Our online data room solution is an application extension of the Alfresco product; it offers a secure web-based document repository which can be used for: due diligence, contract negotiation, mergers and acquisitions, in fact anything that involves securely sharing sensitive documents.

We have always found it baffling why so many providers charge per data room or per page or per number of users; as this business model is simply not designed with the customer in mind.

Over a period of time we have built up this solution based on customer feedback and we realise that as a product matures, more is expected from it. Simply put, having an unlimited use online data room is highly useful, accessible, secure and reliable.

Unlimited use which is highly useful, secure and reliable

• Online data rooms provide immense cost savings compared to physical data rooms and are able to fully mimic the physical data room; but without the required travel or the inconvenience of booking sequential visits.
• A shorter time frame for reviewing due diligence information also reduces the risk of a deal going off track.
• Unlike many other online data rooms; with our open source solution you only pay a nominal annual subscription which allows you to have as many users as you like, as many online data rooms as you like, and view as many documents as you like - but without the hefty price tag!

What is an Online Data Room?

An online data room can be applied in various different situations, but a typical use is where the vendor (i.e. in an M&A or share sale) or the authority (i.e. of a PFI/PPP project) wishes to disclose a large amount of confidential data to proposed bidders. This happens typically during the due diligence process.

The traditional data room is literally a physically secure, continually monitored room, normally in vendor’s or lawyer’s offices. The bidders and their advisers will visit the room to inspect and report on the various documents. Often only one bidder at a time will be allowed to enter, and if new documents, or new versions of documents are required these will have to be brought in by courier as hardcopy. Expert teams involved in large due diligence processes will typically have to be flown in from many regions or countries. The overall cost of keeping experts on call near to the data room is often extremely high.

Introducing Alfresco Online Data Rooms:

Our online data rooms are a virtual version that provides secure online dissemination of confidential information – at a fraction of the ongoing cost of running a physical data room. Significantly, with our online data room, you also get all the benefits of the open source business model which means there are no restriction on the number of users, number of online data rooms and documents viewed. Our online data room solution was born from requirements gathered from past and present customers.

Online data rooms can be deployed for numerous transactions not just for due diligence or share sales. In fact any situation where you need to securely share, control and audit the viewing, copying and printing of documents. It can also be used by any organisation wanting to access its data from multiple offices or locations around the world.

We provide ongoing support and development of your online data room as part of your fixed annual subscription cost. Because we are a Platinum Alfresco Partner we offer an unrivalled service, additionally our consultants have continual access to input from the Alfresco product management and engineering teams. As the Alfresco content management system develops and matures, your online data rooms will be continually improved and adapted to take advantage of the latest functionality releases of Alfresco – all as part of your subscription service.

The issues you may be facing:

• You regularly perform tender processes and want to increase the number of bidders
• Your competitors are achieving a faster bidding or due diligence process than you
• You want to mitigate the increasing cost of due diligence
• You are spending a fortune on courier fees and physical document transfers
• You have a growing number of remote workers who need to access confidential documents in an efficient way
• You want an audit trail of who looked at which documents and when
• You manage projects with geographically diverse teams, or external partners and you want them to be able to access documents and collaborate securely
• You need to control access and securely set permissions for those collaborating online
• You want to integrate email communication for those people reviewing documents
• You want to provide a secure online data room and need 24/7 availability across multiple time zones
• You want to open up document collaboration to global bidders and partners or new markets
• You regularly conduct mergers and acquisitions, share sales, insolvency or corporate restructuring

• You need to control viewing copying and printing

Key features and benefits:

Online data rooms are built on Alfresco’s latest Enterprise release – and have the following extensions:

Work flows

• Allocate user permissions on a document
• Publish documents to a Share site
• Project management assess documents before publication
• Configurable online data room status timeframes which drives workflow response times for document reviews, discussion responses etc

Security

• Admin impersonation view
• Allows an admin user to impersonate a user's settings and document view to see which documents have been exposed

Document Management

• You can share a single document across multiple sites
• You can publish documents out to external users
• Lock down permissions on PDF documents
• Restrict document changes, printing or copying

Reporting

• Allow external users to send questions through discussions which are sent to designated site managers for review
• Email notification of documents ready for review and outstanding workflows

Email Subscriptions

• Users can configure email notifications
• Email notification of documents ready for review
• Each subscriber to a site can choose whether to turn on email subscriptions
• Emails can be delivered daily or weekly
• Each report will be based on site activity ranging from, document library activities, through to blogs and discussions