Digital First Extranet
How can an Extranet connect you to your business partners?
Providing access to users outside your organisation can be a challenging process. They need to be able to obtain resources relevant to their personal accounts, you want to impress them by keeping projects on track and communicating clearly with up-to-date, accurate information.
The Solution? Extranet.
What is Extranet?
An extranet is a controlled, private network that leverages the internet and Microsoft SharePoint for secure collaboration and information sharing among both internal team members, as well as a company’s external contacts, such as customers, suppliers, partners, and other third parties.
SharePoint is globally recognised as a superior platform for company intranets, it therefore makes sense to use this powerful technology externally too. By creating a secure, online, centralized environment, invited members can easily store, share, and access the information they need anytime.
Digital First Extranet provides an easy way to manage external users in O365 and invite them into your external scenarios.
Our solution is an invaluable tool for business needs such as
Using online ordering, electronic order tracking and inventory management internally or externally, with selected partners
Facilitating a cheap and efficient way for businesses to connect with their trading partners and suppliers, and allowing them access to the information they need 24/7
Automating the trading tasks between you and your trading partners, in order to strengthen business relationships and integrate your business firmly within their supply chain
It can also be used by staff working remotely, e.g. those in sales or customer support, or home workers.
Bear in mind that once you make parts of your business data available to trading partners, they will expect it to be
Available
Up to date
Secure at all times
Availability and security are key factors in the success of an extranet. You can define the group of your extranet users clearly and protect access by rigorous identification routines and security features.
Resources are required to keep the content of the extranet accurate and up to date. This might involve staff training and using CMS to manage intranets and extranets.
Business benefits
Information sharing is simple.
Without a client extranet, you’re likely sharing files with outside parties via email. This leads to outdated document versions, large file attachments clogging up inboxes, and important information being lost or overlooked. It can also be time consuming and irritating to search for information buried deep in email threads.
Our solution ensures all relevant information—including all versions of uploaded documents—is in one place. Add to that the indexability of a modern solution, and everyone finds what they need in a matter of seconds.
Project management is easy.
It’s simple for internal staff and third parties to collaborate within a modern extranet, including remote workers. Users can access the information and tools they need from any smartphone or mobile device, and work on common documents at their convenience.
By taking advantage of the many collaboration tools within an extranet, you can avoid having endless meetings, making phone calls, or sending emails to keep all stakeholders up to date. You can upload, store, and edit documents; assign and manage tasks, organise calendars and conference calls; make announcements; start and contribute to discussions; and quickly gather group feedback.
Documents are safe and secure.
Information is the lifeblood of any organisation. With an extranet, your important documents will be up to date and stored securely, typically with SSL encryption. A robust extranet can provide access control, enabling you to limit access to certain areas and files. It can even provide an audit trail, letting you see which users have accessed files and when.
Setup and training require little to no IT involvement.
While traditional extranet solutions were a pain to set up and maintain, modern versions don’t need IT assistance, specialized hardware, or technical knowledge. These extranets are typically cloud-based, meaning they practically maintain themselves. In addition, most are fairly intuitive, enabling users to quickly grasp how to get things done. The results are an easier-to-use platform and lower costs.
Professional branding makes a great impression.
Digital First Extranet can be personalised to your organisation’s requirements, helping you project a professional image to clients. Not only can you create a secure, online environment, but it can also be branded to streamline your customer experience and promote consistency.
Start fast with Powell Software
Digital First Extranet readies any organisation for success with an out-of-the-box product aligned with modern SharePoint. With Powell, it’s easy to get started inviting and managing external users in your external scenarios.
Our extranet solution provides a simple self-service registration portal for new users, requesting that they accept a privacy notice and already hold both a SharePoint online subscription for each internal user using the Powell Dashboards, and an Azure subscription.
You can also create your own email invitation design to invite your external stakeholders in
Book a Demo
Your content can be designed within your organisation’s brand style guide and iterations can be implemented quickly.
