Few things are worse than not being able to find contract information when you need to. It slows productivity, leads to additional costs, and places unnecessary stress on you and your team. However, with so many files and documents to search through, how are you supposed to improve your access to data and find it in a timely manner? 

The answer lies in data organization, specifically through folders and tags. Keep reading to understand how these tools are used and how you can implement them within CLM software to improve searchability and accessibility.

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Should I Use Folders or Tag Data?

The debate over folders versus tags has been a long one, with each approach offering different pros and cons.

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Tagging

Tags are keywords or longer phrases that apply to various documents, contracts, and files within a system. They can relate to a number of different categories, such as the type of contract or contracts containing a specific clause. 

Since contracts and other documents can hold multiple tags, you cast a wider net when searching within a specific tag, which can sometimes result in less defined search results. If you ask some current-day developers, tagging rose in popularity when search functions were generally poor. Today, with search engines that perform very well across contract data, tagging is less useful and now can fall second to using folders.

Some teams also feel a tagging-only-based system can heighten organizational risk. For example, IT teams feel a lack of tagging maintenance could be detrimental and create issues with data security. 

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Folders

Similar to the physical organization tool, folders are a group of files stored together on a computer, platform, or cloud-based system. They allow you to store all related contracts and documents together in one location and act as a more tangible, secure structure. 

Folders also allow for more defined parent/child relationships between documents, so you can, for example, have two separate subfolders for NDAs and vendor agreements that roll up to a single larger client folder. However, the common downside cited with folders is an inability to remember where you sorted a file, so it can be tedious to find a specific document if you need to manually click through each folder.

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Data Organization with AI

While a combination of tagging and folder sorting can offer some organizational structure, there is little overall efficiency that can be had if you’re storing and searching for contracts manually. 

Evisort’s best-in-class platform uses a combination of folders, automatic AI-powered tagging, and optional manual tagging to organize your documents. These capabilities allow customers to easily and quickly search for contracts and create, collaborate, manage, and analyze that data right when it’s needed. Since Evisort technology mirrors existing folder structures, teams save effort and time when onboarding, speeding time-to-value. 

Customers cite Evisort’s ease of use and in-platform organization as critically important to their contract operations. Since it is much easier to identify documents that are not in the proper folders, users have fewer concerns over losing track of files than they would if someone had forgotten to tag a file properly.

Besides allowing for improved searchability and reporting, folders within Evisort also give you enhanced control over who has access to specific documents. For example, you can limit permissions on folders containing procurement documents to only allow those within your procurement department to access and edit them. 

Our AI also enables post-signature documents to be automatically stored in relevant folders with specific permissions. This enhanced segmentation lowers the risk of the documents being altered by outside departments or accessed by those who should not see them.

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Transform Your Business with Evisort’s AI

At Evisort, we use game-changing AI and machine learning to empower you to overcome the manual methods of data entry and contract reviews so you have more time to focus on strategic work.

Visit our AI Labs and product pages to see how you can use this technology to do your best work.

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