Like many organisations, here at Telefónica Tech, the ability to manage, share and collaborate on documents both internally across multiple sites, and externally with customers and partners is an essential part of our ongoing operations.  This becomes more of a challenge with our ever increasing demands for mobility, remote access, enhanced security and a great user experience.

There are a number of different solutions out there including SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, Dropbox, Box and Citrix ShareFile. This wide range of options regularly leaves customers and businesses either confused or using a multitude of different solutions with limited integration and exposing an organisation to data leakage.

 

Here at Telefónica Tech, we are heavy users of SharePoint Online for managing our internal document storage requirements but with the multiple different types of devices in use (Laptops, Tablets and Smart Phones from different vendors), we need to have the flexibility of having an easy to use and secure external file sharing system that enhances the features available in SharePoint Online. It also needs to be easily accessible on multiple devices both locally and remotely when we are using our Citrix environment. One option that we use to enhance our SharePoint Online functionality is Citrix ShareFile where we find this ability to easily and securely share files externally is one of its best features.

 

Here are 5 reasons we chose ShareFile.

 

1. Secure file sharing

First and foremost, ShareFile offers secure document sharing both internally and externally on any device. There are a number of audit and control features that give a company oversight to track and control who accesses all their data. You can restrict who views, edits, prints or screengrabs all files. You can also classify all files, with automatic restrictions such as external access to sensitive data.

 

The Microsoft Outlook Plug in also removes the risk of sending files by email by converting all attachments to links to ShareFile. This plugin also allows you to easily encrypt the email at the click of a button and the recipient does not need to have any configuration done by their IT department on their PC or backend mail server.

 

2. Access to Files regardless of Location

With ShareFile you can access all your data regardless of where it is stored through one easy interface. It allows you to connect all of your on-premise and cloud based data with all your other file sharing services, this includes Azure, OneDrive, Office 365, SharePoint, google drive, DropBox etc. At Telefónica Tech we use it to have one view on our SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business environments, as well as an Azure file share storage area for legacy files that we migrated from on-premise to the cloud.

 

ShareFile also allows you to dictate where saved files are stored, allowing you to easily ensure the right level of security and storage of sensitive data. You don’t have to migrate your data to use ShareFile you can keep it where it is (SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, on-premise server etc). You do have the option to let Citrix manage your data on Azure or Amazon Web Services but what we like about ShareFIle is that you can leave the data in your on-premise server if you wish.

 

3. Document Workflows & Collaboration

ShareFiIle offers advanced workflows that allow collaboration, feedback, approvals and electronic signatures. Unlike other file services ShareFile allows this to work both internally and with people outside your organisation.

 

The workflows are easy to use and customisable to get the greatest productivity out of your employees. This includes automated reviews, version control, full collaboration tools, automation and electronic signatures.

 

4. Maximising office 365 and Microsoft Cloud

ShareFile seamlessly integrates with Office 365 and Azure. You can access files stored in Office 365, Azure or SharePoint all within a single application. It also offers enhanced collaboration across both internal and external audiences allowing collaboration on any browser, computer or mobile device across Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

 

Again unlike other solutions you can easily track your documents, you can easily what files were shared with who when. This was one of the main reason we chose to add ShareFile as part of our file sharing systems.

5. Virtualisation and Mobility

ShareFile is the only solution that is specifically designed with a virtual environment in mind. It seamlessly integrates with the various Citrix Virtualisation solutions, such as XenMobile, XenDesktop and XenApp.

 

You can set up ShareFile to map a drive to the ShareFile environment to give you access to the documents without them all being synchronised back to the Citrix server.   This helps keep virtual desktops efficient and performing well and is another reason we decided to add ShareFile to our internal environment.

 

With full XenMobile integrate ShareFile allows for enhanced security features on the mobile such as blocking, screenshots, clipboard, camera and printing etc.

 

At Telefónica Tech as you can see from above, we use a hybrid approach, where we use SharePoint and OneDrive internally and ShareFile for external sharing.  For many companies using Office 365, the fact that they get SharePoint/OneDrive included means more and more of our customers are moving to SharePoint.   Citrix ShareFile works with Office 365 to add additional functionality and features that we have highlighted above providing enhanced compliance/audit capability and secure external sharing.

 

There isn’t a one size fits all solution but with most companies needing an increased ability to offer remote access and greater collaboration Citrix ShareFile offers a clear solution to this problem.

 

If you are interested in Citrix ShareFile, SharePoint or to understand your options around collaboration then please get in touch. If you would like a demo or to find out more about our approach we would be happy to help.