IBM USA Software Announcement July 24, 2012

EntropySoft Content Hub V5.2 for IBM Enterprise Content Management provides content integration and synchronization to popular content repositories

At a glance

EntropySoft Content Hub V5.2 for IBM® Enterprise Content Management is a third-party product from EntropySoft that provides content integration and synchronization to popular content repositories.

Overview

It is common for organizations to have more than one content management system in place. With EntropySoft Content Hub V5.2 for IBM Enterprise Content Management, you can synchronize or migrate content into a master content repository.

EntropySoft Content Hub V5.2 for IBM Enterprise Content Management:

- Connects applications to content repositories providing information exchange

- Supports over 40 connectors to the most popular content repositories enabling IBM Enterprise Content Manager customers to synchronize, cross index, migrate, or access content stored in multiple repositories

- Delivers robust support for accessing and synchronizing unstructured data between an IBM Enterprise Content Manager master content repository and other content repositories such as Microsoft™ SharePoint

Description

EntropySoft Content Hub V5.2 for IBM Enterprise Content Management, built on more than 40 content connectors, is a central point of access to all company documents whether they are onsite or in the cloud. These content connectors include many of the IBM Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions as well as Alfresco, Box.net, EMC Documentum, ENOVIA MatrixOne, File Systems NTLM, FTP connector, HP Trim Context, Interwoven TeamSite, Iron Mountain Digital Safe, JCR, IBM Connections, IBM Lotus® QuickPlace® , and IBM Lotus Quickr® , Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint, Open Text Vignette, Oracle Stellent Universal CM, SAP KM, Symantec Enterprise Vault, WebDAV server, and Xerox Docushare.

Automation Content Hub provides process automation, which allows you to synchronize, cross index, migrate, or just access content between multiple repositories whether they are onsite or in the cloud.

EntropySoft Content Hub Enterprise for IBM FileNet® Content Manager:

Can be deployed in application servers such as IBM WebSphere or Oracle WebLogic Server. In a matter of hours, you can be ready to synchronize silos, integrate SharePoint with current ECM or legacy ECM applications, as well as leverage the newer cloud-based environments.

Four primary components:

EntropySoft Content Hub V5.2 for IBM Enterprise Content Management allows users and administrators to configure the process automation to synchronize, cross index, migrate, or just search and access content between multiple repositories.

EntropySoft Content Hub Webtop Enterprise for IBM Content Manager allows users and administrators to search, access, and update content from any connected repository via a central user interface.

EntropySoft Content Hub SharePoint Web parts for IBM Content Manager allows users and administrators to search access and update content from any connected repository via a central user interface running as a SharePoint Web parts.

EntropySoft Content Hub ETL Studio is a designer studio based on Eclipse and is simple to use as well as powerful with a vast set of features designed to extract, transfer, and load documents. You can design, debug, and manage a variety of jobs with a palette of more than 100 predefined tasks.

EntropySoft Content Hub V5.2 for IBM Enterprise Content Management provides the connectors for any of the supported repositories. These connectors are sold as a single unit or in packs of 5, 10, 20, or complete sets. You will need at least two connectors but can combine packs to match the number of systems you wish to connect.

Product positioning

EntropySoft Content Hub V5.2 for IBM Enterprise Content Management extends the capabilities found in IBM Content Integrator. Its primary purpose is to help connect multiple content repositories particularly Microsoft SharePoint in order to synchronize content with a IBM master content repository.

Search and Act in SharePoint

The Business Challenge

Some departments use SharePoint as their preferred workgroup interface. While SharePoint has its own content management features, it’s often necessary for departmental users to access and use documents stored and managed in other enterprise content repositories. This poses two challenges for users: they need to find and work directly with the documents housed outside of SharePoint. Without the proper tools, users need to leave SharePoint and use proprietary ECM interfaces to perform searches and editing actions. This is a slow and clumsy process that becomes even harder as more external ECM systems are added.

The EntropySoft Solution

EntropySoft’s FAST Search for SharePoint and FAST ESP Connectors allow documents from external content repositories to be included within their indexes. This means users can securely search and find documents from these external ECM systems directly from the native search bar in SharePoint. When coupled with the EntropySoft Content Hub SharePoint Edition™, users can work with and act on ECM system content as if it was stored within SharePoint. They never have to leave SharePoint to act on external documents; this means users are able to check-out, edit, and check-in documents directly from and back to the ECM system, so that external content is never duplicated. Users can access document versions and metadata, and with the appropriate permissions, they can also edit meta data or delete versions. From EntropySoft View, users experience tight integration with Microsoft Office applications and can directly edit files in the ECM system without saving local copies.

Results

When using the EntropySoft search module for FAST and SharePoint Search Server, integrating your organization's ECM systems with the SharePoint portal is straightforward. Users easily find the enterprise data they need, and can work directly in Microsoft Office, as if the data was stored within the SharePoint portal natively.

