Chatter was a collaboration platform with integration into the business process and the ability to conduct actions like approving expense reports and creating support cases from the activity feed itself. It was acquired by Salesforce and is currently discontinued.
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Progress ShareFile
Score 8.3 out of 10
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ShareFile is a cloud-based file sharing and storage service built for business. The product was acquired by Citrix Systems in 2011, and is now offered by Progress Software.
[Chatter] is the tool that makes our relations stronger. It provides advanced ways of communication. I have trained my many team members because of the easy features and functions of this tool, It is very user-friendly. Give it a try if you want to improve your relations with your customers. It will surely enhance the productivity of your organization.
When we have a particularly large ad or job printing file that would "clog up" the email process, using ShareFile is very helpful. It's also useful for particular photographers we work with to upload a batch of photos all at once. Where it doesn't work as well for us is when trying to get clients to make use of a login to access folders. We find them reluctant to take on the learning curve. It works best for us when we just send them a clickable download link, and at most just require a tracking name and email address.
Chatter provides us with a live internal conversation for all to see without the noise that other mediums have i.e. e-mail.
One of the main features that really works well is the 'Groups' that you can join. We have multiple groups set up to not only distribute procedural changes and communicate news etc, but also have conversations around upcoming tasks in the months ahead.
Chatter works really well in instances where we need to look over historical conversations that have been had and the sentiment of those conversations with our shareholders, often using hashtags.
Workflows to get customer/affiliate responses to comments on documents.
I used to have the signature feature initially, but it was removed from the original plan, so I could only use it if I chose to select the higher plan price.
I love the upload notifications and reports on user activity.
The document storage versions are fantastic. I am the only user with Delete privileges, and I love that I can make those selections.
Integrations with Microsoft 365 - FANTASTIC - thank you.
Groups does not have the private messaging functionality. Since most collaboration takes place in Groups, private messaging would allow for relevant conversations to be contained and not reside separately.
On a Group index page, there are two boxes for Information and Description. These content types seem redundant. You could replace both with a content type called About the Group. There could also be another box listing the Owners for quick reference.
On the main index page, the newsfeed has the same look and feel of most social platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Jive, IBM Connections, SharePoint. There could be an alternate display of tiles that shows People you interact with most frequently, Files you access most often, most recent Topics, etc. The display could be something like Delve in Microsoft Office 365.
On the main index page in the right rail, it would be useful to have the ability to incorporate RSS feeds to gather outside content. Many departments heavily leverage RSS feeds to compile competitive intelligence and cultivate general awareness.
For user profiles, can we combine Feed and Overview into one consolidated view? It would save users a click to find relevant information about the person. Also, the Contact module should also have the person's phone number for convenience.
The Files feature does not allow for real-time, concurrent document editing. You have to download the document, make your edits, save, and then upload a new version, which only allows for one editor at a time.
The web console is not the most user friendly site to use to get to, and send my files.
We have had users that have not liked the change in workflow to get files from Progress ShareFile when they were used to just clicking on files on an email.
That management of the tools are not the most user friendly. There have been some improvements but keeping up with certs and setting up new users can be more work than expected.
Chatter can fulfill at least 85-90% of our business requirements in an easy-to-use platform. Usability is a key requirement and we have had our share of bad usability experiences. In our experience, even the most novice users were able to pick up Chatter in a relatively short amount of time with little/no assistance.
It's a highly effective and secure storage system, has robust workarounds for serving the various equipment limits of our users, meets high security requirements of HIPAA standards, significantly reduces our needs for producing paper trails.
It is easy to use but the impact of it feels like it is a bit antiquated. It does not feel collaborative and real time. Chatter is more akin to email versus Slack or Hangouts where it feels like problems are being solved as you are communicating.
ShareFile is so easy to use I was able to download all of my projects files and have them set up to sync before my supervisor could even come over to explain the process to me. It is a neatly organized and intuitive software that allows even the less tech-savvy to become power users.
Easy to use, easy to integrate with Outlook. I only gave it a 9 because I have found that sometimes it does not play nicely with Outlook and can slow it down. But, when that happens (not frequent), I restart Outlook and all is well again
If I ever came to a situation where i needed help they do a very good job of getting back to us quickly to explain our error or why we are not seeing something. The support is quick to help provide groups or teams if you seek. Fortunately it is user friendly so I rarely need support
Citrix was generally responsive and helpful in solving technical issues. Like any cloud based SaaS product there is a danger that it may go down. This was a rare occurrence over my three years of using the product. The more common issue we encountered was clients forgetting their login which was easily managed through a forgot password functionality.
Good documentation for the API. With a little help from RS tech staff, any competent programmer should be able to integrate RightSignature with an existing system in a week or three. That help is easy to get as well
Skype is used more for audio calls. Chatter is used to track updates on items of interest in Salesforce. Chatter is deeply integrated with other Salesforce products. No other competing products come close. Slack is a traditional project management tool. So it does not compete with Chatter. Because of its close integration with Salesforce, it is a unique tool for Salesforce users.
ShareFile is easier and does what you need. I have moved a few organizations from SharePoint to ShareFile. Just easier. You can setup different areas for different departments, setup their permissions and it is easy enough for them to do what they want in their zones. The mobile app works great as well. So you can all the features you really use from SP, but just easier to setup and use.
All of our clients and consulting engineers find ShareFile easy to use, thus complementing our business.
Our staff also find ShareFile intuitive, accessible, and easy to use, making it an ideal, everyday indispensable desktop tool for everyone in our company.
ShareFile can be linked to our firm's primary website as a placed for private use. We haven't found need for this yet, but might in the future.
