Emailing documents back and forth prohibits collaboration, creates versioning issues, and is often cumbersome; as such, many companies look to document repositories to help conquer the clutter. Document repositories are storage locations that facilitate the capture, organization, and flow of knowledge. Companies have a few options available to them when they begin researching a document repository solution.
Option number one: Traditional file transfer services. Traditional file transfer services operate like a FTP server with some rudimentary compliance and privacy options. They are priced based upon their storage and transfer volumes and offer SSL-digital certificate connectivity.
Option number two is a cloud based file transfer service. "Cloud" is a relative new word in the business community and refers to a service that is complete web-based, meaning that it does not require a user to install anything on their computer to function. Cloud based file transfer systems are usually priced the same way as FTP services.
Without a doubt, both of these systems are better than email, but when it comes to enabling users to work from home or the road, managing multiple offices, or the interactions of multiple companies and staffs, these systems leave much to be desired. Both of these systems offer little in the way of technical support or audit capacities; also, they require the user to know the name of the file that is being requested rather than having a robust in-document word search. Lastly, they have at most two security levels: on and off, which means that a user will either have full access, being able to edit, delete, view, and change a file or not even be able to see that a file exists.
A virtual data room is the third option and has much more robust security features and document organization. It features banking level encryption so that your data is never secure and always available. Virtual data rooms also have options to make finding documents easier such as full document text search, sorting, custom fields, filters, and a folder and file system.
Tracking user and file activity is important, so virtual data rooms develop reports that show administrators who accessed a file, from where, for how long, at what time, and logs and changes they made. They also have more than two security levels which allows administrator to specify whether users can view, change, print, or download files. Some virtual data rooms also feature customizable watermarks that can be enabled which show a user's name, ip address, date, and login info so that users can print a file but be able to be tracked should they distribute it.
In concussion, email is an inadequate solution for document collaboration among multiple parties. File transfer protocol services offer many benefits to emailing by getting rid of versioning issues, but have their own security risks and lack of accountability. The best solution is a virtual data room.
Option number one: Traditional file transfer services. Traditional file transfer services operate like a FTP server with some rudimentary compliance and privacy options. They are priced based upon their storage and transfer volumes and offer SSL-digital certificate connectivity.
Option number two is a cloud based file transfer service. "Cloud" is a relative new word in the business community and refers to a service that is complete web-based, meaning that it does not require a user to install anything on their computer to function. Cloud based file transfer systems are usually priced the same way as FTP services.
Without a doubt, both of these systems are better than email, but when it comes to enabling users to work from home or the road, managing multiple offices, or the interactions of multiple companies and staffs, these systems leave much to be desired. Both of these systems offer little in the way of technical support or audit capacities; also, they require the user to know the name of the file that is being requested rather than having a robust in-document word search. Lastly, they have at most two security levels: on and off, which means that a user will either have full access, being able to edit, delete, view, and change a file or not even be able to see that a file exists.
A virtual data room is the third option and has much more robust security features and document organization. It features banking level encryption so that your data is never secure and always available. Virtual data rooms also have options to make finding documents easier such as full document text search, sorting, custom fields, filters, and a folder and file system.
Tracking user and file activity is important, so virtual data rooms develop reports that show administrators who accessed a file, from where, for how long, at what time, and logs and changes they made. They also have more than two security levels which allows administrator to specify whether users can view, change, print, or download files. Some virtual data rooms also feature customizable watermarks that can be enabled which show a user's name, ip address, date, and login info so that users can print a file but be able to be tracked should they distribute it.
In concussion, email is an inadequate solution for document collaboration among multiple parties. File transfer protocol services offer many benefits to emailing by getting rid of versioning issues, but have their own security risks and lack of accountability. The best solution is a virtual data room.
About the Author:
This information has been prepared by V-Rooms.com. V-Rooms has been providing secure document management systems and document repositories for corporate communications for the last 5 years.
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