Great solution for Enterprise File Management
July 09, 2018
Great solution for Enterprise File Management
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Personal,Business,Enterprise
Overall Satisfaction with Box
Box is used in my organization as our file sharing tool. We regularly use this for storing team files, training content, team notes, etc, in just about every part of our organization. Simply say that, without Box, we would have no way to share files which would prevent us from doing business in many ways.
- It's SUPER easy to create a folder, add content (drag and drop being the best option for me), and share it. Box used to be limited for our org where you had to add individual users (by email or name lookup) which took a very long time if there were hundreds of users that need access. But now box has the option to use link sharing with a setting for "People in your company" which now makes sharing a folder a snap if you just need to give people access to download the files. That's one of our most common use cases, so this is an awesome feature!
- Box notes! I am a heavy user of another note-taking tool, mainly because Box notes was too simple of an interface for my preferences. But, it looks like Box notes has been updated pretty recently and now this part of the tool is filled with great features, like pre-built templates for many different use cases (e.g., project plan, meeting agenda, etc) and they have simple UI upgrades that make Box notes so much easier to use, like the "Inbox" which shows unread notes at top. This feature is awesome for sharing notes on a project, meeting, etc. with many different users and keeping them organized. Because this feature had such a great upgrade, I'm migrating all my note taking from the other tool into Box notes.
- Box Sync is a nice feature and a large part of our organization uses this instead of file backup software. For example, if we have files we want to have backed up, we simply store and edit these files within the Box sync folder on our PCs and that folder backs up to our Box cloud account. Simple and easy!
- Folder organization on folders that have been shared with me is kind of a pain. There's no way to move a folder shared with me into another folder without being an editor, and if I am an editor it changes the location for everyone who can access the folder. Some kind of personalized folder organization would really improve this situation because currently, the only way to find folders is by the search bar, or by sorting, or by adding to favorites (which would become unusable with too many favorites). The ratio of folders shared with me to folders I own is easily 5:1, so these options for locating folders are not good enough. This is especially a pain if just a sub-folder is shared with me because the owner of the folder might have organized it really well but the sub-folder could have a seemingly obscure name that's hard to remember and hard to find if I am searching for it later.
- Sharing could still be improved. I mentioned earlier in my review that I now have the option to use like sharing with everyone in my org (with download only capability) and that's a huge advantage over sharing with individual email addresses which were all we had before. This still leaves some middle ground for bulk sharing with multiple emails/users, through something like a file upload containing the emails, or creating a group that could be used multiple times. I don't know the best way to do this but it's definitely still a gap.
- As will all of my reviews, please take this with a grain of salt because it's possible some features have been customized or removed from my organization. All I can review is what I can see.
- They are missing some channel for product feedback. Once again, this could be something suppressed by my organization, but with a product like Box, I'd expect to see some kind of method for sharing feedback on the product like the issue with the organization of folders limiting the usability (feedback links on web-based platforms are becoming quite common). But when I search around their site I don't find a method for sharing feedback or product ideas. The only thing I found was a "Contact Box" link which took me to a contact the sales team form. Not useful for this purpose.
- We decommissioned a PC backup tool because Box Sync provided similar functionality. I am not part of our IT department so I don't know how many dollars we saved, but during the migration, we were told it was a significant cost saving.
- Our prior file sharing solution was so bad that people would only use it if they absolutely had to, meaning our file sharing practices were terrible. Now, people use Box for everything because it's so easy, so we now have better access to all the content we produce across our departments
- I don't have stats on this, but the use of Box Notes vs. standard email-based collaboration has a significant impact on project team effectiveness in several projects I've been involved in.