Stop, collaborate, and listen: New ways to work with the Content Cloud

Stop, collaborate, and listen: New ways to work with the Content Cloud

October 6th 2021 | Burke Culligan, VP of Product, Box Apps

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We hear it all the time: collaboration, productivity, security, mobility - everything about the way people work together is changing. Since Box was founded in 2005, we've anticipated and advocated for more flexible, digital ways of working. Now, that vision is a reality - with content at the center. From life-saving medical records data to award-winning digital ads, and from confidential client documents to groundbreaking product designs, content is your business.

Today, we're excited to announce new capabilities and enhanced integrations that let you collaborate securely and seamlessly across any application using the Box Content Cloud. From an all-new Box Notes to an updated Box Mobile app, we're helping people easily collaborate from anywhere and on any device. We're also building out the e-signature capabilities in Box Sign, along with deepened integrations with Microsoft, Slack, and Zoom.

"Hybrid work is the new normal, and it's clear that businesses need one place to manage and secure their content," said Diego Dugatkin, Chief Product Officer at Box. "Our vision for the Content Cloud is to integrate and power the complete content lifecycle, making it simple to collaborate from anywhere, automate workflows, and keep data secure and compliant. As we kick off our second virtual BoxWorks 2021, we're introducing powerful new innovation for organizing your files and working together in real-time, as well as enhanced integrations that make it easy to bring content into the applications teams use every day."

Box Sign

The world is going digital - yet only one-third of companies have adopted electronic signature tools. Box Sign, our natively integrated e-signature capability, is included in all Box Business and Enterprise plans and delivers unlimited signatures from within the web application and offers a robust set of APIs to streamline and modernize the way agreements are managed and governed in the cloud. Since its initial rollout to select customers in July, Box Sign is already being used to power digital transactions such as employee onboarding, vendor agreements, and purchase orders. Further, Box was also identified as a Major Player in the 'IDC MarketScape: Worldwide eSignature Software 2021 Vendor Assessment' highlighting its ease of use, broad portfolio of content services and continuous innovation.

Box Sign includes:

• Native e-signatures in Box: Send unlimited documents for e-signature directly from Box to anyone, including those without a Box account. With upcoming support for more than 15 languages, Box Sign will deliver a seamless sending and signing experience for users worldwide.
• Salesforce integration: Box Sign capabilities have been added to the latest Box for Salesforce integration enabling users to generate and send NDAs, contracts, and more directly from Salesforce.
• Box Sign API: Access to a world-class developer experience including a robust set of Box Sign APIs, rich documentation, and 'Get Started' guides, with upcoming support for webhooks and SDKs for multiple platforms
• Top-notch security and compliance: Box Sign inherits the security and compliance profile of the Box Content Cloud, including compliance with regulatory standards such as HIPAA, SOC, ISO, FedRAMP, and more. Further, we are adding new security options including signer authentication via SMS and password protection for documents sent out for signature.

Box Sign will be available to all customers in the U.S. and Canada on Business and Enterprise plans at no additional cost tomorrow, Oct. 7, and will continue rolling out globally in the coming months.

Box Relay

E-signature workflows are an increasingly important aspect of every company's digital strategy - but they're just one type of workflow. Box Relay, our integrated process automation tool, lets you build custom workflows (from scratch, or using our library of pre-built templates) to automate repetitive business processes. This year, we made Box Relay available to more customers, and we've also added new features to make workflow automation more flexible and customizable. These include:

• Scheduled workflows. You can schedule a Box Relay process to kick off on a regular cadence.
• For example, at the end of every month, you may want to schedule a Relay workflow for a controller to review and approve that month's financial statements.
• Workflow ownership transfer. You can reuse and scale workflows you've created by transferring them to anyone in your organization.
• For example, you might create a workflow that sales reps can use to send out NDAs anytime they have a new prospective client. A sales rep's workflows can then be transferred to another rep or her manager if she changes jobs.
• Workflow trigger API: You can also trigger a Box Relay workflow from an external system or application.
• For example, an event may occur outside of Box (such as new employee onboarding) that kicks off a workflow within Box: requesting a copy of the employee's driver's license, assigning a task to review the employee handbook, and so on.

All-new Box Notes

When it comes to digital transformation, it's not enough to just take the physical and turn it digital - you have to think digitally from the start. This is why we created Box Notes: to power secure, cloud-based content creation and collaboration. To drive even more seamless internal and external collaboration, we're introducing an all-new Box Notes designed to help teams collaborate no matter where they are.

This new innovation powers seamless collaboration across the enterprise - from marketing teams creating project plans to track progress and manage content across internal teams and external agencies, to sales teams developing pitch decks, call scripts, and email templates, to recruiting teams managing a hiring process, and much more.

