Introduction
The explosion of the use of mobile devices in the enterprise and the need to enable workers to be more productive with these devices is one of the biggest challenges — and opportunities — of the modern workplace. And to make things more complex, the need to understand, value, and deliver relevant content to all users is affecting the rollout of mobile and fixed devices throughout the enterprise. Content is originating from a wide variety of sources, including the Internet, corporate file shares, document management systems, records management systems, personal file sharing platforms, and personal computers — and it’s being created and modified at a staggering rate.
Enabling users to access this content on an increasingly diverse range of devices, both fixed and mobile, is being addressed by a number of competing and complementary technologies; including but not limited to personal and corporate file sharing systems, remote access technologies, and structured document management systems. Gaining access to content is only the first milestone. The journey to improve mobile workforce productivity must focus on end-user enablement, providing the right content, coupled with a compelling user interface and a suite of productivity tools for working with content will ensure the success of a mobile deployment initiative.
Enabling users to increase productivity is achieved not by simply providing access to unstructured content, but rather by flexible, relevant, timely consumption of and interaction with information. The process of organizing content has traditionally been a manual task performed by specialist users with specific content knowledge. However, these specialist skills are difficult to maintain, and often, the resulting content does not make allowances for real world information preferences, relevancy, delivery timeframe, and usage.
What Is It?
bigtincan hubTM is a system for delivering secure, relevant content, documents and information to large numbers of users on smart mobile devices, HTML5 capable web browsers and traditional desktop/lap-top computers. Running as a native smart device app on platforms including iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows, the solution links with advanced server side controls to push information and content to devices based on the role of individuals, group memberships or other corporate structures. With bigtincan hub, content is flexible, allowing the delivery of — and interaction with — a wide variety of content types including files and folders, web links, HTML5 apps, MS Office documents, Apple Pages, Numbers & Keynote content, forms, interactive videos and more, including the ability to deliver live content feeds (RSS and Social feeds) to smart mobile devices.
bigtincan hub users have the ability to interact with, edit, view, annotate and create directly within the platform. With highly secure off-line access and integration to other mainline enterprise business systems, bigtincan hub is a core part of the most important business processes. With built in Content IntelligenceSM,
Who Is It For?
bigtincan hub enables organizations to take advantage of the mobility revolution through the secure delivery of content and information resources to mobile devices in a manner that users enjoy. bigtincan hub Content Intelligence provides insight into the usage and value of content, with detailed information and analytics capabilities that will help
organizations optimize their content. bigtincan hub Content Intelligence allows organizations to unlock the knowledge that exists inside their teams and share expertise across the entire organization. bigtincan hub is designed to help organizations of all sizes take advantage of the opportunity to increase employee productivity by leveraging mobile devices, and to do it in a way that everybody finds easy to use.
bigtincan hub supports mobile devices running on Apple® iOS for iPad® and iPhone®, AndroidTM phone and tablet, Windows® Tablets and Computers and the web through the bigtincan hub webapp. bigtincan hub puts mobile content enablement technology in reach for organization of all sizes.
Leading independent technology research firm IDC forecasts worldwide shipments of 270 million tablet devices in 2014. Forrester Research, another leading independent technology and market research firm, predicts explosive sales growth over the next five years, with over 905 million devices in use by 2017.
Why Do Users Need bigtincan hub?
Traditional methods used to deliver corporate information have not kept pace with the mobile revolution and are hindering productivity gains seen elsewhere when enterprises embrace mobile technologies. Solutions like Intranets, portals, simple document sharing systems and existing corporate document management systems are not able to effectively deliver internal company information in a useable fashion for the mobile workforce. This information can include rich media, file structured information, or embrace Internet and social media in a way that encourages the standard corporate user to engage and improve work effectiveness.
