One stop cloud for all your syncing, sharing and collaborating needs

Box is an online cloud-based content management software that is particularly helpful when you need to store, edit and share all your data and documents from one place. We have a business account with Box and have been using the same since more than a year. It is fairly simple to use, with updates coming out once in a while showcasing new features. The software interfaces seamlessly with the office suite (Office 365 or others), therefore allowing users to use it via their computer, and not necessarily through the website or app. However, it does consume tons of storage space on your computer, therefore I'd definitely recommend only syncing the files to be used rather than syncing all folders you're collaborating on. Box is undoubtedly a great tool for virtual teams collaborating from different locations as sharing, uploading and syncing data is simple and stress-free. My team and I literally work through Box all day, and are always on the same page when it comes to our projects, as each one of us can view the other's uploaded documents on Box and continue working on the same. Additionally, managing and filing documents in one secure storage have become uncomplicated. For us, it reduces the chances of repeating the same work and error. of course, error; and also saving precious time not looking for files and folders all over.

Pros

Box allows users to upload all kinds of files of different formats (documents, images, video, drawing packages, zipped folders etc.) to its webpage (or app on phone/tablet) with ease. These uploaded documents can be shared with relevant team members, while also keeping them private from others where necessary. Shareable with the help of the link, Box files are easy to update, one can either edit in the browser itself or download to do the same. It is easy to track the activity of users, like who has viewed, downloaded and edited the files. This is a great tool when collaborating with colleagues through the web as all changes in a particular document/content are updated in real time and everybody working on that project can track changes and updates.
I consider Box to be a reliable, simplified and secure software that I am able to utilize abundantly on a daily basis with my team. It is accessible anywhere and everywhere with a stable internet connection. One can simply drag and drop files and folders to Box and it will get uploaded instantly. This works wonders when you are out of office (for example, site or travelling) and your team needs to access the documents you've been working on or vice versa.
Also, it is possible to have Box sync (as a standalone app) set up on your computer and aids easy syncing without the need to log in every time.

Cons

When compared to its competitors (Google Drive/OneDrive), Box does look a bit unappealing owing to its price tag. It offers four plans, the most inexpensive one being Standard (for personal use I presume), followed by Business, Business Plus and Enterprise. Small and medium-sized firms can make do with the average priced Business and Business Plus offerings. However, I don't think that I would invest in it if for my personal use.
Secondly, for files such as .dwg and .rar do not open as a preview and have to be downloaded for viewing. This poses a problem for me as I have to review large drawing packages and downloading them just for review is quite a hassle. Would love if these little aspects are fixed for the upcoming updates.

Easy file sharing from desk, laptop, phone...

I love Box and tell everyone I interview about Box. We are a 70% remote group and depend on Box for sharing information and collaborating on projects. Applicants ask, "How do you manage a dispersed work force?" and "How do people maintain a sense of team?" "Box," I say, "is a big component."

Pros

1. Sharing files is simple, no matter who you want to share with and no matter from what device. You can share a document with someone inside or outside of the organization without giving up control of the document. No need for someone outside of the organization to upload any software in order to access the shared document.
2. As an HR professional I find Box to be a great tool for collaborating with hiring managers. I set up a system for resume sorting that allows hiring managers to see just those resumes selected for their review, and allows the manager to move the candidates ahead in the hiring process, or not, as desired. I can then take action based on their actions in Box. It's very efficient. As a small business we do not need expensive, extensive stand-alone software for applicant tracking. Box allows us to record our decision making process
3. Largely intuitive, but in case you need a bit of help, the webinars and how-to videos are very easy to follow.
4. I can access, read and send documents from my phone. Very helpful for those moments at the beach when you realize you forgot to send a document to your boss. It's happened.

Cons

1. I work mostly from an old Mac. I find some of the interface less smooth than from my PC. For example, when I create a Word doc within Box while using my Mac, the Mac defaults to Text Edit instead of Word. I suspect that's user error, though.

Box for personal or office digital storage

Box continues to amaze and survive given the steep competition out there. Its main selling point for us is the boost in confidence as regards its super security features and data loss prevention.

Pros

There are many things to love about Box. For one, its Business plans come with unlimited storage! We started out with Free just to try it, then moved to Starter then Business (as we needed more than 10 users on board). It's worth it esp for small to medium-sized businesses looking for a secure place for storage with tons of extra features for both admin and security.

The 5GB upload is enough for the big multimedia and other iso/archive files we have.

For our admin, the integration with our Active Directory saved us from having to require our users to create/maintain an extra account (user/password) for Box. We are also proud to announce to our team about its security features like SSL, encryption, and even two-factor authentication for the meticulous.
Although​ we haven't had the need for the DLP (Data Loss Prevention) that Box advertises, we are happy that this is part of our subscription and gives a little extra boost of confidence with our files.

