Extranet Capability Delivered by A DMS

Extranets are not just a temporary fascination. They are becoming an integral part of managing global business. Companies are recognizing the advantages of Extranets in building and maintaining relationships with clients, strategic partners and their own employees.

Extranets Defined
Extranets are web-based repositories for information which are accessible to authorized outsiders. More sophisticated extranets can resemble customized portals for your firm. The look and feel is exactly like a web site and, armed with a login name and password, users can log on and access documents -text files, graphic files, online rolodex entries, etc. Security can be adjusted on a per user basis. For example, if you want your clients to have access to certain files, such as contracts, marketing materials, etc., you can give them a password and assign them a read-only status. Same security level options go for your firm's employees.

The Extranet Option
So realistically, how much is this extranet going to cost and how long will it take to implement, you may ask. The real hot shot extranet development specialists can charge hundreds of thousands of dollars plus months of development time and testing before you launch. That's not to mention how much of your staff's time their development team is going to take away for coordinating the project - several hours a day at least for the entire development period.

An Alternative Option - WORLDOX/WEB
There are, however, other options that require a lot less time and money. Earlier this year, Document Management System WORLDOX(r) released a product called "WORLDOX/WEB" which enables Internet access to your documents, plus full profiling, searching, and viewing capability. WORLDOX/WEB transforms the corporate web site into an active portal into your organization's key information assets, while protecting those assets with the same user authentication, security classifications, search capabilities, and permissions they have when logged in locally. Guest accounts or public areas can provide limited access to selected documents for a wider audience. You can set up the security passwords any way you wish and from anywhere in the world, 24/7, you can have access to critically important documentation.

Steve Hogan of Ross Hardies, a Chicago-based firm of just under 200 attorneys has been using WORLDOX/WEB in his firm and says, "The introduction of WORLDOX/Web at Ross & Hardies has given us a true extranet. A perfect complement to our Internet-based mail and fax applications, WORLDOX/Web allows our attorneys to be nearly as productive at home or on the road as they are in the office. Our clients are impressed that they can securely share and access our documents on-demand, independent of e-mail."

Lifestyle Benefits
The WORLDOX/WEB product, in addition to providing an online accessible central information store from anywhere at any time, has significant flexibility and convenience benefits as well. According to Rob Lloyd of Carmody Torrance, a Connecticut-based firm with 3 offices, "WORLDOX/WEB has enabled our users to have full access to all of the documents on their system. This access is available from any web browser they happen to have handy - a clients office, home, their laptops or even at an airport kiosk."

Security and Support
Mr. Lloyd goes on to address the issues of security and support for WORLDOX/Web:

"(WORLDOX/WEB is) very secure as it requires two levels of name and password protection and can further be tightened with Windows NT file security and IIS security. The product has evolved very well with new features being added all the time. Multiple connected offices can easily be linked through the one IIS server. Its fast and intuitive design makes it easy to use for almost anyone. Searching for a document is easy and based on the networked version. Even full text searches over the web are fast. There is a new feature that we have not implemented yet that allows clients access to only their documents, not the entire system.

From an IT perspective, it is easy to install as long as you have a working IIS server. Upgrades are just a few clicks and support has been terrific (on the few occasions we've needed it)."

Pricing
WORLDOX/WEB pricing is very reasonable. For instance, a current WORLDOX user with 6-20 licenses would pay a total of $1,350 for the WORLDOX/WEB product, which includes both a year of maintenance and a WORLDOX/WEB Proxy Server.