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Media Tablet Shipments by Region World Market Forecast: 2009 - 2016
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Middle East and Africa
Eastern Europe Western Europe Latin America North America Asia-Pacific Source: xxx Research
Why Microsoft SharePoint and Other Intranets Just Don’t Cut It
Microsoft® SharePoint (and other Intranet platforms) just don’t cut it for the mobile worker on a smartphone or tablet (check out Marc Anderson’s Blog for a view of what we mean). They are not delivering the productivity and content sharing gains for desktop users that were promised in return for the large investment required for their deployment.The Reasons Are Twofold:
1. Current Intranets don’t work on current and future generation mobile devices like the iPad (it’s the same on Android tablets, the Playbook and even Windows Phone). When you are mobile you are faced with the functionality realities of the OS platform (try using mobile Safari on a SharePoint site), as well as with network availability issues (not always there when you need it). 2. Today’s Intranets are not designed
with the goal of simply delivering company information to workers — mobile or not. Users who are responding to the new interface models in their daily life, delivered through devices like the iPad, are looking for corporate systems that work in the same way: Systems that deliver the right information at the right time in a way that people want to engage and interact with.
Multi-Channel Based Content Distribution
bigtincan hub is much more than just another file sharing system, it’s a dynamic content delivery and structuring system based on Channels of content that define information into understandable, relevant and functional structures. This story-based structure lets users send grouped files and other information in a content bundle that is then sent to the device as a single package of content.
Using a content-based paradigm is the best way to allow users to get the files and content they need grouped in the right way, ready to go.
File Types Supported Include:
Adobe PDF (including encrypted PDF)
Microsoft Office (doc/docx, ppt/pptx, xls/xlsx) Apple Pages, Numbers & Keynote files
Videos (mp4, MOV, and even WMV) MP3, podcasts Microsoft Project ebooks HTML Local HTML5 Microsoft VISIO Adobe InDesign and more
Content bundles are composed using an intuitive user interface that allows users (and administrators) to edit and delete individual content pieces, and combine or structure Stories in the way they need them with the ease of drag and drop. These structures can be made up of a mix of files, text, images, and more all combined into a single logical structure.
Much More Than a File Listing: True Multi-Channel
Content Presentation
Often enterprises are faced with simply presenting a directory and file listing to users to deliver secure documents. With bigtincan hub, files are sent in a content structure that keeps all relevant content together with the ability to edit and update on the fly.
The system presents content in a “multichannel” environment where users can group content into “sections,” such as news, documents, forms, etc.
MyChannel
In addition to channel level rights management, bigtincan hub features a unique “MyChannel” system that allows content to be delivered directly to individuals based on their functional role. This system is unique in that it allows a user to be given specific rights to send content only to an individual user or a group of users based on the device and user rights set in the system.
MyChannel is easy to use and delivers a system where any user in the organization can send secure content to their device. The content in MyChannel automatically and transparently downloads to the device, and is made instantly available for users. MyChannel lets corporate IT get users into an organized structure for mobile content sharing, and away from insecure and unmanageable consumer file sharing tools.
User-Based Content Control
bigtincan hub has the industry’s easiest to use content rights management system. Each user and group can be given rights to view and/or publish content by the Administrator. With integrated reporting you can get a complete audit trail of who made what changes and forwarded content to which users at any time. The bigtincan hub policy-based user controls extend the security paradigm past the firewall and directly to
the content. By leveraging advanced features, such as geo-fencing and content expiry, the enterprise has an effective means to combat the erosion of traditional
network topology-based security controls (i.e., the corporate firewall stops everything) that simply do not translate
to the mobile enterprise.
Connection to the Outside World
bigtincan hub pushes feeds to users based on user groups, structure inside the organization and the relevancy of the feeds to the users. These feeds include content from the outside world, such as RSS feeds, social feeds, twitter hash tag search and other specially prepared content.
The user doesn’t need to program the app, add URLs, login to social sites, etc. Content is delivered automatically, accessed seamlessly and presented logically.
