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Considerations and decisions on Configuring your Enterprise File Synchronization and Sharing solution (EFSS) By James Jesus Sifuentes, M.Sc., PMP

Washington, DCMay 2014

+Overview

Managing an EFSS solution at scale (thousands of employees and external users) requires making configuration decisions that sometimes are hard to discover and navigate.

An EFSS solution is not a ON/OFF solution, it requires configuration of different settings. Sometimes these configuration settings are not visible enough to the decision makers and this can lead to assumptions and a false sense of security and readiness.

The following key considerations aims to help you navigate the configuration of your EFSS.

This considerations and decisions can also guide your EFSS selection process, as some may not be supported by all EFSS.

+How to use this material

Making the configuration parameters and the potential alternatives visible, helps to start conversations and keep the EFSS’s stakeholders informed and engaged in the decision making.

This list of considerations and decision points is what I would expect from EFSS vendors to provide to potential customers but it is an starting point only.

This list can be simplified or expanded to suit your organization needs and your specific EFSS

The marked answers are just a sample!

+About me

Software Engineer, Master of Science in Information Systems Technology, PMP, PMI-ACP and IT Project Manager. More than 12 years of experience in the IT field.

Currently coordinating the rollout of an EFSS solution for around 4,000 employees and hundreds of external users, all of them globally dispersed in the US and 26 countries

Experience includes: Enterprise Content Management, Case Management and Business Process Automation solutions, SharePoint as intranet, collaboration and professional networking solution, Financial consolidation solutions and more.

Currently based in Washington, DC working for a multilateral development Bank.

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About your EFSS users

+Which internal user groups shall be able to use the EFSS?

Permanent employees

Temporal employees

Outsource personnel

Interns

Other internal users

Managing who can use the EFSS can help to balance risk and value provided.

Not all users need access to the EFSS

+Which user groups shall be able to invite new external users?

Permanent employees

Temporal employees

Outsource

Interns

Permanent external partners

Temporal external partners

Other external users

Managing who can invite new external users to the EFSS can help to balance risk and value provided.

Note that this only refer to the initial invitation, not to who can use a shared folder already shared with external users.

+How to manage the provisioning of external users?

Automatic provisioning with self registration upon share invitation is made by internal users.

External user creation requires some approval or controls

Other ____________

Does your organization requires some controls to activate new external users?

What happens if a user sends the share invitation to a wrong email address?

What information about the external users needs to be captured so they can managed?

+Can external users have their own space in the EFSS

No, external users only access folders that have been shared by internal users. They don’t have their own space at the EFSS

Yes, external users have their own space at EFSS, in addition to the folders that have been shared by internal users.

Other ____________

Allowing external users to have their own space may create issues as there will be content that is not being shared with internal users but still under the organization’s EFSS.

+Deactivation of external users

Accounts are automatically deactivated once shared folders expired or access to all folders is removed.

Inactive accounts are deactivated periodically upon notification to shared folder owners.

Other ____________

External accounts clean up is needed.

+About the content in your EFSS

+What storage quota should be set?

5 GB

10 GB

50 GB

Unlimited

Other ________

Quotas in EFSS not only allow to manage overall storage usage but also provides controls to encourage users to do not use the EFSS space as replacement for the corporate repository and helps to enforce retention policies.

Quota includes only files uploaded, not files available trough shared folders.

If needed, this configuration could be expanded to set different quota levels per user type or other criteria.

+EFSS vs the corporate document management?

Users can make documents available from the corporate document management solution directly to the EFSS

Users can move or update EFSS documents directly to the corporate document solution

No direct integration between EFSS and the corporate document management solution

Other ________

It needs to be clear what content (and when) goes to each solution. Lifecycle of the content should be considered.

If no direct integration or guidelines, EFSS could create silos or duplication of content. This can be managed with procedures and guidelines.

+What individual file size maximum should be set?

2 GB

3 GB

__ GB (System max)

Other ________

This helps to manage the type of content that is uploaded.

+What file formats should not be allowed?

Allow all file formats

Block the following filer formats ________________________

+About the deployment of your EFSS

+What EFSS client software should be available to internal users? Desktop clients (includes

automatic full content synchronization for offline access)

Mobile Clients (offline capabilities only to selected files)

Web client

Each client software have different functionality and level of risk exposure, this needs to be analyzed

This can be expanded by type of internal users (Permanent employees, temporal employees, interns, etc. )

+Which EFSS client software should be automatically installed? Desktop clients

automatically deployed to all computers managed by the organization

Mobile clients automatically deployed to all devices managed by the organization

Mobile clients to be manually installed by each user

Organization policies sometimes restrict administrator’s privileges for end users, so the Desktop Client needs may need to be installed by administrator

Having the clients automatically deployed reduces the friction for a new users

+What EFSS client software should be available to external users? Desktop clients (includes

automatic full content synchronization for offline access)

Mobile Clients (offline capabilities only to selected files)

Web client

Each client software have different functionality and level of risk exposure, this needs to be analyzed

This can be expanded by type of external users (Permanent partners, temporal partners, etc. )

+Level of end user support for non managed devices and at home Self-service guidance

Help desk managed by the organization

Help desk by the EFSS provider

Other ____

Extra support depends on the resources availability

+Level of end user training and support at the office

Self-service guidance

Help desk managed by the organization

Help desk by the EFSS provider

Other ____

Support and training level needs to be defined

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About sharing content

+Sharing levels?

Share using unauthenticated links

Share with registered users only

Unauthenticated shares are simple to use but increases the risks of unintended exposure of information

+Maximum quantity of devices with EFSS per user

Unlimited for all devices

1 Client Desktop (for computers managed by the organization)

1 Client Desktop non managed (i.e. at home)

___ mobile devices

If there is no limits in the quantify of devices a single user can activate the EFSS, there is a risk of exposing EFSS content (i.e. temporal devices that are left activated or lost devices that are not reported for deactivation on time)

+Sharing duration for external users

Unlimited duration by default

Sharing with unlimited duration is not allowed.

Sharing requires a duration not to exceed ____ months.

Other sharing duration considerations ___________

Shared folders with external users for an unlimited duration could increase the risks of exposing information longer than needed.

Shared folder owner may change job roles or leave the organization and the external invited users may not be cleaned up.

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Summary

+Summary

This considerations are a starting point an organization can use to properly communicate, start discussions and decide on the right EFSS configuration

This considerations can help you identify if an EFSS doesn’t meet some specific needs of your organization.

Some considerations apply for all users groups but some can be broken down by user group or other criteria to have a more granular configuration, if needed

+Thanks!

If you have any feedback or questions please contact me at: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesjesussifuentes Follow me on twitter: @JamesSifuentes https://

twitter.com/JamesSifuentes Email: JamesSifuentes@gmail.com