Box Reviews

First, the device-agnostic cloud storage and collaboration. When we first deployed Box, we managed all of our own storage. Using Box for cloud storage allows us to focus on the service and maintaining infrastructure. Box has a number of nice features such as mobile apps for access to files; ability to collaborate easily with anyone, on campus or off; special collaboration and sharing features, such as emailing attachments to folders, embed widgets to upload or interact with files, and more. The introduction of Box Drive makes using Box on the desktop a joy.

Faculty, staff and students can collaborate with their peers on and off campus. Members of the University community have found many creative ways to use the platform. In some cases, they were able to really streamline processes and in others they were able to do things they never could before. Some units have migrated their content and processes from on premises storage to Box, saving money and time, and putting the power of collaboration into the hands of the users instead of requiring admin intervention.

Support for larger files.

Improvements in speed - Box's high level of security impacts performance, especially when compared with other similar services. While it's understandable, it's annoying.

We've used it since 2012.

Nothing major. We were early adopters of Single Sign On with Box, so we had to do some heavy lifting there. However, with the work we and others have done with Box, this has become much simpler and more straightforward. We deploy the service as an opt in, so we did not need to do a broad scale forklift of content from old systems to Box.

Box has been very stable for us. Only rarely are there any performance issues and these are usually degradations of a particular function.

We've deployed it campus wide and currently have nearly 100K active users - a very large deployment. We have not had any issues with scalability from the user perspective. That's been rock solid. However, we have had scale issues with the admin console. With our number of users, sometimes reports can't complete or queries take a very long time. Box is addressing that now with new reporting technology.

Excellent. Our dedicated Customer Success Manager is very attentive and very committed to giving us a good experience with Box.

Once you reach the right people it's excellent. Like with many help desks, our scale means that we often have more familiarity with the product then their frontline help desk staff, so sometimes it's a challenge to get to the right level.

This was our first foray into cloud storage and collaboration.

As I mentioned above, SSO was tricky to set up. We were able to get it all going in just a few months, though.

In house, working directly with Box.

Our pricing and licensing is excellent. I'd tell all Higher Ed customers to talk with Internet2 for excellent pricing and support.

We worked with a team of other universities and Internet2. That team explored the cloud storage market at the time. Box was the best offering we found.

Leverage the existing community of expertise out there. Ask the sales rep to put you in touch with other customers. We're happy to talk with folks looking to deploy Box.

We primarily use Box for sharing files within our group.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the set of security options that can be set when sharing files with a group. There is a lot of flexibility in that you can assign specific people read-only permissions. It can be done at the object level, or the folder level.

The application is very light in terms of uploading and downloading files.

With respect to the end-user experience, this is a very simple solution.

Better integration with other solutions is needed. Some use cases require the user to integrate with a document management system, or they may want to do some sort of workflow management. For example, if they want to maintain an integrational ERP system then different departments may have different requirements. The legal team will require a different set of controls than the HR department, and they want to have some sort of workflow as a process. I do these things manually because they are lacking in this product. If an ERP needs a file stored in Box then it should be able to download it directly.

I would like to see an indexing system because without knowing the filename, it is difficult to find what I am looking for amongst thousands of files. It would be nice to have some sort of metadata.

I have been using Box for five or six years.

My team has had no issues in terms of stability. My use case is really simple and straightforward.

With perhaps 200,000 users, we have had no issues with scalability. 

I have not been in contact with technical support.

We use several other tools for content management such as Documentum, Alfresco, and SharePoint. The choice of tool depends on the use case.

We have our own in-house team that deploys this product.

My advice to anybody who is considering this type of solution is to first formulate the use case. Box has certain limitations, but it is very plain and easy to use. If you need collaboration in terms of document management then it provides a simple interface that offers differing levels of granularity in terms of access control.

This is a good solution but it does not address all of the use cases for a content management system.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

• File sharing with collaborators not on the same domain with offline access from multiple devices: I work on many projects that are multi-organizational, such as with customers, suppliers, or acquisitions.
• Being able to securely invite, share folders, do version control, and comment on files so quickly and easily without using unsecure large email attachments is a major productivity gain.