EntropySoft SharePoint Integration

SharePoint has emerged as the de facto tool for workgroup collaboration in many organizations today. It has become a favorite because of its built-in document management capabilities, support for approval processes, and tight integration with Microsoft Office desktop tools. Entire departments have come to depend on SharePoint to carry out day-to-day business processes. But the more you come to rely on SharePoint, the more that you wish all of the critical business applications in your organization were integrated into your SharePoint processes. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you could find all the documents you needed from within SharePoint — no matter where they are stored? Wouldn’t it be great if line-of-business (LoB) applications in other departments could hand off their work directly to you in your SharePoint system? Imagine if you could automatically publish content to the cloud for your mobile users in the field. What if you could keep the compliance team happy by preserving key documents automatically?

EntropySoft Content Hub SharePoint Edition™ can be a valuable tool to help you meet all of these challenges quickly and cost-effectively.

Making Single-Point-of-Access a Reality

Users who spend their time in SharePoint come to appreciate the ease with which they can quickly execute a search and find the content that they need without leaving the SharePoint user interface. With a standard SharePoint deployment, the search index only contains documents stored natively within a SharePoint document library. But what about documents stored in other departmental ECM systems such as Documentum, FileNet, or LiveLink?

Indexed Search in SharePoint

EntropySoft Content Hub™ SharePoint Edition delivers out-of-the- box integration with the SharePoint search index and more than 40 pre-built connectors to ECM, email, collaboration, and cloud-based systems. With this proven integration, SharePoint administrators can now provide their users with the ability to perform searches inside of SharePoint and return relevant results no matter where the documents are stored. With this search integration users can:

• Search for external documents using the familiar SharePoint search capability

• View abstracts and key document properties natively in the result set

• Click on search results and view the document contents in their native tool

Big productivity gains are obtained from this level of search integration since users can reference documents quickly without ever leaving SharePoint. But what if they need to act on external documents?

Going Beyond Simple Search—Search & Act in SharePoint

If your business processes require users to sign out of SharePoint and sign in other ECM tools to act on external documents, then EntropySoft’s SharePoint Web Parts provide a powerful tool to increase productivity by allowing full access to external documents from within SharePoint. Web Parts are deployed by the administrator and become an integral component of the SharePoint portal for end users. Web Parts look and feel just like native SharePoint pages and leverage EntropySoft Content Connectors™ for bi-directional access to external systems. Now, users can view full properties and checkout and edit external documents while staying in SharePoint. Tight integration between the Web Parts and MS Office allow users to launch directly into MS Word and other Office tools to edit the document in-place without having to save temporary copies.

With this capability, users can seamlessly act on their search results for convenience and gain in productivity by staying within SharePoint.

Content Process Automation For Increased Agility and Compliance

In addition to direct ‘Search & Act’ integration in the SharePoint portal, many organizations will choose another approach to connect their business processes by replicating content across silos. For organizations with complex business processes in LoB applications built on top of an ECM system, it is critical to preserve the integrity of the processes, so it may not make sense to give other departments direct access to these systems. In this case, the ability to replicate only a subset of content when business processes reach decision points or completion is the better solution.

Building in-house integrations between content silos and SharePoint is expensive and time consuming. This is a lot of proprietary system API’s to learn just to access the data. And maintaining a homegrown solution costs even more in time and effort to adapt and change as business processes morph.

EntropySoft Content Hub for SharePoint contains a powerful content process engine that connects SharePoint to over 40 ECM systems using pre-built connectors. The content process engine is able to move hundreds of thousands of documents per day between systems leveraging pre-built content process templates that contain the required business logic.

SharePoint administrators can quickly deploy and configure these pre-built content process templates to connect systems behind the scene and empower SharePoint users.

EntropySoft’s prebuilt and configurable process templates can:

• Migrate content from legacy LoB applications to SharePoint

• Bi-directionality synchronize selected content between SharePoint and ECM systems

• Publish content to cloud-based ECM systems like Office365 and Box for mobile access

• Archive important content from SharePoint to an external ECM system for compliance

Content Hub SharePoint Edition provides enormous benefit for organizations that use SharePoint for workgroup collaboration, by reducing the time, complexity and cost of providing a single point of access, and easily integrating SharePoint with LoB applications and the cloud.

Cloud ECM Integration for Cloud-Based Applications

As more companies become interested in cloud-based solutions, software application vendors have answered the call by providing easy to use and highly scalable enterprise applications such as customer relationship management (CRM), sales force automation (SFA), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and other compelling applications in the cloud. These cloud apps help enterprises achieve savings in software license, hardware purchasing, and IT administration. But the Achilles heel of cloud-based applications is integration with existing business processes to deliver a complete solution. Enterprise application customers have likely invested heavily in on-premises ECM and collaboration systems to manage documents, support collaboration between departments, and automate business processes. So how can an enterprise customer maximize its investment in on-premises and cloud-based ECM and integrate the cloud-based application with other line of business functions?

