As an advertising agency, AlmapBBDO manages high profile client campaigns which involve exchanging lots of large, high resolution graphical and video files, often up to 10MB per file. These contain very sensitive information and if a campaign message is leaked prematurely this could have disastrous consequences, both for AlmapBBDO and the client.
Ranieri Correa, IT Manager for AlmapBBDO, explains the problem: “As a creative agency we use Mac and PC platforms, and a lot of our files are web-based or reside on mobile devices. Our client-facing staff of 350 needed to share files with clients, vendors, and each other and found all sorts of ways to do this. Smaller files would be sent via email, larger ones via cloud-based file sharing solutions, such as box.com. All of these options posed security risks to us and we didn’t have any central control over how files were shared. We needed a solution which would work across our various computing platforms, and guarantee us security and file privacy, within a reasonable budget.”
The AlmapBBDO IT team spent a year evaluating different file sharing solutions, including Microsoft SharePoint and Varonis DatAnywhere. Mac platform support was very hard to find and the large average file size was a problem for many solutions as well. The price point for these solutions suggests that they are not designed for enterprise use and when AlmapBBDO looked at Micro Focus® Filr they found a different situation. Unlike other mobile file access and collaborative file sharing solutions, Filr has been designed with the enterprise in mind, resulting in less administration, better security, and more productive users.
A proof-of-concept was successful and Filr was soon implemented, as Correa comments: “We were amazed that Filr was installed within half an hour and it took us less than two days to have all 350 users up and running with the solution. We love the granular control it gives us; we have full visibility of file access and user permissions, especially important when we share our files externally with clients and vendors.”
Of course there are always features which AlmapBBDO would like to see implemented in future Filr versions. Thankfully Micro Focus has a great way to capture its customer input on all products. Via an ideas portal new feature suggestions can be submitted and voted upon by all users of the product. The feature suggestions with the most votes will then receive a high priority to be included in an upcoming release. AlmapBBDO actively participates in this process and was excited to see a plug-in for Outlook included in the next version. This will enable AlmapBBDO users to read or upload files directly from within Outlook, a great efficiency gain for the company
Correa loves the fact that the Filr platform support is so smooth: “With Filr there is no difference between the Mac and the PC interface, it’s all native HTLM-based and no specific plug-ins are required which makes it all really easy to use for us. The administration is simple too and requires no additional IT resources at all. The roll-out was incredibly fast and users started adopting it straightaway, intuitively realizing the benefits of a great file sharing solution. The reporting function within Filr helps me generate management level reports which explain exactly how file sharing is supporting our business.”
He concludes: “The attractive price for Filr, combined with the low cost of implementation and maintenance, means that we’ll realize full ROI on this project within six months. This is a great result for us, but more importantly, we now have a file sharing solution which fulfils all our requirements and more.”