We have complex bids with tight deadlines. This involves partners/suppliers and key staff who can work offline, such as on the train, and then sync up their files later when they have WIFI coverage. This allows faster responses and stronger collaboration.

Tasks and comments could be easier to see, report, search, and manage.

I think it would benefit from a task full screen with list and sort functionality, then similarly a comments screen with list/filter/sort.

So, rather than looking at individual documents and drilling down to see where comments have been added, you could, for example, view all comments added to documents in a specific folder since a set date, such as last week.

This would be particularly useful on collaboration projects, as you could easily, on the first page, see all of the comments in that project folder. You could, based on you interest, click through to the document where there was a related comment.

We have used this solution for seven years.

There were no stability issues. It was consistently reliable.

There were no scalability issues. Many GBs are stored with 100 guests/clients/suppliers without any issues.

I hardly ever require support. It just works, which is one of the strongest things about it.

We evaluated SharePoint. It was cumbersome to manage, configure, and add new projects. Frankly, it is poor for adding external partners, for syncing, and using across multiple devices (iPhone, iPad, and laptops).

The setup was simple. The only area to learn, as it is different from Active Directory, is how security inherits down folders.

It is expensive per head, as you need the enterprise license to get full security and tools. So negotiate a discount!

We evaluated SharePoint and Dropbox.

Separate internal folders from externally shared ones and lock down the internal security so that staff can't invite non-domain users to internal folders; nice, clear demarcation.

We use the solution primarily for storage and very occasionally for collaboration.

I haven't found any valuable features.

I don't like the low level of role-based security it provides – it's very cumbersome, and the support is ordinary at times.

We've been using the product for 12 months.

I would say the solution is stable.

The solution is scalable.

In my experience, support manages metrics instead of managing the solution. It seems they want to meet the SLAs without providing a solution.

Neutral

Box is relatively easy to set up.

On pricing, I would point out that the more you dig, or the deeper the level of tools, the more expensive it becomes. 

For basic file storage and a little collaboration, the product is fine. But for anything more integrated from a security point of view, it is not.

Besides Box, we also run SharePoint, and in terms of a holistic approach, I would say that SharePoint is probably the better option.

I would rate this product a six out of ten.

The ability to collaborate around data anywhere, anytime is the most powerful features of Box.

The word Box has become a verb at Morehouse College. The Students, Faculty and Staff are constantly pushing the limits of the Box.com platform by finding ever more creative ways to use it!

One of the greatest things is that they have not hit any limits.

Like all cloud platforms, there are always areas of improvement around sync to local devices. We are very EXCITED about the soon to be released Box Desktop for streamed file content. We are looking to beta the tool!

We have been on the Box.com platform for almost three years.

We initially tried a low tech approach to our data migration that failed, too much data to simply push over the internet; in comes SkySync to the rescue. We used SkySync to migrate files and permission from our Windows fileserver to the Box.com platform.

No.

No.

Box.com is one of our Premier Technical Partners!

They take ownership of any issues, and work them quickly to resolution.

We were complexity on premises, prior to our move to Box.com

The more you plan the better your migration will go, you must pay careful attention to the differences in permission structures.

Have not run detailed numbers yet, though we plan to. The reduction in risk alone on PII, HIPAA and FERPA will be huge factors in our ROI calculations.

I'm in Higher Ed, so we purchase through Internet2-Net+. I absolutely recommend going that route for Higher Ed customers.

Yes, we looked at Dropbox and OneDrive. Box.com had the best compliance matrix for the enterprise that we saw.

Love it!

Box is very realistic when it comes to sharing capabilities. The editable features and upgrading capabilities are great. You can work on a document online and save it online. The versioning is a very attractive feature. You can check the updates that were made to a document, and trace which edits each team member made. I also like that it prevents updates from occurring while someone is using it. 

I believe there is still a desktop version; I used to use it in the past. If it's still in use, there should be a Microsoft Office plugin because most of the shareable documents are generated,  represented, or displayed in Microsoft Office. If there was a plugin that added some sort of toolbar in Office, that would be great.