The corporate logo can also be incorporated into the platform to make it personalized according to your company's branding scheme.

Box also offers a ton of possible integrations. So far what we use are integrations with Google Suite (e.g., docs), Salesforce (CRM), and MS Office 365. This makes it easy for users​ to create content is our usual platforms and then easily save and manage them in Box.

Cons

We have quite a number of staff who already use other online storage platforms (Dropbox, Google Drive). Note that Non-Box users can only access files as Read-Only... in which case our people really had to be forced to create an account for edit purposes and collaboration.

Solid enterprise tool with surprising productivity and innovation gains

I run Box for over 100K users in a large university. Box is built for the enterprise. It has very solid security, good user management and an extremely small support footprint. There are consumer tools that might beat Box on some individual features, but cannot hold a candle to Box when held up to the needs and realities of a large enterprise. Box is platform and vendor agnostic. It has solid mobile apps and 3rd party integrations. The API is strong and improving all the time. Box can be the content layer for both internal and externally-facing applications. We signed on to Box to bring our IP back in from consumer tools. It has largely accomplished that but it has additional surprising results. We've seen some very creative innovations in research collaboration, teaching and administration. The productivity gains have been far greater than expected. Box is a bit of a paradigm shift for users. Those who never ventured into consumer cloud tools such as Dropbox need to learn about basic cloud concepts of where their data is backed up. IT professionals need to get their heads around Box's permission model as well as deal with the loss of direct user management and support. Having said that, the overall support footprint is startling low. We average 5 technical tickets a week on Box for over 100K users. Most of our support time is on training and consulting to help users get the most out of the tools Box provides. The bottom line is that Box has proven to be very solid and flexible. Our users have really taken it and run with it.

Pros

Strong security. Data ownership model. Flexibility of collaboration and sharing options. Platform and vendor agnostic. Good administrative controls. Reasonably good reporting. Reasonably good APIs. Ease of use for end users. It's been great watching the creativity and innovation of the users. They've found ways to do things with Box we never imagined when we signed on.

Cons

The desktop sync is different than and technically inferior to that of Dropbox, the consumer tool most users are familiar with in this space. We anticipate this change when Box for Desktop is released in 2017. We'd also like to see the maximum file size increase. I'd like to see improvements in the administrative reporting. Many users have trouble getting their head around Box's waterfall permission model, particularly IT professionals. It's different than what they are used to. It ads an impediment to the retirement of NFS.

Box - a secure, collaborative platform for all connected users

I've been been a Box customer for about four years. During that time we've gone from a limited POC to a large scale international rollout. We've found Box to be very responsive both from a support standpoint and in terms of listening to their customers regarding features and needs. The primary reason we initially chose Box was because of the outstanding security framework which was at the core of the initial offering and continues to be a key focus for Box. The management and governance features allowed us to roll it out to a geographically diverse group of employees with the assurance that their data would be secure and would remain secure. Our initial need was to centrally replicate data from an international location. Based on the success of that POC, we've been able to replicate that success in a number of international locations and delay or eliminate the need for physical systems and storage that had previously been a part of our technology deployment.

Pros

Security is still my favorite feature - I have the confidence that our data is secure and will remain secure. Box meets a number of US based and international security regulations and data compliance requirements, Box makes governance and compliance easy.
Notifications based on file changes or folder changes have allowed us to create "instant workflows" to quickly move data from a variety of locations in the hands of a number of users. This has allowed us to create a system where data is not only securely stored, but able to be quickly acted upon by a geographically diverse group of staff.
Rolling Box seats out to new users is easy, and Box makes a wide variety of training materials available to its users to help them leverage the features.

Cons

There's not much to dislike - the feature set is good and continues to grow. If there is a downside, it is that - like all cloud based solutions - connectivity is required, and that can sometimes be a challenge for my organization is some of the remote international locations where we work.

Box

All in all, Box has proven substantially beneficial for the university and for faculty to access materials of a general nature in a more efficient way and though I have not seen the actual numbers myself, I suspect that offloading all of the staff time and energy that went into maintaining and training people to monitored those previous on-campus servers was a price efficient move as well. Equally important in a time of fiscal belt-tightening.

Pros

My university decided to replace its archaic system of various collective departmental, college, and institution drives and servers with Box. It is a thousand times easier to access from a variety of locations, at almost any time, using almost any communicative medium you wish to employ. In the 21st century the modern mobile educational facility and educator lives and dies on the capacity to not just amass data and research and information but also to retrieve and manipulate it at remote locales in a secure, rapid way.

Cons

The biggest challenge is that Box has, like many modern softwares, engineered a number of plug ins. I have found that the reliability and functionality of these varies. for example, the general BoxSync application works perfectly but then there is a Box application for Windows 8 and another for Windows 10 which are "store apps" which are not as good at syncing and it is possible you might have both kinds of applications on your machine and that is rather confusing for the user since they have different interfaces and the syncing between them is not as transparent as one might expect. There is a page of these plugins and their descriptions overlap substantially and so it's not always clear which application you should employ in conjunction with your general Box.

