Category Archives: Collaboration

Apache Solr, Collaboration, Document Management, FINRA, Solr

NetDocuments 13.1 Release Includes Secure Document Delivery

NetDocuments today announced their 13.1 release. This latest release contains more than 20 new and updated features, including document delivery via a secure link and a new search engine.

Available for the first time with this release, Secure Document Delivery enables public sharing of documents without loss of content control. Users select the documents they wish to deliver, and NetDocuments generates a secure URL for each document to be sent to multiple email addresses. This feature offers users a number of security and control options, including the ability to:

  • Password-protect the viewing of documents
  • Set document permissions, including the ability to download documents
  • Set a predetermined expiration date, after which the URL will no
    longer be active
  • Lock the original version of the document in NetDocuments, thereby
    prohibiting any changes to be made to the delivered document

Previously, third parties could only gain access to documents stored in NetDocuments by obtaining a username and password through a client portal. The Secure Document Delivery feature also improves collaboration and adds increased functionality to the suite of SEC-, FINRA- and HIPAA-compliant content management features.

As part of the 13.1 release, the NetDocuments’ NDSearch, an enterprise-class search platform embedded in NetDocuments and available to all users, now relies on the SolrTM search engine to power its functionality across 750 million documents for its global customer base in 140 countries.

Solr’s open source enterprise platform provides NetDocuments with the flexibility to adjust search functionality to meet customer needs. All previous search features remain available, including search analysis filters, find similar, dynamic filters and saved search. With Solr, users will enjoy quicker display of items in workspaces and other search result lists, an improvement in productivity made possible by Solr’s ability to index metadata for documents significantly faster.

“Collaboration has always been a main pillar of our company, and the new document delivery tool, which was highly requested by our customers, provides the easiest way for our customers to work with someone outside their organization while maintaining complete control of their documents,” said Leonard Johnson, vice president of marketing and product management at NetDocuments. “Our users have always valued our powerful search tool, and switching to Solr not only provides them with a superior search experience, but gives us greater customization and scalability as we near the billion document mark.”

Bluebeam, Business Processes, Collaboration, Computer-aided design, Partnerships, Portable Document Format, ProjectWise, Skanska

Bluebeam Revu for PDF-based Collaboration Now Available to Skanska Projects

Skanska has entered into a global purchasing agreement with Bluebeam® Software, the developer of PDF-based solutions for digital project workflows. Under this new agreement, Skanska project teams throughout the world can deploy Bluebeam’s Revu®, for digital project communication and collaboration.

Bluebeam Revu is a PDF-based solution that enables architecture, engineering and construction professionals to streamline workflows, improve communication and reduce paper use. Revu includes 2D and 3D PDF creation and a variety of industry-standard redlining tools including text, highlights, shapes, clouds, CAD symbols and measurements. Advanced features include automatic drawing comparisons, hyperlink management, integration with SharePoint® and ProjectWise®, and tablet PC compatibility. Additionally, Revu includes an integrated cloud solution, Bluebeam Studio™, for storing PDFs and other project files online and collaborating in real-time on PDFs.

Skanska’s NKS project team is currently using several of these features to electronically share information for this massive, 3.4 million gross square foot facility. Project team members are using Revu to create and annotate PDFs, enabling them to easily share detailed drawings, comments and questions with project team members downstream. The team is also organizing and managing the enormous amount of project information by using Links – Revu’s hyperlink manager – to link PDF drawings to additional project data stored in SharePoint®.

“Revu is a powerful solution that creates so many opportunities for streamlining project communication and collaboration and allows project teams to work more efficiently,” said Christian Gren, Director of Account Services, Bluebeam AB. “With this agreement, Skanska project teams can increase productivity, create significant time savings and reduce costs, ultimately having a substantial impact on the bottom line.”

“Skanska’s implementation of Revu on the incredible New Karolinska Solna project proves that anything is possible with Bluebeam,” said Kristine Hopkins, Bluebeam Software’s Director of Account Services. “Bluebeam is thrilled to enter into this purchasing agreement with Skanska, making it easier for its project teams around the globe to communicate and collaborate digitally and work without limits.”

Bluebeam Software products are available direct and through a global network of authorized resellers. For more information, visit www.bluebeam.com.