Most of our digital content is now shareable. We can share a post on our Box account from Facebook. We can share a tweet from Twitter on our Box account. For this reason, it needs to be more viewable. Every website has a photo or some sort of location displayed on its website. You can find a logo for YouTube and Facebook and Insta and Twitter. You should be able to do the same with Box.

I have been using Box since 2013.

Box is very stable and secure.

Box is quite scalable, they offer several types of subscriptions. There's a free version that allows you to use it with almost full-feature access. Even in the free version, it gives you all you need.

I use the free version. It provides me with all of the features that I need. 

My advice is to use this solution. Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give Box a rating of nine. 

Our clients' primary use cases are for business, mostly enterprise.

One of the coolest features in the enterprise is nominal file requests. Let's say you're getting a tune-up to your state plan, and the law has changed. There is a questionnaire with some documents and the paralegal sends them to you in just a normal email with the custom URL. You don't have to have a Google account for Google Drive or a Microsoft account for OneDrive. The fact that you are within the time window and within the credentialed determination, Box is aware of who does everything. They're the most compliant company we've ever encountered. We never run into a FIPSE or HIPAA or Sox issue with Box because they check every one of the boxes every time. So you never have to worry about that. To finish the story, you get that email, click on that link, fill in some answers on a TLS secure webpage, they give you a place to upload, and you're done.

From our user side or client side, when you hit that submit, you get deposited right in their client file, in your folder. And every one of your answers becomes metadata that will accompany all of your documents, all the way through your journey. This eliminates errors. It eliminates redundancy. It eliminates retyping. It's searchable. It's taggable. Really, really exquisite. 

The other thing about Box is that it has a really, really simple installation of the desktop component. And their new one, Box Drive, the users love. It creates a thumbnail, a meta, in your Explorer, whether it's Windows or Mac so everything you have access to in the cloud version you also have in the browser version. It's so easy, especially for older users. We find if they're over 40, then they have a much easier time with Box.

We've never had a penetration. We've never had a security issue that their support didn't solve. We love their audit trail. We can know exactly when a collaborator opens. We love how you can define a collaborator.

Let me spend a little time on that because that's really important - Box versus other cloud storage. Instead of being one dimensional, it's three dimensional. You can visualize a little matrix. Do you want them to be able to download this thing or just look at it? Do you want them to be able to upload and not download? Do you want them to be able to edit? Do you want them to be able to print? You can inhibit or enable any of those. So you can be dealing with opposing counsel and you don't want them to download, you just want them to see it, because your only responsibility to the court is that they can see it. But you don't want them stealing your work product. Box protects our client's intellectual property while allowing them to do business. So it's really exquisite.

The user interface is straightforward and simple. We also do a bunch of pro bono. One of our clients is sobrietyhouse.org, the largest, oldest, lowest recidivist rate, lowest cost rehab in Colorado. We regularly deploy Box there. We've tried to help this year with Save the Stages, with helping various musicians and other creators. This is a good example of how flexible Box is. 

In our corporate account, we will have extremely confidential information. We can create a folder set, share it to a band in Boulder and let them use that to collaborate vids, MP3s, tracks. Everything that they're trying to get ready for their Facebook Watch. And we can jump on and help. Box Note is like notepad, but 100 people can be on at the same time, tuning and perfecting, which works beautifully for lyric development.

That's completely isolated, works fine, costs them nothing. It's subsumed under our umbrella Box enterprise account. Because we have an unlimited number of external users we can add it's got a good genome. Yet, it wasn't designed by marketing people. It was designed by engineers and people who actually did work for a living.

I have been using Box for about nine years.

I recommend doing the trial first, because it's not cheap ware. It's not overly expensive, but it's not cheap ware, and enterprise has a minimum number of users. Of course, it's nothing for us because we were well in excess to that minimum. But check your pricing. Don't think that just because Google Drive is cheaper that doesn't make it better.

On a scale of one to ten, I'd rank Box a 10. And I rank their customer service a 9.5. Because they're not as good as GravityZone, but they're better than anybody else out there.