Shared With Me

Shared With Me is the part of EcoTech Documents that shows files another authorised person, business or organisation has shared with you. It is designed for collaboration without confusing document ownership. The key idea is simple: A document can belong to someone else and still be available to you securely. What Is Shared With Me? Shared With Me is your view of documents that you did not originally create or own, but that another authorised party has made available to you. These may include: Quotations Invoices Contracts Reports Letters Business documents Supporting information or other files relevant to your work. The document remains connected to its owner. You receive authorised access. Ownership and Access Are Different This distinction is important. If someone shares a document with you, EcoTech does not automatically transfer ownership. Instead, it records the relationship between: The document owner The person who shared it The recipient and The access that has been granted This keeps collaboration clear. Why Shared With Me Matters In normal business activity, documents often move between people. A supplier sends a quotation. A customer receives an invoice. A colleague shares a report. A business partner shares a contract. A manager sends supporting information. Without a structured system, these files can become scattered across email, messaging apps and personal downloads. Shared With Me gives them a recognised place inside EcoTech. Shared With Me Should Always Be Visible Shared With Me is a core Documents capability. Even when nobody has shared anything with you yet, it should still remain visible. An empty Shared With Me area simply means: No documents have been shared with you yet. The feature does not disappear just because it is empty. This matters because users should always know where incoming shared documents will appear. Sharing Does Not Make a Document Public A shared document is not the same as a public document. EcoTech sharing is based on authorised access. A file can therefore remain private while still being made available to a specific person or business. This allows sensitive information to move between trusted participants without being published openly. Shared Commercial Documents Shared With Me becomes especially useful in the commercial process. For example: Business creates quotation in QI Quotation is issued PDF is stored in Documents Quotation is shared with customer Customer sees it in Shared With Me The same principle can apply to invoices, credit notes or other formal documents. This creates a clean document path: QI → Documents → Share → Shared With Me Shared With Me and Your Identity Access to a shared document should be connected to the correct EcoTech identity. This means the system can understand who the intended recipient is. That reduces the risk of documents being sent to the wrong operating context. Your personal identity remains important because it provides the foundation for authorised access. Shared Documents and Business Context Some documents may be shared with you personally. Others may relate to a business or Enterprise you are authorised to operate. EcoTech can keep those contexts distinct. This becomes especially important when one person is connected to several businesses or organisations. The system needs to understand: Who received the document and In what capacity it is being used Shared With Me and Echo One of the most valuable parts of Shared With Me is its connection to Echo. A document that has been properly shared with you can become part of your authorised information context. That means Echo can help you work with it. For example, Echo may help: Summarise the document Extract important dates Identify actions Compare it with another document Explain key sections Find commercial information or Help prepare a response The important point is that Echo works with documents you are authorised to access. Authorised Context This creates an important EcoTech flow: Document → Secure Share → Shared With Me → Echo The document enters your authorised working environment. Echo can then help you understand or work with that information. This is different from giving Echo unrestricted access to every document in EcoTech. Access remains controlled. A Practical Example Imagine a supplier sends your business a quotation. The supplier creates and issues the quotation. The PDF is saved into their EcoTech Documents. They share it with you. It appears in: Documents → Shared With Me You can open the quotation. You can review it. You can use Echo to summarise the key commercial terms. You can then decide what action to take. The original supplier still owns the source document. You have authorised access to it. Shared With Me Supports Collaboration The feature is useful beyond commercial documents. It can support: Project collaboration Internal business communication Partner relationships Enterprise workflows Professional services and Institutional participation The principle remains the same: Share access without losing control of ownership. Why This Matters for EcoTech EcoTech is designed around relationships. Shared With Me turns document sharing into another trusted relationship. Instead of simply asking: Where is this file? EcoTech can also understand: Who owns it? Who shared it? Who can access it? What business context does it belong to? and Can Echo work with it? That is a much stronger operating model than ordinary file storage. The Key Principle The simplest way to understand Shared With Me is: Ownership stays with the source. Access is granted to the recipient. Permissions control what the recipient can do. Echo can work with the document only inside that authorised context. Your Next Guide 14. Echo The next guide explains how Echo becomes EcoTech’s intelligence layer, working across your authorised documents, relationships, business activity and operating context to help you understand information and take action. Still Need Help? If you are unsure how document sharing works, why a shared document is different from an owned document, or what Echo can do with Shared With Me files, use the SupraMinds booking link to schedule a discussion.