REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Box, Inc. (NYSE: BOX), the leading Content Cloud, today unveiled a new Box App Center, a destination for users, admins, and developers to discover and access the more than 1500 applications that integrate with Box. In addition, later today at the Box Content Cloud Summit, the company will showcase several enhancements including updates to Box Sign, its native e-signature capability, a deepened integration with Zoom, and new capabilities for Box Shield, its advanced security solution for protecting content in the cloud.
“From connecting hybrid teams to protecting against sophisticated security threats, today’s enterprises need platforms that are easy to use, drive productivity, and reduce security risk,” said Diego Dugatkin, Chief Product Officer at Box. “With the Box Content Cloud, our focus is to power the entire content lifecycle, from the moment content is created to when it’s shared, edited, signed, secured, and retained. Today, we’re enhancing that vision by making it easier to find and work with the more than 1500 apps that integrate with Box. In addition, we’re also making our free, native e-signature solution even more powerful, while helping customers fight malware and protect their most valuable content more effectively.”
Introducing the New Box App Center
The average enterprise today uses 187 different applications to get work done. While this proliferation of tools and apps enhances many business processes, it also creates silos of content that are hard for customers to manage and secure. To address this growing problem, Box provides an open platform that integrates with more than 1500 applications, such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, ServiceNow, Google Workspace, and Salesforce, ensuring content remains secure, compliant, and easily managed, no matter where it’s accessed and shared across the IT stack.
Today, Box announced a new App Center that will make it easier to discover and benefit from these apps and integrations. With the new App Center:
- Users will benefit from an advanced search mechanism and a modern, tile-based user interface that simplifies the process of browsing and enabling more than 1500 pre-built partner integrations.
- Users and admins can easily find the applications they need most by organizing their favorite apps with new categories and grouping functionalities.
- Admins can work to reduce security risks by providing users with a list of enterprise-approved tools via a new application catalog available on Box.com and the Box web app.
- Developers can leverage APIs in the new App Center to easily build, submit, and preview custom apps and workflow automations, expanding the audience to millions of users.
The new Box App Center will be available in May 2022.
Box Sign Enhancements
Since launching Box Sign last year and making it globally available to all business and above customers at no additional cost, Box has continued to add robust new capabilities and APIs that power e-signatures in third-party and custom applications. Building on that momentum, Box Sign customers will be able to:
- Streamline critical business processes by generating contracts within Box and sending them out for signature directly from Salesforce. This feature is generally available today.
- Send a single document to hundreds of recipients at once and expedite high-volume tasks, such as collecting signatures for employee acknowledgement of new company policies, or sending NDAs to conference attendees for signature. This feature will be generally available in May 2022.
- Access six new dedicated fields and formatting options for documents, including initials, name, email, stamp, company, and title. These additions will make document preparation easier, and deliver a smoother and faster experience for signers. This feature will be generally available in May 2022.
Further, this summer, Box Sign will also be releasing more capabilities, including the ability to send multiple documents for signature as part of a single package, the ability to edit or correct a signature request in flight, as well as a dedicated Box Shield policy that restricts signature requests from being issued on sensitive content.
New Box for Zoom Chat Integration
As remote and hybrid work models continue to evolve, integrations across common collaboration tools continue to gain importance. Building on their existing partnership, today Box and Zoom announced the launch of the Box app for Zoom Chat Channels to make it even easier for users to work seamlessly together across the two platforms. Available today through Zoom enablement and generally available starting April 17, the Box app for Zoom Chat Channels allows users to:
- Upload files into Zoom Chat Channels, and they’ll automatically save to Box. Zoom Chat Channels will also map to corresponding Box folders, so that content and communications can exist in one place.
- Create new Box files, including Box Notes, or Microsoft Office or Google Workspace documents, from Zoom Chat and grant users access to work together on those files in real-time, for reduced context switching.
- Open documents stored in Box from Zoom Chat Channels to collaborate with just one click, for maximized workflow efficiency.
New Enhancements to Box Shield
Box Shield scans more than 50 billion files a year, greatly reducing content-centric security risks due to threats like malware and ransomware. In October, Box announced new threat detection capabilities that build on the traditional hash-based approach to help identify more sophisticated malware. Available today, admins using Box Shield will be able to:
- Apply malware deep scan to additional file types, including Microsoft Office files. With malicious cyberattacks predicted to cost victims around $265 billion annually by 2031, Box has added this support to further increase Box Shield’s ability to detect unknown malware and ransomware across additional file types.
- Add automatic watermarking to classified documents. This helps to reduce unauthorized sharing by offering an indicator as an additional reminder to end-users about classified content.
- Enforce and passively monitor how access policies could potentially interfere with end-users before applying them. This helps admins fully understand the impact of security controls and refine those policies, before enforcing them.
Box Relay Updates
Thousands of Box customers use Relay to automate everyday processes like digital asset reviews, work order submission approvals, regulatory reporting approvals, and grant reviews. Today, Box is announcing a deeper integration between Box Relay and Box Sign, including the ability to trigger a new workflow based on a document being completed, canceled, expired, or declined in Box Sign. Users can then automate next steps by selecting a combination of file, folder, task, metadata, and notification outcomes available in Relay, and build the downstream workflow. Generally available today, customers can:
- Apply metadata templates to organize, search, and manage signed customer contracts for easy and efficient contract management.
- Expedite vendor onboarding by assigning a task to the partner manager when a signature request on a vendor’s application expires.
- Classify signed offer letters so they are protected by appropriate Box Shield policies, for secure employee onboarding.
- Apply a watermark to M&A agreements to deter unauthorized re-sharing of sensitive information in virtual data rooms (VDR).
Further, releasing this summer, Relay customers will be able to view any active classifications and retention policies on content in the Relay builder, so they can be aware of security and governance while designing workflows. They will also have the option to automatically add metadata on folders, enabling metadata application at scale.
New Content Insights
As people strive to work more asynchronously than ever before, it’s important to have insight on how content is being used and viewed. With Box’s new Content Insights, announced today, users will now be able to see how, when, and by whom their files are being accessed and used.
Available in Q2, Content Insights will provide increased visibility into content so:
- Operations teams can ensure the latest procedures are being read and followed.
- Go-to-market teams can understand when and how sales teams are using their pitch decks.
- Customers sending information to sales prospects can see who has viewed them without following up over email.
Box Canvas, visual whiteboarding and collaboration built right into Box
Earlier this week, Box unveiled Box Canvas, a new virtual whiteboarding and visual collaboration experience that securely connects hybrid teams so they can brainstorm, ideate, and create, together from anywhere. Box will be demonstrating the new Box Canvas at today’s Content Cloud Summit. More information can be found here.
About Box
Box (NYSE:BOX) is the leading Content Cloud that enables organizations to accelerate business processes, power workplace collaboration, and protect their most valuable information, all while working with a best-of-breed enterprise IT stack. Founded in 2005, Box simplifies work for leading organizations globally, including AstraZeneca, JLL, and Morgan Stanley. Box is headquartered in Redwood City, CA, with offices in the United States, Europe, and Asia. To learn more about Box, visit http://www.box.com. To learn more about how Box powers nonprofits to fulfill their missions, visit Box.org.