The key to delivering this comprehensive integration for immediate business value is to connect directly with the core systems with critical day-to-day business processes and create a single-point-of-access to all the silos of an organization through the cloud.

Embedding EntropySoft Content Connectors™ in cloud-based applications makes it possible for enterprise application customers to work with all documents stored behind their firewall within the context of the cloud-based application. Users can find, view, update, create, delete documents and metadata from the application as if they were stored in the cloud. EntropySoft delivers the ability to:

• Unify scattered content through cloud-based applications as a single bi-directional access point for true content interoperability and dynamic information management

• Connect securely to on-premises ECM systems from the cloud

• Deliver connectivity that is easy to deploy, manage, and scale in a multi-tenant cloud environment

How does EntropySoft make this possible?

• Pre-built connectors that expose a single bidirectional API for 40+ ECM systems including SharePoint, Documentum, FileNet, OpenText, and leading cloud-based ECM such as Box and Office365

• Integrate once, in a matter of weeks, and deploy any or all of the connectors

• Comprehensive API to allow any software vendor to integrate documents in the context of its application, creating a seamless and more productive user experience

• Immediate business process integration with existing ECM-based processes

• Users connect to on-premises ECM systems as themselves, so that it is always known who is accessing ECM content and owning the documents uploaded through the cloud

• ECM system administrators are satisfied since all access from the cloud is done according to policies established in the on-premises ECM system

EntropySoft’s 40 pre-built content connectors allow enterprise software application vendors to integrate cloud-based applications with cloud-based ECM and on-premises ECM systems to unlock their customer’s content silos and deliver effective business process integration.

Box ECM Cloud Connect — Powered by EntropySoft

Box ECM Cloud Connect™ is powerful content integration software that provides purpose-built connectivity between Box, SharePoint, and 40+ enterprise content management (ECM)systems. It connects Box with your content silos behind the firewall and leverages pre-built content process templates that immediately provide business value by automatically synchronizing systems. Box ECM Cloud Connect software deploys easily and quickly as a virtual appliance and comes with easy to manage services.

Highlights

• SharePoint users benefit from transparent connection to Box while working in the SharePoint environment

• Immediate value with bi-directional connectors for Box, SharePoint, and 40+ ECM Systems

• Box ECM Cloud Connect software deploys easily and quickly as a virtual appliance with easy to manage services

Business Benefits

• Enable content sharing and collaboration beyond the firewallwith partners, suppliers, and customers

• Enable content to be accessed and updated on mobile devices

• Provide two-way synch so external updates are reflected on internal repositories

Features & Benefits

Purpose-Built Connectivity

• 40+ Connectors to normalize more applications: connecting all your unstructured content to Box is easy with 40+ bi-directional connectors that redefine interoperability and revolutionize information access

• Gain access to critical content information: access to all of the critical content, metadata, and access permissions

• Ensure security integrity: ECM system security is maintained because Box connects using standard API’s that never bypass underlying security mechanisms

Full Integration with SharePoint

• Get Mobilized: access from any device—iPad, iPhone, and more. Mobile users enjoy all the benefits that Box provides: access without VPN’s from Smart Phones, and tablets—with content from SharePoint

• Any new doc is published to the cloud—automatically. New documents added to SharePoint are automatically published to Box with no extra steps

• Integrate Box with existing SharePoint workflow: integrate with existing SharePoint approval workflows, automatically publish documents to Box once approved

• Integrate your Virtual Deal room with SharePoint: create an integrated Virtual Deal Room in Box when you connect your on-premises SharePoint system using the pre-built process template

• Securely connect employees, customers and business partners: business users can share documents outside of the firewall with business partners and customers, seamlessly integrating with existing SharePoint business processes hidden behind the firewall

• Improved drafting and collaboration management: new drafts and doc redlines are securely and automatically synchronized between SharePoint and Box

Easy to Deploy and Manage

• No need for complex software, just download and go; simply download and deploy the virtual appliance to get started

• Quick configuration with built-in web interface for connectivity to Box, SharePoint, Documentum, and 40+ ECM systems

• Point and click content process templates: deploy, start, monitor, and stop with a simple point and click

• Enterprise authentication integration: integrate quickly with systems like Active Directory using prebuilt interfaces

• Automatic upgrades with virtual appliance: you are always running the most recent version of connectors and the content process framework

• At-a-glance Dashboard that summarizes the flow of content to and from Box

B2B Document Exchange with Box

The Business Challenge

Businesses have built elaborate defenses around internal IT assets to defend against security threats. Firewalls are a necessity, but they come with restrictive consequences. How do you work with suppliers like marketing agencies? How do you work with customers and partners on proposals and contracts? How do your execs work with the Board? Exchanging documents on paper is slow, clumsy, and expensive. Emailing documents is faster, but it strains email storage capacity, exposes your company to security risks, and is hard to manage. To address these issues, more companies are adopting Business-to- Business (B2B) Document Exchanges with cloud vendors to solve this fundamental access problem by creating a site outside of their corporate firewall where documents can be securely exchanged with partners under controlled conditions.

