Remote Worker Productivity, But
When employees work from home or remote locations, it's very convenient to use SharePoint in Microsoft 365 to access company files and collaborate. However, there are many situations where you simply can not use SharePoint. Or you may have tried unsuccessfully to migrate file servers to SharePoint and are now looking for an alternative way to support your remote workers. Of course, you can still use VPN and RDP to provide remote file access to employees who work from home. But VPN and RDP have their own problems.
There's a better way if SharePoint is not working for you.
One feature of SharePoint is that OneDrive allows synchronization of files to local devices with offline access and offline editing. The file sync and share feature allows remote workers to work from workstations where Wi-Fi is limited and the corporate firewall is congested.
All VPN and RDP connections require stable yet active connections to the corporate firewall. A glitch in the connection will cause the employee's remote session to be interrupted. SharePoint is not dependent on VPN or RDP and does not have the same issues.
SharePoint as a "cloud application" integrates easily with an enterprise application portal based on single sign-on solutions such as Azure AD, OneLogin, Okta and Duo. As a cloud application, it can also be protected by zero-trust networking solutions such as Microsoft Application Proxy.
SharePoint is not without complaints from users. Business users often complain that there is no drive mapping in OneDrive, so external file references (XREFs) do not work. Some say file locking is a key feature and others want the same NTFS permissions back.
You can not use SharePoint for the above reasons. So you use VPN and RDP to allow remote workers to access the company's file server. But you want the features that SharePoint offers. These include the features listed here such as offline access, offline editing, web browser interface, mobile interface and an overall modernized file and folder access and collaboration.
NASA needs a shared storage solution, comparable to SharePoint from an end-user perspective, for its external employees and contractors. The storage solution must first integrate with a single sign-on solution and be subject to regular certification audits and must meet certain compliance and regulatory requirements.
In this case, SharePoint is well suited for the general public, but not for organizations that have higher security requirements and compliance regulations. In the end, NASA uses its own VMWare infrastructure to set up a self-hosted file-sharing solution that resembles SharePoint.
Pogue Construction has field technicians working from job sites where the WLAN is too sporadic to establish a stable VPN or RDP connection to the company file server. It needs to provide offline file access capabilities like SharePoint provides online. However, the CAD software they use is not compatible with SharePoint because the external file reference (XREF) works on file servers but not in SharePoint. Another reason to keep the data on the current file server is that the data set is too large to transfer to SharePoint.
DedicatedIT is an MSP whose customer base is 80% healthcare. The majority of customers who can move to SharePoint have actually moved to SharePoint. However, there are also customers who cannot have a SharePoint-only conversation due to existing EMR systems and specific healthcare compliance requirements. Originally, these customers had to log in via RDP to connect. Now they have an easier way to access their files and folders with the same user credentials and the same NTFS permissions that protect those files and folders.
Hoffman York is a marketing agency that has needed to support employees who work from home since the outbreak of the pandemic. They had considered using SharePoint, but files created with Photoshop, InDesign, and Premiere have a large footprint on the file server that can not be easily migrated to the cloud, with the apps' compatibility with Adobe Creative Suite uncertain. Originally, employees used RDP to access Adobe Creative Suite. However, due to VPN "crowding," many employees were getting kicked out of the corporate firewall every hour or so. They needed a better solution, and they found one.
Triofox extends existing Windows file servers with secure remote access, mobile file sharing, data protection, and cloud migration while meeting business needs for security, privacy, compliance, and control. Triofox increases the productivity of your mobile workforce without sacrificing data ownership, privacy, and security.
Have you spent many hours troubleshooting VPN connections?
Do you have employees who work from home and need mobile file access via a web browser?
Did you have two or more data stores to manage, but they were getting out of control?
Have lengthy cloud migrations, additional user training, and compliance regulations held you back?