Advanced File Reading
bigtincan hub includes the ability to read documents on a mobile device as they were meant to be viewed. Users can read, update, make annotations, edit Microsoft Office documents (with Track
Changes support), read eBooks, listen to corporate podcasts, send comments on documents and more – inside a mobile first-designed interface that understands how users work with their content — while retaining corporate oversight over how the content can be accessed, used and shared. Corporate IT can control and even remove the ability to use the “open in” command to open documents in other external editors. You can even search for text inside files, view Content pages, watch videos full screen, view animated PowerPoint presentations or beam them to Apple TV ... and much more.
Extendable Features Through Native HTML5
bigtincan hub allows the easy publishing of HTML5 content right alongside files and other content types. This allows for the ultimate extendibility of the solution including the ability to publish:
Integrated HTML forms
Advanced Widgets including animated content types Direct links to open other native apps on device
Integrated API links to back end systems like SAP, Oracle and more Other HTML5 content as published by the organization
The structure of bigtincan hub means that features and functions can be added as required without a complete rewrite of the system.
A Personal Workspace for Users
Just because a user is being provisioned with a corporate-owned mobile device, doesn’t mean that they don’t need access to their personal content that may reside on consumer cloud file sharing services. According to industry expert Mark Hachman, over 95% of Fortune 500 users have Dropbox accounts, breaking many corporate security and content governance control policies. The challenge for corporate IT has been how to regain control over content and intellectual property, while enabling the line of business to get work done quickly, effectively and in a way that drives engagement on a mobile device.
With bigtincan hub, the mobile device becomes the new personal workspace, allowing users to have even more powerful access to, and management of, their personal content. Personal workspace allows users to create folders, rename/delete/duplicate files, move content between Cloud Storage and multiple folders, and more from inside their own personal workspace.
Our Place or Yours
The server component of bigtincan hub can be hosted in the cloud or on a virtual machine in your own corporate environment, depending on cost and security preferences.
bigtincan hub and its server component offer the ultimate security for document management. bigtincan hub uses a content store architecture, where content is added dynamically to a server and referenced from a database. Client devices use secure APIs to interrogate the database and are then referenced to files on the file server. These files are then retrieved and displayed on the client device. A standard bigtincan hub architecture design for managing secure content is shown below.
Content inside bigtincan hub can be encrypted on the device, the system administrator can enforce a user PIN for access to the application, users can have access locked to a specific device, and more.
Flexible Deployment Options
bigtincan hub is ideally suited for flexible corporate network deployment. You can deploy bigtincan hub to your devices using a Private App Store, using other standard in-house mobile device management (MDM) systems, or just download the free client from the Apple AppStore or Google Play store.
bigtincan hub offers both a cloud-based service provided by bigtincan and the option to use an in-house on-premises server. The on-premise or “private server” option allows an organization to host the system behind their firewall to meet their particular corporate security and control objectives.
Integration
bigtincan hub can be setup as an easy-to-use standalone system, enabling “out of the box” operation, or it can be integrated using bigtincan’s OpenPublisher APIs into larger corporate
document management systems like SharePoint, salesforce.com, Alfresco, Documentum and others. Native API integration combined with pushed and remotely rendered HTML5 offers IT teams the ultimate flexibility for integrating secure mobile content delivery into their core IT systems.
Microsoft SharePoint
The bigtincan hub plugin for Microsoft SharePoint lets the SharePoint administrator easily create
structures allowing both the automatic syncing of any changes in documents published to SharePoint and the individual publishing of selected SharePoint content directly to iOS, Android and HTML5
based systems.
Unlike other tools that simply provide a touch interface to SharePoint, bigtincan’s systems approach enables SharePoint administrators and users to publish, sync and mix content from SharePoint with content from other sources, including both alternative content publishing systems, and even local file access from the users hard drive or network drive.
Security Benefits
1. Secure protocol use – The system is based on SSL communications, encrypting the link that
end-user devices use to get access to the server.
2. File obfuscation – Files are not stored using their original file names. All files uploaded to the
server are obfuscated.
