Maximizing Box for Business: A Dive into Its Top 10 Features

Winning Features You Should Be Familiar with.

You are spoilt for choice as far as cloud storage services are concerned, right? Well, most of us have plenty of options in this regards, such as Dropbox and Box for Business.

What this article is about:

• Key Enterprise Features of Box for Business
  • Easy Document Sharing
  • Setting Permissions for Secured File Sharing
  • Seamless Collaboration
  • Effortless Offline Syncing
  • Better Workflow Automation
  • Smooth Content Interaction Using Box View
  • Integration with Other Applications
  • Privacy and Compliance
  • Data Protection
  • Compatibility with All Browsers

The best thing about a cloud storage service like Box for Business is that it caters to the needs of either a very small business team of two to three people or an extremely large enterprise.

In other words, this cloud storage service can easily be scaled up along with the increasing number of employees in your organization.

Box for Business serves as a secure content repository for all files, documents, presentations, and so on for your company.

These can be easily accessed and collaborated on by your business employees, using various collaboration tools offered by Box to ensure enhanced productivity.

This helps to increase the pace of your business operations and helps you stay ahead in highly competitive markets.

So, what are the features of Box for Business that make you achieve this edge?

Here is an honest review of the Box business features to help you understand the various benefits it could offer to your enterprise. The objective is to understand how good and effective Box is as a cloud platform for your business.

Key Enterprise Features of Box for Business

Easy Document Sharing

As a business, you would always have the need to share various files and folders within and out of your organization.

With Box for Business, you can securely share all your important documents in a very simple manner. All you need to do is drag and drop the files into the Box folder and share the “public” link with any of your business vendors, partners and so on. 

Such a level of external sharing empowers you to seek collaborative inputs from your external parties from their own devices. You can also share directly from the document, using emails.

Furthermore, you can even generate code to embed the shared link into your website or blog. The users who receive this email to access the shared folder will have to sign up for a free Box account if they are not yet a registered Box user.

Setting Permissions for Secured File Sharing

You can set the permissions for document access (editor or viewer or similar access) with the links. For some confidential files, you can keep the access for internal employees only.

For other files which you need to share with several external users, you can set the permission to public access for everyone who possesses the link.

Box enables you to generate a custom URL or to password-protect the link. You can further enhance the security of your documents by setting an expiry date for the shared link.

Seamless Collaboration

With Box for Business, you do not have to rely on time-consuming ways to collaborate, such as using email. Instead, you can collaborate using the comments and tasks in real time.

For example, if you are viewing a Word document, you can comment on it inside the Box itself. However, to edit this document, you need to install the “Box Edit” to open the corresponding file on your desktop.

Alternatively, you can open it in Microsoft Word Online, which is also a feature offered by Box.

The best part is that regardless of the method you use to edit the document, once you save the changes, the Box version of that document gets updated automatically.

In addition, you can upload a new version of the file, if you wish to maintain the old version.

It is also possible to lock your file while you are working on it.

Effortless Offline Syncing

If you are worried about having an internet connection at all times to work with Box for Business, then you can relax.

It allows your employees to work offline as well. The Box Sync feature keeps all your files ready for your desktop (from the cloud), even in offline mode. Your enterprise employees can thus work with them on their own terms.

Better Workflow Automation

For quick information flow right through your business, you need better processes for approval and reviews of various projects’ tasks.

Whenever new files are uploaded, you can assign the task of reviewing the file to the concerned employees. With Box, you can get this assignment done automatically. Similarly, you can move files to folders automatically and assign tasks to approvers for automatic notifications and reminders.

When any task is completed, the final document can be easily moved to an “Approved” folder in the Box. All the concerned people will be notified automatically of this.

Smooth Content Interaction Using Box View

The Box View can convert Office and PDF documents to beautifully display formats for any screen on the web or on mobile apps, thereby enabling a smooth content interaction.

You may want your content to be visible (as it was shared) on different screens, irrespective of the screen sizes. This is made possible through vector-based rendering.

With the ease of scrolling, zooming, and text selection, your files can even be easily accessed in the Box, without having to download them. You can try out the visual animations or custom branding, using Box View within your apps.

Integration with Other Applications

If employees in your company are used to working with popular tools like Outlook, Google Docs, Microsoft Office 365 and so on, then you may wish to have these tools seamlessly integrated with Box for Business. And you can do exactly that!

With the Box Embed feature, you can integrate your own files and folders with any other apps that your business uses frequently. For example, you can get access to Box from well-known enterprise apps, such as Jive and Salesforce.

You also get the flexibility to share your files or folders by putting them directly on Microsoft SharePoint, or on your company’s website or intranet site. Box Embed offers security, edit functionality, and drag-and-drop tools.

Privacy and Compliance

Box for Business offers the technical, physical and administrative safeguards for maintaining your business in compliance with HIPAA. For collection and usage of personal data or information from European member nations, it is certified for “EU and Swiss Safe Harbor” frameworks.

Data Protection

As a business, you will always have some data that is highly confidential. You need to maintain the integrity of such data at all times, whether or not they are being shared. Box provides this protection for most of your important data.

You are offered layered encryption with multi-layered encryption with 256-bit AES for data that is stored (and not being transferred), and with encryption with high-grade TLS for data during transfers. The security of the encryption keys is maintained by storing them in different locations.

Box further supports Enterprise Key Management (EKM). It enables the protection of customer-managed encryption keys in a Hardware Security Module (HSM). Along with this, Box also offers a non-modifiable audit log of key usage.

As discussed earlier, the option to set expiration dates and version maintenance, along with the deletion of shared content links, further help maintain data integrity.

You can also prevent data theft or loss by having automatic alerts set for any unusual download activity. Box enables you to keep track of who accesses what on your shared files and folders through timely reports.

In fact, you can keep track of any account activity or user activity, settings changes, and so on through the comprehensive Box admin console.

All these features ensure that your content stays protected at all times.

Compatibility with All Browsers

Box for Business offers an important feature for in-browser editing which is not easily found in other similar tools, such as Citrix Sharefile or Evernote for Business. More importantly, the Box web app is compatible with any browser and allows you to access, edit and manage your content online with total freedom…

CloudAlly offers a free period to try out our backup for Box.