5 Collaborative Features of Data Room Software
5 December, 2022Online collaboration is the new norm in business, a trend that accelerated during the pandemic, when team members and their supporting cast of experts were working from remote locations. While online collaboration can improve workflow efficiency, the process also creates significant security issues: confidential documents and data are more vulnerable to leaks and hackers.
The Need for Secure Collaborative Platforms
Document security issues apply to any company sharing confidential data and documents in online collaborations. Two industries where security issues are front-burner issues are Life Sciences and Finance.
Collaboration in Life Sciences
Team members in R&D labs, clinical research organizations (CROs), and testing companies collaborate with each other and with third-party experts in the development of drugs and new products. At specific junctures, these organizations present their findings to Pharma manufacturers, investors, and regulatory organizations.
A leak of data or findings can not only lead to a competitive loss but can also lead to significant legal exposure: pharmaceutical companies must adhere to Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulatory guidelines that protect patient privacy, including patients enlisted into clinical trials. The FDA now holds manufacturers accountable for security-related problems, including electronic records submitted under the FDA’s 21 CFR Part 11 regulations.
Collaboration in Finance & Due Diligence
Collaboration in Finance: Investment banks, VCs, and other financial firms are in the business of doing deals. The preparation for a deal offer, called due diligence, involves collecting and assembling confidential company records and forecasts by third-party experts to develop an offer for a merger or acquisition. The end-product brief is a comprehensive appraisal of the assets and liabilities of an organization and an evaluation of the proposal’s value to a third-party.
The process requires extensive collaboration among staff members, accountants, data analysts, lawyers, and other professionals, some of whom may be in remote locations. As with Life Science collaborations, M&A due diligence and dealmaking are ripe fruit for hackers.
Due diligence is typically a lengthy process and requires a lot of coordination among multiple parties. It can become very complicated when the stakeholders are in different locations or have competing interests. Luckily, there are collaborative due diligence platforms available to smoothen the process.
ShareVault’s Collaborative Online Platform
ShareVault has a fifteen-year record as the online platform of choice for Life Sciences and Finance due diligence. ShareVault’s Virtual Data Room (VDR) provides users with a secure, collaborative environment for sharing confidential documents, both archived and work-in-progress.
ShareVault’s field-tested software tools make it easy for an administrator to assign passwords and organize files and folders, and for stakeholders to access and share documents as they collaborate on an M&A deal offer or a submission to the FDA. ShareVault’s bank-grade security reduces risks and vulnerabilities.
ShareVault Online Collaborative Features
1. Easy Document Uploading and Sharing
For the team leader or administrator, ShareVault ‘s interface makes it easy to create folders, and uploading is as simple as drag-and-drop. Once the files are loaded, collaborators with the right authorizations can access documents just as easily as one would on a desktop computer. ShareVault supports all major file types, including PDFs, Word Docs, images, videos, and data files. To ensure maximum security, ShareVault provides the administrator with a full set of permissioning authorizations, to control who can view, edit, print, and download documents, and he or she can change or revoke permissions at any time. No matter what file type, ShareVault ensures maximum security for documents and the collaboration process.
2. Integration with Other Document Sharing Platforms
ShareVault works with other document-sharing platforms, including Dropbox, SharePoint, Google Drive, and DocuSign. Simply move a document into ShareVault to take advantage of its enterprise-grade security features. ShareVault’s sync engine automatically updates documents across platforms, ensuring that everyone is working on the latest version.
3. Comprehensive Reporting and Analytics
ShareVault’s data room software tracks more than 70 types of user activities to provide comprehensive reporting and analytics. The team administrator has real-time updates of which documents are being accessed, when they're being accessed, who is viewing them, and any other actions taken by a user. Tracking data not only improves accountability and productivity but is also essential to reports to government agencies and other third parties.
4. Q&A Feature
To spur the collaborative process, ShareVault includes a Q&A feature. A user can pose a question and receive feedback from subject matter experts. This feature is especially useful for due diligence, as it allows users to quickly get the information that they need without searching through hundreds of documents.
5. DocuSign Integration
Successful collaboration may result in a signature - hooray! To make that easy, ShareVault integrates with DocuSign so users can sign documents electronically. This feature eliminates the need for printing and obtaining a physical signature. The signature document remains secure as long as it remains in the ShareVault data room.
Check out ShareVault’s Online Collaborative Platform and Software
ShareVault’s Virtual Data Room ultra-secure platform and easy-to-use software tools improve the speed and quality of online collaborations for finance due diligence, Life Sciences product development, and other critical business processes. ShareVault’s experienced team can create a demo perfectly suited to your business needs - and it’s free!
Contact ShareVault today to get started collaborating with stakeholders in a secure environment. We can organize a demo to help you determine if our data room solution is right for your business.