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NetDocuments Business Continuity: Sync to SharePoint With Self-Service Recovery

Business-Continuity-Blog-Cover
NetDocuments Business Continuity: Sync to SharePoint With Self-Service Recovery

Business Continuity

Business Continuity: Syncing NetDocuments Content to SharePoint with Self-Service Recovery

Document Management System outages are rare, but when they happen for unforeseen reasons, users lose access to the content they need that day. netDocShare Sync continuously mirrors core repository content into SharePoint, giving firms a living, working backup attorneys can reach themselves the moment the primary system goes down - without waiting on a support ticket.

The Challenge

Document Management System outages do not announce themselves. Whether the cause is a cloud vendor incident, a network failure, or scheduled maintenance that runs long, attorneys are left unable to open the matters they were working on minutes earlier. For law firms and the legal IT providers that support them, this is a recurring conversation.

Today, that gap is often filled by standalone legal client-portal platforms, which firms adopt partly for their continuity story even when a portal isn't otherwise needed. Firms without a dedicated continuity tool are left with no good answer when a partner asks, “What happens if DMS goes down during a closing?”

How netDocShare Sync Solves It

netDocShare Sync addresses business continuity through five connected capabilities:

Continuous mirroring

netDocShare Sync keeps a live, up-to-date copy of NetDocuments workspaces and folders in SharePoint, so the backup is never more than a sync cycle behind.

Self-service access

Attorneys can open, read, and continue working on mirrored content directly in SharePoint during an outage, without filing a ticket or waiting on IT.

Automatic reconciliation

When the core system comes back online, changes made in SharePoint during the outage sync back to the DMS as single source of truth, so nothing has to be manually re-entered.

Familiar interface

Because the fallback lives in SharePoint, attorneys are working in an environment they already know, rather than learning a separate continuity tool.

Full audit trail

Every sync cycle and every change made is logged, giving IT and compliance a clear record of what happened and when.

Real-World Example: Continuity at Scale Across Hundreds of Firms

The provider fields business-continuity questions constantly - sometimes directly from a firm's partners, sometimes from the firm's own IT team planning for the worst case. Using netDocShare Sync, the provider can offer every represented firm a standing SharePoint mirror of their DMS content, so an outage becomes a brief inconvenience rather than a fire drill, and the provider has one consistent answer to give every firm that asks.

Always-On Continuous Content
Mirroring & Syncing
Self-Service Attorney Access
During Outages
1 in 3 Firms That Ask About
Backup / Continuity

Frequently Asked Questions

It stays current. netDocShare Sync mirrors content on an ongoing basis, so the SharePoint copy reflects recent activity rather than a stale snapshot.

Yes. Edits made in SharePoint while the DMS is unavailable sync back automatically once the DMS is restored.

No. It complements one. netDocShare Sync addresses day-to-day access continuity; firms with stricter recovery-time requirements should still maintain a formal DR plan alongside it.

No. The continuity mirror works out of the box, and firms using Ethical Wall permissions will see those honored in the mirrored content as well.

Generic backup tools restore files after the fact. netDocShare Sync keeps a continuously working copy attorneys can use immediately, without a restore step.

Quick Answer

netDocShare Sync provides NetDocuments business continuity by continuously syncing content into SharePoint - if NetDocuments is interrupted, attorneys keep reading and editing matter content directly in SharePoint, and every change reconciles back automatically once it's restored.

Key Takeaways

  • netDocShare Sync keeps a continuously updated SharePoint mirror of NetDocuments content - not a one-time backup.
  • Attorneys get self-service access during an unforeseen outage without any IT tickets.
  • Changes made during an unforeseen outage sync back to NetDocuments automatically once it's restored.
  • Ethical Wall permissions are honored in the mirrored content.
  • Complements, rather than replaces, a formal disaster recovery plan.

See how netDocShare Sync keeps your firm working through an outage.

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