Item: Box
Rating: 9
Author: Ross R. Mason

Overall Satisfaction with Box

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our agency produces online videos for business clients. Since 2007, we have used a variety of online collaboration tools for transparently managing the coordination of video production work on client jobs, as well as sharing appropriate files, documents, videos, etc.
Additionally, we perform most of our work using independent contractors, so it's critical to have consistent workflow guidelines, easy access and functionality which automatically syncs shared folders back to the network.

Pros and Cons

Pros

File sharing
Folder sharing
Permissions based access by folders and/or files
Ability to set expiration dates for sharing and/or deletion of folders and files
Notifications built-in for easily sharing specific files when available
Comment threads about specific files for collaboration

Cons

How pricing is determined by users could be simpler
Additional project management functionality like To-do items and lists

Return on Investment

The positive impact on our business has been the ability to share files and folders, and collaborate among clients and contractors.
The negative impact has been whenever clients or contractors claim not to have received notifications about comments posted to files; however, this most often has to do with spam filter settings in their email system.

Alternatives Considered

Dropbox for Business, Dropbox and OneDrive

At the time when we selected Box, Dropbox had yet to introduce collaboration on files, though they have since done so. Also at the time, we were concerned about security on Dropbox, with its primary emphasis on consumers and had already seen instances where client folders were being shared inadvertently with us which were confidential simply because users were unaware of what they had shared. Another element to the Box ecosystem is the number of apps and document integrations available through Box.
OneDrive was a nightmare to set up, with extremely limited functionality.

Other Software Used

Basecamp, JW Player, Joomla!, QuickBooks Online, Google Analytics, Vimeo Pro

Likelihood to Recommend

Box is very well suited for sharing files, folders and being able to collaborate about them online. Some clients are hesitant to establish an account, even when it's free, so that can sometimes be an obstacle.
There are also instances when clients already have alternatives such as Dropbox and prefer to use their accounts for sharing files with us instead of uploading to Box; however, they do not have a problem accessing the files or folders we share with them via Box.

Comments

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Box platform well suited for business collaboration online

Software Version