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.
Quantum StorNext is well suited in environments with a high, fast paced workflow, with lots and lots of client systems connected, all needing to share the same assets, where you cannot have one moment of downtime. With the pace nowadays that clients expect work to get done, as opposed to 10 years or so ago (pre-iPhone social media instant instant gotta have it right away days), even downtime of 30 minutes can back up your whole workflow. As they say, time is money and Quantum StorNext almost certainly guarantees you have little to no downtime at all. It just works, silently, quietly in the background, making sure everyone is performing at 100% of their potential or more.
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.
Quantum StorNext just works and by that, I mean it just works flawlessly in the background, while your artists are doing their creative work on jobs with clients. Technical issues and hold-ups should never get in the way of the creative process.
There is a lot of flexibility with StorNext and options available in software and hardware, to customize the best solution for your workflow.
Great customer support and response times when things do need supporting, whether there is an issue with a piece of hardware (i.e. battery backup to a controller unit that needs replacing). Quantum along with our local support vendor are fast to respond.
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.
Price. Obviously, when you are at the level of performance that is needed for our work, Quantum can only go so low as a company on cost, to give their customers a blockbuster deal. But any possible discount here and there helps, and Quantum does their best to lower it as low as possible with bundles and pricing deals. By no means is price a deterring factor, for if you are playing at this level (Ferrari vs Camaro), you know it's going to expensive, but it's a solid investment if you want the reliability and performance. And it's actually cheaper when you compare it to other competitors, along with upgrade paths down the road that will cost you less.
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.
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.
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
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
Our first shared storage was from Facilis. This is a great company, with great hardware and software, of which we use in our NYC office. At the time, it did what we needed it to do and performed smoothly. But then our workflow expanded dramatically and needed to look for the level of SANs in the Quantum range. We passed our Facilis along to the NYC office and ended up getting an Active Storage SAN, which ran on StorNext. That company unfortunately went out of business a few years back (they are back in business within the last year, but I think Chinese owned), so we looked into getting a fully integrated all-in-one Quantum system that included its branded storage and MDCs to work with StorNext.
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.
Quantum StorNext has allowed us to not only perform at a higher level, but greatly expand how many client systems are connected to the SAN. Prior to Quantum, our old SAN could barely handle the workload of half the client systems we have now. So for ROI, I'm not involved with the actual numbers, but I know our work with clients has expanded ten fold and there is no sign of it slowing down.
Confidence and my time not wasted, working with the support vendors to solve a problem. My time is then spent on other areas and projects in the company, not on phone calls and emails.
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.
