although they appeared quite a long time ago, the interest in them began to increase only in the last few years. Now the number of companies that use VDR services exceeds dozens of thousands, and if you have only recently decided to purchase such a service, this article will be useful for you. Learn how to set up your data room efficiently and get started with it faster.
Prepare the right files
The very first step in setting up your data room is to prepare the right files. So, first of all, you need to transfer your physical documents to a digital format. This may take some time, especially if you’ve previously favored physical archives. Scan your documents so you have full control over them in the VDR space. To make this process go faster, decide which documents you want to upload to the space, and use document management systems that can make the digitization process faster.
After that, you should intuitively organize your files. Sort your data and make sure it is up-to-date because if you are going to participate in due diligence and your document system is poorly organized it will not only slow down the review process but also negatively affect the opinion of potential partners.
Select your supplier
After that you need to start choosing your supplier, to do this you need to do some kind of analysis that will show you which supplier will best fit your business requirements. Determine the purpose for which you are purchasing the VDR, and based on that, research the market offerings. Determine what features you would like to see in your solution that would help you reach your goal and how the vendors’ pricing policies work. For example, many popular vendors such as datarooms.com.br set their prices based on the number of users, but some also charge based on the number of pages or amount of storage.
Load documents into VDRs
Data Rooms has great document management features so there’s no problem with that. You can quickly upload all the files using bulk upload or the drag and drop feature. Once the upload has been completed you need to organize them understandably so you can easily navigate among the files. Automatic indexing and the smart search will help you do this. You can also categorize your files by their privacy level to provide as the deal progresses.
Care for privacy
The success of the deal and the protection of documents depends on your discretion. Make sure all users invited into the space have confirmed a non-disclosure agreement before you start working with your documents. Also, you should set your access restrictions for each user. You must be sure that the person to whom you grant permission to download or print a document is bona fide.
You can also create separate groups, set permissions for them, and invite the appropriate people into them. To make it easier for your partners to verify and to further secure your data, you can allow access to the documents only to those users who are directly related to the file, e.g. you can allow only lawyers access to a folder with legal documents, etc.
Set security rules
You also have additional security features at your disposal that help control all processes in the data room service, they include watermarking, allowing and blocking document interaction, remote file destruction, and setting time limits for document access. You will receive automatic reports of all the activities that take place in the VDR to keep you up-to-date.