Balancing Enterprise Data Demands With Security

by Ignacio Martinez on April 26, 2018
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Thanks in large part to the proliferation of enterprise collaboration tools, organizations today face a new work paradigm. These tools, coupled with other advances in technology, have made collaboration and communication easier. Simultaneously, data is now more accessible and available to more people, and more easily shared — both inside and outside of an organization  — than ever before.

At the same time, one just needs to look at any news feed to see that IT leaders and other business leaders responsible for security and compliance are facing increased scrutiny around data security and privacy, as well as a greater demand for the ability to demonstrate compliance and adherence to new regulatory issues.

These changes create competing forces in an organization. People need visibility into and access to the data and information they need to get their work done, without compromising data security or regulatory compliance.
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Solutions for the New Work Paradigm

To solve these issues, many organizations are looking to cloud-based collaborative work platforms to handle work flows between different systems of record and give users the collaboration they seek.
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In choosing a platform, it’s critical that IT and business leaders seek out solutions designed with both foundational security and robust data access controls within the platform. This means going beyond looking for a fully encrypted and secure platform to evaluate product capabilities needed to give an organization the controls needed to keep data secure.

Smartsheet was designed with both in mind.  As well as our fully encrypted and secure platform, we’ve focused equally on building administrative controls and features into our product that enable our customers to control and monitor access to and use of data within the platform. These include controls like automated provisioning, user management, and secure external collaboration controls.
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Secure and Efficient Access With Automated Provisioning

Smartsheet is designed to integrate into an enterprise’s overall provisioning routines seamlessly.  Using features within automated provisioning, administrators have better control over how users are granted or denied access to information within their instance of Smartsheet. For example, system administrators can set up approved domain sharing to restrict which domains and email addresses sheets, reports, and dashboards can be shared to.
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Effective Collaboration Without the Confusion

With many tools, it’s an “all or none” proposition when it comes to making data available to users. Smartsheet has robust usage management features which provide more granular control over who has access to sheets, reports, and dashboards, as well as who has permissions to publish and share information with others.
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Not only that, but with Smartsheet Activity Log, you can see who shared what, with whom, and when, to pinpoint data access as needed.
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Controlled External Collaboration Features

The secure external collaboration features Smartsheet has in place also help organizations control and monitor how data is shared outside of the organization. For example, anyone can respond to automated approval requests or automated update requests whether or not they have access to a sheet. These actions share only limited, contextual data with external collaborators which means that they can contribute vital information to a workflow or process without having access to all of the underlying data.
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Learn More in the Smartsheet Trust Center

The examples above are just a few ways in which Smartsheet enables your organization to control your data. Our success is built on your trust, and we’re continually evolving our product to help you address these tensions as you navigate the new paradigm of collaborative work.

Today, we launched the Smartsheet Trust Center to bring you greater visibility into our security and compliance practices, as well as other resources to help you use Smartsheet more effectively. Now you can dig deeper into how Smartsheet features are designed to meet the complex needs of all organizations, including today’s largest enterprises.

The Smartsheet Trust Center covers important topics from our in-depth security practices, to summarizing our extensive user controls, to updating you on our progress toward GDPR compliance. With all this information at your fingertips, you can spend less time worrying about security and compliance in Smartsheet, and more time running your business.

Source: Smartsheet Blog
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