 

Business Services, Collaboration, Speakers bureau, Webinar/Webcast/Presentation

ProjectSpeaker Aims to Streamline Speaker Management, Engagement

ProjectSpeaker Inc., a cloud-based technology company, has launched its speaker management platform to save conference and meeting planners’ time and resources. Planners can search a speaker database of complete profiles, manage events and sessions and engage directly with speakers and/or their representatives through an internal communication channel.

With over 300 speaker bureaus and over 2,000,000 “professional speaker” search results on Google, the process of locating the ideal speaker and managing the engagement process is daunting. With ProjectSpeaker, planners are now able to create unlimited events and sessions, assign and review speakers and engage them directly to streamline the entire process.

ProjectSpeaker is free for both planners and speakers. It features an innovative business model in which we partner with conference industry suppliers to bid on their services in response to planners’ requests. ProjectSpeaker shares in the revenue generated.

Collaboration, Customer Relationship Management, Exafort, Google Apps, NetSuite, Phishing, Salesforce, salesforce.com

Aujas Launches Phishnix for Cloud Services

Aujas Information Risk Services today announced the launch of Phishnix for cloud services, a new product that will help clients protect their sensitive information on the cloud by strengthening their weakest link in the security chain, their own employees. The product is targeted for major cloud services such as Salesforce, Google Apps, Netsuite etc.

Salesforce.com is the most popular cloud CRM company in the world with more than 75,000 companies who trust their customer data on Salesforce. The Salesforce security guideline specifically warns against the threat and says, “As the Salesforce.com community grows, it has become an increasingly appealing target for phishers. Phishers often direct users to enter details at a fake website whose URL and look-and-feel are almost identical to the legitimate one.”

One example is a recent scam that involved an email luring receivers to participate in the beta test of ‘Dreamforce,’ promising discounts and requesting receivers to fill a form, in a fake web link. In such a case, employees who are unaware of it being a phishing attack may easily fall prey to it. Any company is likely to face heavy business loss, when employees become victims of phishing attacks. According to the RSA Fraud report 2011, global loss from phishing is estimated to be about $1 billion.

Phishnix does a behavioral analysis of employees when faced with a phishing attack. It is integrated with Salesforce and has ready Salesforce scenarios which the client can select. They can start the assessment in a matter of hours and analyze how their employees react to a phishing attack. That data is then used to create awareness and train the employees on how to respond to a phishing attack.

Speaking on the occasion Mr. Karl Kispert, Vice President at Phishnix said, “A single assessment and training cycle of Phishnix reduces the phishing fall rate by almost 35%. That is a huge reduction in the phishing risk for any organization.”

The product will be showcased by our partner Exafort at Dreamforce 2012, booth number 326 at the Moscone Center, San Francisco, on 18—21 September 2012. Stop by Exafort’s booth and ask for a demo and additional information about Phishnix. Dreamforce 2012 is the cloud computing industry event of the year with more than 50,000 attendees and 350 cloud computing companies showcasing more than 1000 solutions.

“Data security and confidentiality on the cloud is one of the biggest concerns for all our clients using cloud based services to run their business. Cloud service providers are addressing this concern to a large extent by building robust and secure applications and platforms. By adding Aujas’ Phishnix to our tool belt we can now gain valuable insights of our clients’ employees’ behavior with respect to information security and act upon them,” said  Arun Kanchi, CEO of Exafort Inc.

As cloud adoption increases within organizations, more sensitive data will be stored in the cloud. “We will see more focused phishing attacks targeting popular cloud applications. The road-map is to enable Phishnix for all popular cloud platforms, and help clients reduce phishing risk for all their cloud applications. It would become an integral part of their cloud security program,” said Sameer Shelke, CTO at Phishnix.


Collaboration, Enterprise Collaboration Platform, Partnerships, Scottish Equity Partners, Workshare

Workshare, SkyDox Launch Policy-Based Enterprise Collaboration Platform

Workshare, a provider of document collaboration software, today announced that it has joined forces with SkyDox. By combining their respective capabilities, they will provide existing and future customers with a unique platform for policy-based, cloud-enabled file sharing and enterprise collaboration.

The combination is supported by growth capital investment from a UK investor group led by Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) and includes Business Growth Fund (BGF).

Mobile working, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), Big Data and the cloud have created a demand for Web 2.0 applications that provide today’s knowledge workers with the features and functionality they expect while also addressing enterprise IP and data security requirements. This combination will allow Workshare to integrate its best-of-breed, policy-based document comparison and metadata removal application with SkyDox’s scalable, highly secure, cloud-enabled file sharing and collaboration platform. The combined organization will enable its current and future customers to improve the efficiency of collaboration across organizational and geographical boundaries, while maintaining full auditability and adherence to internal and external data security and IP mandates.

