How customers securely share documents and improve collaboration
We all know collaboration is essential to driving business processes forward. But that doesn’t mean it happens easily.
Growing businesses often end up with branch offices scattered across geographic locations. Staff work out in the field to stay close to their customers. Certain jobs require traveling from point A to point B to get work done.
All of this hinders our ability to share content and collaborate with others, especially those outside our four walls. We rely on paper, share drives, FTP sites, etc., to do the job for us.
The result? Miscommunication, incorrect document versions, lack of security – the list goes on and on.
But as attendees at CommunityLIVE, our annual user conference, learned last month, there is a better way to empower secure file sharing while promoting collaboration. By implementing ShareBase, a cloud-based file sharing tool, organizations take advantage of secure, online file sharing – internally and externally – while ensuring they retain ownership and control of any shared information.
Don’t take our word for it, here’s what customers have to say
During a ShareBase customer panel at CommunityLIVE, attendees learned firsthand what makes cloud-based sharing so beneficial to organizations.
The panel included:
- Sharon Camarillo, IT director, Hill County, Texas
- John Fox, IT director, Mazzella Companies, an overhead lifting and rigging manufacturer
- Mark Buckley, president, Requordit, an enterprise content management and workflow provider
Here are the top three questions that emerged during the panel discussion.
Q: What is the biggest advantage ShareBase has given your organization?
A: “It gives us a secure environment to share content,” Camarillo said. “We did not have that before. It also gives us the ability to share with other agencies and our constituents, and also put timers on how long that content is out there. Meanwhile, audit trails tell us everything that happened. It’s a secure repository that’s dedicated to Hill County.”
Fox shared Camarillo’s sentiments. With a company dispersed across more than 20 locations, it’s critical staff can share and collaborate on content with each other.
“There’s a lot of collaboration out there when you’re trying to sell a $500,000 crane,” Fox said. “That has to be done with a lot of document sharing – whether you’re based in Tuscaloosa, Cleveland or Baltimore, it doesn’t matter. Being able to share in the cloud is significant.”
The ability to securely share documents is what hooked Requordit on the product, too, according to Buckley. Clients are given secure folders to store information and collaborate with the Requordit team. Much of the information being shared is confidential, so knowing this content is secure gives peace of mind to all involved.
Q: How did you first implement ShareBase? Was it to a small group or company-wide?
A: Hill County began its ShareBase deployment in the State Attorney’s Office for Child Protective Services (CPS). Before ShareBase, staff had to make the two-hour drive from Austin to Hill County to upload CPS cases into the county’s content management system.
Now, staff simply upload them into ShareBase and go to Hill County for court hearings when needed.
“It’s so great for us to have a secure environment to share content, get feedback and have the audit trail in one place as opposed to using emails or Google shares,” Camarillo said.
For Mazzella, the first phase of its ShareBase deployment was to digitize sales content and make it accessible to sellers, regardless of their locations. Rather than storing sales content in binders that staff must physically access, staff members now instantly access this content in ShareBase – whether on the road from their mobile device or in the office on a computer.
Q: Any surprise advantages ShareBase has provided your users?
A: For Hill County, ShareBase has helped its emergency response teams out in the field.
“We implemented it for 911 mapping,” Camarillo said. “Our 911 folks didn’t believe they would have access to needed documents out in the field, but it has worked out perfectly because they can now access documents and pull up maps and other forms they are required to fill out. They can also share them with constituents. They were really shocked at how it worked out in the field, especially in a rural county.”
ShareBase has improved processes for field workers at Mazzella, too. As a crane and lift manufacturer, field reps are constantly taking pictures of environments and pieces of equipment for customers and prospects to view.
Now, with ShareBase, they can upload these photos and make them immediately accessible.
Although each customer found various ways to utilize ShareBase, it all boiled down to very similar use cases – providing staff with the ability to easily share content and collaborate.
So, how do you manage sharing and collaborating with your colleagues? We’d love to hear your thoughts below in the comments section.
