Box and IBM announced Box Relay, a new workflow solution that will be available natively in Box. The offering will make it easy for any employee in a business to build, track and manage custom or pre-built workflows that leverage all of the security, compliance and collaboration features of Box. The product is a part of the all new Box, which will be shared in full tomorrow at BoxWorks 2016, Box’s annual conference in San Francisco.
“Workflow in the enterprise is broken — complex, fragmented software and manual processes are getting in the way of productivity,” said Aaron Levie [pictured above], co-founder and CEO of Box. “The all new Box is a place where all of your work comes together. Box Relay delivers on this vision by providing anyone with an easy way to create, track and manage routine processes without ever having to leave Box. Box Relay is enterprise workflow made simple.”
“As businesses embark on the journey to become cognitive, the ability for teams to collaborate and iterate on content, surface new insights, and collaborate naturally are key. Our successful partnership with Box is helping companies along this journey,” said Inhi Cho Suh, general manager of collaboration solutions, IBM Analytics. “This first joint solution from IBM and Box enables businesses to create a simpler digital workflow across different functions to help reduce the time spent managing projects and boost team productivity. This is possible by combining the power of IBM Cloud with Box’s leading content management platform.”
In June 2015, IBM and Box embarked on a strategic partnership to deliver new capabilities and new solutions to market globally by bringing together Box’s modern content management and collaboration platform with the global footprint of the IBM Cloud. Developed on Bluemix, IBM’s Cloud platform, Box Relay will help make it easier for people working in every industry and job function to be more productive, whether the goal is to automate employee onboarding and training, streamline the budget process, or approve assets and contracts and is designed to: Reduce IT dependency and empower end users.
With an intuitive design that will allow anyone to build custom workflows or leverage a catalog of existing workflows, Box Relay will allow IT teams to focus on other work while giving their end-users a better way to streamline and automate their processes. Make processes seamless across the ‘extended enterprise’. Because it’s built on Box, Box Relay will allow workflows to extend securely between both internal and external teams.
Customers, vendors or partners can be assigned tasks, so the process does not break down when content flows across or between organizations. Reduce the time people spend managing their projects. With a dashboard providing real-time visibility, email notifications that alert users when items are assigned and overdue, and an audit trail that provides transparency on every action taken, users will no longer have to worry about missed deadlines, updating people on the status, or reporting and tracking.
Leverage all the benefits of Box: Box Relay eliminates the need to switch between systems by providing a workflow tool on the platform enterprises already trust to manage their most valuable content. Users will be able to edit content that is automatically saved back to Box, leveraging integrations including, Office 365, Adobe and Salesforce. Content is protected by Box features such as granular permissions, password protected content and access stats, and users will benefit from world class security and control packages from Box including Box KeySafe, Box Zones and Box Governance.
“The viral adoption of content collaboration at work uncovered huge demand for more streamlined coordination of repeatable processes between enterprise end users, their partners and customers. This created the need for a new type of workflow automation,” according to IDC Vice President Maureen Fleming. “Enterprises are actively looking for workflow solutions that provide the right level of simplicity and capability at the right price so they can improve the productivity and efficiency inside their business and across their business networks.” Pricing and Availability Box Relay will be available for an additional fee to Box business users. Box Relay is scheduled to be released in beta during Q4, with general availability the first half of next year.
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