Enterprises run on content, and today that content is everywhere: on Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platforms like Microsoft SharePoint and OpenText Documentum, on cloud services such as Office 365, and on public-cloud services like Box, Dropbox and Google Drive. When organizations share content with partners, consultants, and other external users, that content becomes harder to control. The location and security of content become more inscrutable, and IT security and compliance often become weaker as a result. So, how can CISOs know who is accessing their organization’s content, where is it going, and how might it have been modified?
Yet, as pervasive as content is throughout an organization and as often as it’s shared with the outside world, it’s often conspicuously missing from a critical part of IT operations: workflow automation. Employees spend much of their time working with files and sharing them with colleagues. But these files are usually accessed, modified and distributed by people, a laborious process. Automating this process typically requires a developer’s time to understand the workflow and time to write custom code.
kiteworks 3, the latest update to Accellion’s award-winning Secure File Sharing Platform, addresses these challenges with a rich set of features for file sharing governance and workflow automation. These features include a “no-code” solution for automating file transfer, controls for files stored on Shadow IT systems, a flexible solution for sharing files securely with external users, and integration with both desktop and mobile versions of popular Microsoft applications such as Word and Excel.
Here’s a closer look at the new features available today in kiteworks 3:
- Automation Suite
An automation agent allows organizations to integrate kiteworks into existing business processes and build workflows around file transfer without writing code. For example, a remote healthcare clinic can send patient test results to an external specialist for review, secure the transfer, notify on-call doctors, and move the files to a folder accessible by only authorized users – all automatically with no customized code. In addition, a complete audit trail is generated to meet HIPAA compliance.
- Shadow IT Controls for Governance Over Cloud Storage
IT departments can now control employee access to public cloud storage providers Dropbox, OneDrive for Business, SharePoint Online, Google Drive, and Box so that users are able to utilize these services in accordance with internal policies. Organizations can apply role-based policies, generate a full audit trail to demonstrate compliance, leverage their existing DLP solutions to prevent sensitive content from being uploaded to unauthorized solutions, and scan incoming files from customers or partners with advanced threat prevention (ATP) technologies as they are downloaded.
- Move Seamlessly Between Collaboration Modes
Users can now share and collaborate with external partners using a unified solution that covers a variety of file sharing models. After sending a file securely to external partners through email, recipients can now reply securely within the context of the email chain, and if the interaction would benefit from collaborative editing, the users can seamlessly move to a shared folder. Regardless of how files are shared, all actions are captured in auditable logs.
- Access Files Directly from Microsoft Office Applications
Users now have the ability to open, edit and save files through kiteworks directly from within the desktop and mobile versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint – leveraging connected content stores across the enterprise for access and storage. A new Office plugin allows secure file sharing without leaving the authoring application, adding to the earlier integration with Microsoft Outlook for sending attachments securely.
These new capabilities further enable organizations to safely and efficiently share sensitive information with the outside world. The end result is an organization’s private data and intellectual property stay protected and compliance with internal policies and industry regulations is more simply demonstrated.
To learn more about kiteworks 3, read our press release, register for our webinar, or contact us to arrange a demo.