“Workshare and SkyDox clearly recognize that secure mobile enablement is where the collaboration market is headed and are taking the next logical step towards delivering that to the enterprise,” said Terri McClure, a senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. “The combined entity is uniquely positioned in the market, given the companies’ shared background and exceptionally complementary market offerings. The integrated solution, ultimately, has the potential to raise the industry bar for enterprise collaboration platforms considerably.”

“As the online collaboration services market continues to evolve, the vendors that rise to the top will master the security, compliance, and IT management concerns of IT leaders,” said Forrester Research. “In addition, these vendors will provide IT leaders the flexibility in deployment models they need to serve the unique needs of their business and workforce.”1

The management team will be comprised of a strong combination of executives drawn from the two organizations. SkyDox’s CEO Anthony Foy will be retained as CEO of the joint company. Foy has a deep, longstanding background in the software industry – building customer-centric businesses, improving share-holder value and improving customer satisfaction. Previously Foy served as the Group Managing Director at Interxion, a leading European data center and colocation services company where he was responsible for delivering 22 consecutive quarters of revenue growth which led to an Initial Public Offering. Scott Smull the former CEO of Workshare will continue to work with Workshare and will have multiple key executive responsibilities as part of the Executive Integration Team and spearheading customer advocacy activities. Barrie Hadfield who originally co-founded Workshare and architected the current solution has been appointed CTO. Barrie brings with him a deep understanding of the collaboration space and is well known and respected by a large number of Workshare customers, IT sector thought leaders and the analyst community.

“Organizations are constantly looking for ways to drive operational efficiency, grow revenue and reduce costs. This combination allows Workshare to deliver a more holistic collaborative experience to our customers by blending Web 2.0 technologies with our existing award-winning solutions to provide an unmatched policy-based enterprise collaboration platform,” said Anthony Foy, CEO Workshare. “The combined company is ideally positioned to deliver unique solutions that help employees improve inter and intra company collaboration without sacrificing enterprise information security requirements.”

The integration of Workshare and SkyDox operations is expected to be completed during the second half of 2012, and support and development for Workshare and SkyDox products will continue without interruption.


Collaboration, PM Coach, Project and Program Management, Project management, Project-Manager, Systemation, Tools

Systemation’s New Tool Aids Project Managers

Even experienced project managers get stuck occasionally. Perhaps, they need a memory jog regarding a concept they learned in training last year. Or advice on a PM scenario they’ve never faced before. Systemation’s new e-tool, Ask My PM Coach, provides quick responses on over 1,000 project management topics, via computer or mobile device, 24/7.

“This is a new type of on-the-job aid for the project management community,” says Ben Snyder, Systemation’s CEO. “When under a deadline crunch, project managers do not have time to wade through a workbook or online curriculum to locate answers. Ask My PM Coach enables PM’s to get just-in-time responses to burning project management questions.”

The tool provides soup-to-nuts information for every phase of a project: initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing. Users can find tips for managing risk, scope, schedule, people, communication, estimating, and more, as well as tricks to get the most from project management tools.

Designed for project managers who have spent time in a classroom, it helps folks translate textbook knowledge into real-world projects.

“In most any sport, players can get advice from their coach in the middle of competition,” explains Snyder. “Ask My PM Coach provides this type of real-time support for project managers—in a friendly, relaxed, accessible way that won’t sideline your key players.”

Companies can purchase bulk licenses for all the project managers in their organization. Or project managers can purchase a license individually.

For more information on Ask My PM Coach, or to learn about Systemation, contact Laurel Bretting at 1.800.747.9783.


Application programming interface, Collaboration, eMix, Health Care, Health informatics, Medical, Medical imaging, Open Image Exchange, Partnerships

eMix integrates PACSGEAR API to Enable Medical Image Sharing

PACSGEAR today announced an agreement with eMix, a cloud-based virtualized electronic medical information exchange, to participate in the Open Image Exchange, a cloud-based network designed to securely share medical images and information. PACSGEAR will incorporate the application programming interface (API) from eMix to upload images and reports for cloud-based sharing and storage.

“We are pleased to have eMix join the network,” said Eli Rapaich, PACSGEAR’s CEO. “The success of the Open Image Exchange continues to be based on incorporating open APIs, which improves access to medical images and other health information,” Rapaich said.