I use Box for department and personal document storage through manual uploads, emails, and syncing.

With this product, I can securely save and store my documents. They can be accessed from anywhere. I can share them with colleagues and setup folders with access for multiple users. Through our reporting software, I can easily email documents to Box folders to be uploaded.

Pros

I like the versatility for uploading and downloading files. Files can be uploaded by dragging them into the folder in a web browser. You can also allow them to be uploaded through email. When this is activated, a unique email address is created. Any attachments in emails sent to that address are uploaded to that folder. We use our reporting software to send reports to these folders. Within this folder, uniquely named documents can replace existing ones or be added in addition to the original.
Files can also be uploaded through synced folders. I use this to store all of my work documents. Any file in this folder is synced with the online folder.
The Box files can easily be accessed from any web browser or through the mobile app. Ours is placed behind our firewall. With the mobile app, you can also create offline versions of documents for easy access without internet access.
Downloading can be completed easily though the app or online. Individual files can be downloaded one at a time or en mass as a zip file.

Cons

I am pretty happy with this product. The only thing that I would prefer is the ability to download multiple files at once as separate files instead of being downloaded as a zip file.

Enabling mobility, collaboration, and delivering that securely.

There are many services if you are looking for a place to dump data. But what makes Box the best, are all the features that they layer on top of that. Collaboration, sync, edit, Office integration, great mobile apps, policies, preview, workflows, automations, and more. At my company we have been able to leverage many of these features to meet specific needs of our end users that we would not have been able to easily meet with our existing resources or traditional platforms. We have been able to really leverage the platform to enable our users to gather data all over the world on almost any platform and then have staff anywhere else in the world act on that data. This has increased our response time tremendously over traditional platforms like email and FTP. Box can really be a tool in your tool chest that can solve many problems.

Pros

The features I have found to be most helpful over other cloud storage platforms are:

1) Collaboration just not that it exists, but it is easy and user friendly. Allowing data that is necessary to be worked on to be brought to the surface

2) Security focus on compliance, encryption, enterprise grade management

3) 3rd Party Integrations allowing for Box to truly be a platform to be used with other software.

4) Mobile apps, very strong and easy to use

Cons

There are still some management features I would like to see improved, giving more control to IT. There is a good bit here, but could use a bit more.

What the cloud pros use...

Box is the best of breed cloud system in the EFSS (Gartner) space. The natural progression from startup to unicorn company is: 1. Google Drive (max free space) but applications are worthless for Accountants, 2. OneDrive (comes with O365 but doesn't play well with others like NetSuite and SFDC) and need a SharePoint site managed/integrated to get real value 3. Dropbox (great customer features but doesn't play well with others and lacks unlimited storage) 4. Box --best of breed but not the cheapest

Pros

1. Enterprise Edition with unlimited storage plan costs roughly $35/month. For a mature organization spending a large amount on servers/admins for those servers, this is very affordable.
2. Ability to model sharing between departments is priceless. Literally changes the way an organization behaves with information sharing if configured properly (silo killer).
3. Customer service is second to none.
4. Native integration with other cloud apps that charge additional fees for storage quotas. This includes NetSuite, SFDC and Workfront and many more.
5. MetaSearch on Enterprise allows granular searching. Every time someone has ever used a single word is indexed -- INSIDE the documents stored.

Cons

1. More of a learning curve for users because of more features.
2. More robust administrative functionality also requires more learning.
3. Not the cheapest cloud solution out there - but you get what you pay for.

Box in Easy to Use Efficient File Storage Software

Pros

Box is used by everybody in the company for a very easy to use file storage system. The company is 100+ employees in the construction industry. We store each project in its own specific folder with everything related in this. This makes my life easier by being able to pull up blueprints or files from any device I am on. I work out of 4 different locations and so local storage would not be possible for this.

Box is easily integrated onto your desktop for localized access on the computer. Anytime you make a change from your computer it will update the files in the cloud. We have over 20 people that access the files for the project and we are able to assign roles to anybody accessing the files. Some might be only able to open the files and other we can allow editing of the documents.

Share large files is as simple as right-clicking and copying a link for the file location. You do not need to go through the web portal in order to share folders or documents.

Box is probably one of the best enterprise level cloud storage solutions for a business.

Cons

I wish to allow the administrator to have a log of changes and able to temporarily access deleted files. I sometimes have people make mistakes or changes and it would be useful to see who moved a file or deleted a file. However, it does show you the last user to save a file just not a log of deleted documents. I have also had a worker delete important documents that we were not able to retrieve on an administrator level.