Link your Bigle and Google Drive documents by importing or exporting them from Bigle CLM to synchronise changes and work on them externally, while maintaining traceability
Bigle CLM is compatible with Google Drive and allows you to synchronise your Google documents with the Bigle platform and vice versa, making it easier to access them, import or export them easily, and keep track of changes on the platform.
This document synchronisation between Bigle and Google Drive allows you to link your documents to this provider and is available in the following steps of the document lifecycle that you carry out in Bigle CLM: edition, negotiation and validation.
In any of these three steps of the document lifecycle, click on the Google Drive icon located at the top right of the platform.
When you click on this, a tab will appear with two options:
- Import from Google Drive and link: Allows you to replace the current Bigle document with the selected Google Docs document.
- Export to Google Drive and link: Allows you to export the current Bigle document and replace the selected Google Docs document.
Recommendation: keep track changes enabled. Comments and changes made with track changes enabled will be reflected when you import or export the document, both in Bigle and Google Drive.
Linking is done in steps: even if you link the document between both systems in one step, once you move on to the next step, the link is terminated and you will have to link again. For example: when you link the document in the editing step, it is linked once, but it is unlinked when you start a validation step, where you will have to link again if you want to link the documents.
How to import a document from Google Drive
Once you have started an edition, negotiation or validation step, click on the Google Drive icon located at the top right of the platform. Then select the option ‘Import from Google Drive and link’.
A window will open where you can select the Google Drive account you want to use for this action. The Google Drive window will then appear, allowing you to browse and select the document you want to import into Bigle. Browse through your Drive folders, select the desired document, and click on ‘Select’.
The document will be uploaded to your Bigle platform, replacing the existing document. In the drop-down menu on the right, the uploaded document will show both the existing comments and all the changes that have been made with change control enabled.
Click on the ‘Activity’ tab in the right-hand side panel to access the document traceability log, where you will see, among other steps taken on the document, the link to Google Drive.
How to export a document to Google Drive
Once you have started a edition, negotiation or validation step, click on the Google Drive icon located at the top right of the platform. Then select the option ‘Export to Google Drive and link’.
A window will open where you can select the Google Drive account you want to use for the action, and the Google Drive window will appear, allowing you to browse and select the document you want to overwrite in Google Drive. Browse through your Drive folders, select the desired document, and click on ‘Select’.
The document will be uploaded to your Google Drive account, replacing the existing document.
Additional linking options
Once the document has been linked, clicking on the Google Drive icon in the top right-hand corner of the Bigle workspace will display four additional linking options:
- Open document in Google Drive: This allows you to open a new tab where you can view the document in Google Drive.
- Load the version saved in Google Drive: this allows you to update the existing document in Bigle with the latest changes made to the document in Google Drive. Close your document in Google Drive before selecting this option to ensure that the changes are saved.
- Save this version to Google Drive: allows you to update the existing document in Google Drive with the latest changes made to the document in Bigle. It is important that you click on the ‘Save’ button in Bigle before selecting this option so that the changes are saved.
- Unlink Google Drive document: Removes the link between the document and Google Drive.
⚠️ Important! Once the document has been linked between Bigle and Google Drive, any changes made to the document in either system will not be automatically synchronised in both systems at the same time.
- You must select the option ‘Load the version saved in Google Drive’ so that the changes made to the document in Google Drive are updated in your existing document in Bigle.
- You must save the changes in Bigle and select the option ‘Save this version to Google Drive’ so that the changes made to the document in Bigle are updated in your existing document in Google Drive.
⚠️ Important! We recommend working on documents either in Bigle or in Google Drive to avoid synchronisation errors, as making changes in both systems at the same time creates different versions of the document, leading to a synchronisation problem and the changes made in one of the two systems could be lost.