“Being part of the Open Image Exchange improves access between healthcare institutions, physicians, and patients,” said Florent Saint-Clair, eMix general manager. “Our anytime, anywhere approach to securely sending patient information with eMix has now been adopted by over 450 customers. Open Image Exchange broadens our ability to connect with even great numbers of customers.”


Citrix Systems, Collaboration, Google Apps Marketplace, Podio, Project management

Citrix Podio Enables Do-It-Yourself Apps for Project Management Your Way

Citrix today announced that Citrix Podio, the cloud-based collaborative work platform, has launched three new “do-it-yourself” project management apps in the Podio App Market, created by leading project management experts Gantthead, ProjectsAtWork and Brad Egeland. Also available today through Podio’s Project Management listing in the Google Apps Marketplace™, the new apps can be modified and customized (without any technical expertise required) using the Podio App Builder to fit the way any team works. Because building Podio apps is as easy as creating a spreadsheet, even more teams and small businesses can now leverage best practices from Podio’s project management apps, customize them, or create their own apps from scratch, to streamline workflows, manage business processes and become more efficient and productive within any project.

According to Gartner Research, “citizen developers”—workers who operate outside the scope of the IT department and create or assemble new business applications for use by their peers— will build at least a quarter of new business applications themselves by 2014, permanently replacing complex legacy project management software that no longer fits the way modern teams collaborate and work together. Podio is the first place to find, create and modify hundreds of different “citizen-developed” apps to support team-based projects across today’s dispersed, cloud-driven and mobile businesses. Podio has been designed with a fundamental belief that forcing workers to fit their projects and tasks into a set process or structure is like forcing a square peg into a round hole, and that a project management tool should fit the way people work, instead of the other way around.

Using the Podio platform, teams can set up workspaces where they can connect with each other, work across different organizations and collaborate socially to be more effective. To customize their workspaces, people can access and modify more than 700 free apps from the Podio App Market, or create new apps to support their preferred workflows. Getting started is free for up to 5 employees.

Google Apps customers can also now take advantage of Podio’s customizable project management apps and collaborative work platform by installing Podio from the Google Apps Marketplace, Google’s online storefront for Google Apps™ business products and services. Google Apps customers can now use Podio project management apps to turn any email into a task, bring any Google Doc into their project workflow and track project deadlines on their Google Calendar.

 


CCIE Certification, CDW, CDW Cloud Collaboration, Cisco, Cisco Systems, Collaboration, Partnerships

CDW Offering Cisco Cloud Collaboration Solution

CDW  today announced its new CDW Cloud Collaboration solution. CDW, a Cisco Gold Certified Partner, will host the new offering in its own facilities and will combine Cisco’s collaboration platforms with CDW professional services to provide customers the security and personalization of a traditional, on-premise communications solution with the flexibility, scale and economics of a cloud solution.

Most organizations understand the value of collaboration technologies such as voice and video conferencing, voicemail or customer collaboration platforms, but many lack the deep technical expertise and staff resources to successfully deploy and manage them. With CDW’s Cloud Collaboration offering, users can focus on critical business responsibilities and customer needs with peace of mind, knowing that CDW is behind them to deliver a strategic collaboration solution from design to implementation to management.

“The way organizations work is changing, with employees no longer confined to working in the same physical location and customers increasingly involved in product and service development. As a result, collaboration technology needs are evolving,” said Christine Holloway, vice president of converged infrastructure solutions, CDW. “Today, organizations need new technologies that increase efficiency, accommodate a dispersed workforce and integrate customer communications, while freeing up IT staff to work on other projects. Built upon industry-leading technology from Cisco, CDW Cloud Collaboration includes all the features necessary to provide organizations with top collaboration services.”

CDW’s Cloud Collaboration solution, powered by the Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS), provides organizations with exceptional flexibility in choosing the way that collaboration applications are deployed. The capability to choose a hosted deployment option can also help organizations deploy collaboration technologies faster, while potentially lowering capital expenditures and operating expenses.

“As enterprises adopt collaboration technologies to quickly connect people with a high level of security to the resources and information they need to get work done, many businesses are requiring cloud solutions and looking for options from partners,” said Richard McLeod, senior director, Worldwide Partner Collaboration Sales at Cisco. “Based on Cisco HCS, CDW Cloud Collaboration provides customers with the flexibility to have collaboration applications delivered to them as services, with ongoing support and management provided by CDW.”