Part of the answer lies with cloud-based B2B document exchanges or virtual data rooms that are ideally suited to solving the direct access problem when sharing sensitive documents with business partners. They provide a secure location where the most current contracts, quotes, proposals, or engineering specifications can be shared. These solutions provide content management functionality to manage document versions and reviewer comments, while they limit access to approved parties. You and your partners can safely upload and download individual documents. Instead of attaching documents, links to new revisions of documents can be emailed securely without risk or storage bloat. This solves the access problem, but not the problem of integrating with existing business processes.

On-premise ECM and collaboration systems like Documentum and SharePoint have been widely adopted by organizations to manage critical documents and govern internal processes. Many companies have invested in workflow and approval processes built onto on-premises ECM systems to automate and govern how business operates on a daily basis. So how do you connect your internal systems to the cloud to further maximize your investments?

The EntropySoft Solution

Box ECM Cloud Connect™, a Box offering that is powered by EntropySoft Content Hub™, lets you link the on-premises content solutions in your business to the Box cloud. For businesses with traditional content platforms, like SharePoint or Documentum, the Box ECM Cloud Connect offering makes it easy to synchronize or transfer data to and from Box. This means your investment in on-premises ECM systems is protected and your internal processes can be connected to the cloud transparently and quickly.

Outcomes

Box ECM Cloud Connect’s prebuilt content process template, Sync to Box, automatically pushes new and revised documents from your on-premises ECM system to Box. New and revised documents in Box are automatically pushed back to your on-premises ECM system. Manual uploads and insecure emails are avoided, increasing the effectiveness of collaboration with partners. Now there is no need to disrupt existing business processes to leverage the power of Box as a B2B document exchange.

EntropySoft Exchange and SharePoint Connectors Now Compatible with Microsoft Office 365 Cloud-Offering

EntropySoft’s Cloud-Friendly Connectors Enable Exchange and SharePoint Users To Simplify Information Exchange To and From the Cloud

EntropySoft, the content integration company, announced that its best selling Exchange and SharePoint connectors are now compatible with Office 365, the Microsoft cloud offering. Software vendors, IT services companies and organizations alike can use the exact same EntropySoft Connectors to connect to either hosted or cloud versions of Exchange and SharePoint.

EntropySoft Connectors integrate on-site applications with Office 365 to easily move data to and from the cloud for greater information access, managed content processes and archiving. When used in conjunction with Content Hub Professional or Enterprise Editions, any transfer of content to and from Office 365 is possible.

“Companies are looking to the cloud to reduce their information management complexity as well as reduce costs. Increasingly, Microsoft customers are moving to Office 365 to achieve these goals,” said Nicolas Maquaire, CEO of EntropySoft. “EntropySoft’s Microsoft Connectors meet the content integration needs of companies using either the hosted or cloud versions of Exchange and SharePoint. And we are pleased to add them to our other SharePoint and Office-oriented products – all designed to help companies make the most of their SharePoint deployment.”

The EntropySoft Exchange Connector connects to mailboxes and public folders, has read/write capacity and supports all the item types exposed by Exchange web services including calendar, contacts, distribution lists, messages, posts, and tasks.
The “repository discovery” feature does dynamic mailbox discovery, allowing a single connector configuration for all mailboxes saving huge amounts of time and reducing complexity. The EntropySoft SharePoint Connector supports all SharePoint lists including document libraries, calendar, tasks, issues, discussion boards, contacts, and more, all SharePoint objects, and offers a read/write feature. Connecting to a SharePoint site gives you access to all site content, and sub-site content. The connector also has a “repository discovery” feature providing automatic access to all site collections in a farm.
Both connectors are designed to be easily integrated into third-party applications and expose the same API as all of EntropySoft’s more than 40 other connectors.

These two new cloud connectors further enhance EntropySoft’s support of Microsoft environments, improving SharePoint user’s ability to search and act on all of a company’s content. Recently, EntropySoft announced Content Hub 5.2 for increased interoperability across the enterprise with new Microsoft Office desktop integration and SharePoint portal web parts to enhance the end-user experience. Enabling access to more than 40 content management systems through the web parts, SharePoint users can access and work with the connected content management systems to create, modify or delete documents, change permissions and metadata in the 40+ supported systems (EMC Documentum, IBM FileNet, Oracle UCM, among others). All this is done through a normalized SharePoint experience.