ShareFile was initially created as a stand-alone file transfer application, designed specifically for secure transmission of files between users (hence its name!) via email. The company was acquired in 2011 by Citrix, the Remote Access Services giant. ShareFile has added significant functionality to its core features since its creation as a simple file transfer service in 2005, and with new ownership (and a fresh infusion of working capital) I expect to see the popularity of this service grow in the legal arena. Citrix has begun to actively market its service to the legal community, stressing its security, mobility and simplicity as key selling points for attorneys.
As a consequence of its roots in email-oriented file sharing, ShareFile offers good integration with Outlook for sending and requesting files. It also offers its own internal email file transfer capability, allowing files to be sent directly from within the service’s website, without needing Outlook or any other email client software. ShareFile offers address book storage capability for this purpose, so those contacts with which you most frequently share documents can be added directly into a ShareFile “senders list”; this is a very nice feature for “mobile workers” who are frequently using different devices and don’t always have their address book handy. ShareFile also offers the option (at no additional cost) to create a “branded” page on your website to serve as a convenient “file transfer portal,” from which clients can very simply transmit files to you. Email alerts can be configured to automatically notify users when a document has been sent to the service by a client from the portal.
All file downloads from Sharefile can have an expiration date, can be limited to a specific number of downloads per user, and can require the downloading party to log in (with credentials supplied by the sender) prior to completing the download. These additional security settings are a notable addition, and distinguish Sharefile from its more well-known competitors Dropbox and Box.
ShareFile employs the same folder/subfolder metaphor for file storage as Dropbox and Box, and also allows for security settings at the folder – but not the individual file – level. Folders can be shared with “external” users (i.e., non-subscribers), but as with Dropbox, security for these shared folders is at the “Yes/No” level, lacking the granularity of a “view/ edit,/share” set of options, as is offered by Box.
ShareFile offers mobile access via apps for the iPad, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone devices. It also offers a desktop “widget” for directly interacting with the storage service from the desktop, without opening a browser, allowing simple “drag and drop” functionality for transferring files to and from the service.
ShareFile does not offer a free account (most likely because it was not initially created as a consumer-oriented service) but does offer different levels of accounts, based on the number of user licenses and storage/bandwidth amounts required.
If your primary need for remote storage is in transferring files securely via email, with a simple user interface, storage for email addresses, and options for setting security and expirations on the transfers, without needing extensive search and document “profiling” capabilities, Sharefile could be a good fit for you. It is not a true “document management system” like the products I will be reviewing in the next two chapters of this post, but it doesn’t really pretend to be that, either. It does the job for which it was intended – simply, and somewhat elegantly, with appropriate security measures in place.
Jack Schaller has been active in the field of law office technology since 1989, and has worked with a variety of commercial accounting, legal billing, practice management, and document management software products during his twenty plus years in the software consulting field. During his tenure as a software consultant he has garnered many sales and service awards for his work with legal software products. Jack is a frequent presenter at legal conferences and seminars, and is a regular contributor to TechnoLawyer and other technology publications.