CDW Cloud Collaboration is supported by a dedicated team of CDW solution architects and engineers, and each client will have its own highly secure, virtualized private intranet hosted in CDW’s facilities. Partnering with Cisco helps ensure that CDW Cloud Collaboration meets a proven quality standard, with CDW’s expert team ready to support implementation and management. CDW holds Cisco Master Certifications in unified communications, managed services and security, and the CDW team includes more than 600 Cisco certified engineers, including more than 50 with the CCIE certification – the highest technical certification offered by Cisco. Further demonstrating CDW’s deep knowledge, Cisco recently named CDW its Global Partner of the Year – Americas and awarded the company its U.S. Nationals Architectural Excellence Award for Collaboration.

For more information about CDW’s Cloud Collaboration offerings, please visit: http://www.cdw.com/cloudcollaboration.


Collaboration, Customer Relationship Management, Event management, Event planning, StarCite

Active Network Launches StarCite Meeting Locator Strategic Meetings Management Technology

Image representing The Active Network as depic...

Active Network, Inc., a provider of cloud-based activity and participant management solutions, today launched Meeting Locator – an intelligent, easy-to-use tool that helps meeting planners and travel managers make well-researched and informed decisions when choosing destinations for any business event. Now available as part of the company’s StarCite strategic meetings management (SMM) platform, Meeting Locator quickly delivers advice based on global data from the industry’s leading travel and meeting spend platforms.

Active Network has partnered with business travel management leader Carson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) to eliminate the tedious and expensive guesswork from the meeting planning process. Instead of spending hours researching airfare, destinations, hotel room rates and more, meeting planners simply enter the dates of their meeting and the attendees’ departure cities into the Meeting Locator tool. Meeting Locator is integrated within the StarCite Spend Management software and employs information from CWT’s vast travel database to find cost-effective and environmentally friendly destinations, along with their associated costs.

“Traditional approaches to determining meeting locations are inefficient and laborious,” said JR Sherman, SVP of Business Solutions at Active Network. “With increasing scrutiny on spend management and compliance with travel policy requirements, it’s paramount that corporate meeting planners have the best technology at their fingertips. Meeting Locator gives them the robust, integrated, intelligence they need to help make sound business decisions backed by global data from the industry’s leading travel and meeting spend platforms.”

Meeting Locator optimizes its recommendations based on hundreds of thousands of variables, including historical airfare and room rates, carbon emissions and the cost and availability of telepresence for those unable to attend in-person. The powerful tool can easily identify meeting destinations that meet corporate goals for budget or environmental compliance. By leveraging global travel and lodging data, and support for more than 100 currencies, it can help meeting planners organize events anywhere in the world. Furthermore, Meeting Locator is conveniently integrated within the StarCite Spend Management workflow and approval process to help accelerate decision-making.

According to Christopher Dwyer, senior research analyst of Aberdeen Research, “Nine percent of the average organization’s total budget is spent on corporate meetings and events. With this figure expected to increase by nearly 20 percent over the next two years (and with more and more organizations perceiving this function as having strategic value), companies across the globe must enhance their existing meetings management programs with next-generation strategies, approaches and solutions.”

Meeting Locator is available immediately to existing worldwide customers using the StarCite SMM platform. StarCite customers can contact their global account manager to get started with the Meeting Locator tool. Prospective customers can contact Joshua.Templeton@activenetwork.com to discuss their overall corporate event management needs and learn how the StarCite SMM platform and tools can help them save time and money while gaining greater insight and efficiencies. Sherman added, “We believe Meeting Locator offers significant benefits to the corporate events industry and are already planning additional capabilities for release later this year. Early adopters will have an opportunity to help influence and shape our next-generation tool based on their evolving needs.” More information on Meeting Locator can be found here.

Active Network is helping the events industry move beyond a focus on meetings logistics and spend management to one that includes community engagement, which helps enable organizations to build value with their customers and employees. The company’s Business Solutions power customers of all sizes—including small and medium-sized businesses, enterprise corporations, associations, tradeshows and expos—with a single technology suite for their entire event management needs. The Business Solutions technology suite includes Conference™ for large flagship conferences, RegOnline™ for attendee management solutions, StarCite® SMM for strategic meetings management and event expense management, and the StarCite Supplier Marketplace to connect events with suppliers. For more information on Active Network Business Solutions please visit www.activeevents.com.