In the all-new Box Notes, you'll get:

• The ability to include a table of contents, anchor links, and more to simplify content organization and navigation within a Box Note.
• Call-out boxes so to easily highlight important points.
• Code blocks to simplify technical collaboration.
• In-line cursors so you can see who's editing a Note, in real time.
• Enhanced table capabilities with an easy, intuitive interface so you can structure and format content more easily.
• Security and control capabilities, like granular permissions and access stats, since Notes is built within the Box Content Cloud.

The all-new Box Notes will be generally available in January 2022 and will be included in the core Box offering at no additional cost.

New Box Mobile app experience

To make it easier than ever to get work done from anywhere, we've also enhanced the Box Mobile app experience. Whether work is happening in the field, in an office, or from home, the all-new Box Mobile app connects you to your content so you can collaborate securely, wherever you are.

The new mobile capabilities include:

• An updated Capture Mode, for iOS and Android, that turns mobile devices into intelligent tools for seamlessly capturing, scanning, and uploading photos, documents, or audio recordings to make it even easier for field teams to add content directly into Box.
• Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology that recognizes text automatically and turns scanned documents into searchable PDFs with multi-language support so you can easily organize and find content in the Box Content Cloud.
• A redesigned iPad experience with a simplified layout and new drag-and-drop capabilities for increased productivity and improved navigation.

The all-new Box Mobile app experience is available for free today in the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Adobe Creative Cloud preview

Working and collaborating across different document types has become the norm. That's why we've enhanced the Box Preview function and are introducing the ability to preview Adobe Creative Cloud content using the Content Cloud. Now, all Box users can seamlessly view and provide feedback on creative content like design layouts, marketing flyers, and more.

With the new Adobe Creative Cloud preview function, you can:

• Easily preview Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign files from the Box web and mobile apps.
• Use Annotations to provide feedback on Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign content without editing the underlying file.

Content analytics

We know our customers are hungry for more ways to measure the performance of their content. Today, we also introduced a brand-new, document-level content analytics interface, with easy-to-understand visualizations and user-friendly tools for analyzing content performance.

The benefits span every department, from sales reps who want to know when a customer looks at a pricing document, to operations teams who want to ensure the latest operating procedures are being read and followed, to marketers who want to understand which sales teams are using their pitch decks.

Integrations

Box connects to more than 1,500 applications to make it even easier for teams to move between their favorite applications securely and seamlessly. With approximately 175 apps used in the average enterprise, businesses continue to rely on various software apps to power the way they work, but need a single source of truth to manage their content.

Today, we previewed deepened integrations with Slack and Microsoft 365, along with our newest integration with Zoom.

Box for Microsoft

The enhanced integration with Microsoft 365 will help organizations level up their productivity across our respective platforms while delivering their teams with more choice and control over how their content is stored, managed, and secured. You can learn more about these announcements here.

Box for Slack

Box will also announce a deepened integration with Slack that will enable Box to be a content layer within the Slack environment.

The new enhancements will enable joint users to:

• Use Box as a content layer in Slack by uploading files directly to Box through the Slack interface.
• Maintain Box's security and compliance over any content, even when files are uploaded through Slack.
• Streamline how they use Box within Slack by simplifying content processes and unifying content across Slack and other apps.

These new capabilities in the Box for Slack integration are expected to be available later this year and will be included in the core Box offering at no additional cost.

Box app for Zoom

We also introduced the Box app for Zoom to enable a more productive workforce, regardless of location. Announced this past September, this in-product integration makes it easy for customers to work together, securely and effectively, across distributed teams. The Box app for Zoom gives customers:

• Access to their Box content without leaving Zoom, creating a more seamless experience between our two platforms.
• The ability to browse, preview, and share their Box files directly from Zoom, whether the meeting is active or not.
• The ability to select a Box file to present to all attendees with just one click.

The Box App for Zoom is available today in the Zoom App Marketplace.

Protect content from cybersecurity threats

To bring work together in one secure Content Cloud, Box applies its enterprise-grade security, compliance, and governance features to all content in Box, regardless of the users, applications, or devices by which it's accessed. Advancing our industry-leading security posture, we also announced new capabilities for Box Shield that leverage deep learning technology, in addition to external threat intelligence, to analyze the data within files and contain sophisticated malware before it causes business disruption. More information can be found in this blog post.

Content is your business

With approximately 70 percent of companies in the U.S. and UK planning to establish a hybrid work environment post-pandemic, the office of the future is being completely redefined. Work is taking on new formats and is continually evolving. With content at the center of our work, it's more important than ever to invest in a Content Cloud to power secure internal and external collaboration, no matter where people are. Learn more about the Box Content Cloud and our vision for the future of work at BoxWorks.