3. Internal content store – The content store server can be hosted in the secure bigtincan cloud or
internally, behind the corporate firewall and other secure private network access restrictions. With the creation of an internal content store, the enterprise can control access to data for its employees and approved external parties. All content stored on the server is encrypted and access is
controlled through user authentication.
4. Ability to remote wipe – The bigtincan hub server can initiate a remote wipe of content from devices
automatically over the air. This allows the organization to immediately remove content, including both read and unread, from the device in real time. This system works even if the user has the bigtincan hub application open and is engaged in the content to be deleted. This process also allows for live-editing content, with new content replacing existing content on device.
5. Selected content cache of file attachments – bigtincan hubs offer the option of providing device-side
content cache for file attachments. Organizations that choose to disable content cache forces a reload of file content each time the user accesses it, ensure that no secure content is on a lost or stolen device.
6. Two-factor authentication – bigtincan uses a unique device identifier to identify the specific
device that a user is using to access the content store. It is possible to whitelist devices that are usable on the system and tie them to a user account and to select which content is delivered to each device. This gives the ability for the end system to deliver specific content to a unique device.
7. Jailbreak detection – bigtincan hub incorporates technology to work with Apple iOS-delivered
encryption to detect “jailbroken” iOS devices, and “rooted” devices on Android. This secure structure controls highly sensitive content and ensures that the organization does not expose secure content to devices that have been compromised.
8. Network access control – The system allows network access to be controlled to a specific set of IP
addresses, ensuring that only approved users are able to access the server and engage with content.
9. Content expiry - Content pieces can be automatically removed from the device based on an expiry
time set. Want to automatically remove restricted documents after the board meeting? Just set the expiry date, and they will be removed automatically from all the devices with no
10. Location based content controls – Content can be tied to a location determined either by a GPS co-ordinate (Lat/Long) and radius, or by micro-location systems like iBeacons, allowing users to only get access to the content when they are in a particular area.
11. Device whitelisting – bigtincan hub can allow the administrator to white list a set of devices and
map those devices to a particular user thus enabling them to control which users can access the content from which devices. It’s the ultimate way to ensure that only the right people get access to the right content.
Device-Side Security Benefits
Using bigtincan hub with secure mobile devices enables increased security:
1. For Apple iOS, bigtincan hub creates secure file access for each application on the device. Based on Apple documentation, without explicit user instruction is it not possible to obtain access to content in one application from another application. Secure content sent to bigtincan hub cannot be viewed by other apps without user instruction, although this ability can be removed.
2. Android devices that provide hardware encryption (for example, most Samsung devices) can be remotely controlled to ensure encryption is enabled before content is loaded to the device.
3. bigtincan hub includes the ability to specify an “encrypted channel” for iOS devices, where the application uses the hardware-accelerated encryption chip to encrypt content inside the bigtincan hub secure container. There is no need for additional external “wrapping” or other device hardware control systems.
4. Mobile Platform Enterprise Distribution Tools are a range of tools that include the ability to perform remote wipe of a device, restrict the device’s access to certain apps, and other advanced enterprise management tools. These tools are part of a standard enterprise deployment of mobile devices and add to security of sensitive documents.
5. bigtincan hub supports content level controls based on user roles to control how users can access, edit, and share content inside bigtincan hub. These controls are set on the server and can be remotely reset — allowing the administrator to control how users access content on a globally distributed set of mobile devices.
Server-Side Security
bigtincan hub has integrated security on the server-side for both cloud-hosted and private server implementations. All content on the server is encrypted, and access is restricted and controlled using managed user/password access. This includes automatic restriction of IP addresses based on failed logins.
Installing a private server behind a corporate firewall offers enterprise customers complete control of their content. The addition of a private APN (delivered by a carrier) allows the transmission of content that never touches the public Internet.
Protected Content
For users that require additional security measures on particular groups of files, the bigtincan hub system allows for individual content bundles to be set to “private”. When private content and files are added, the recipient device sees only a lock icon. To enable the content to be delivered to the device and read, the user must enter a separate password that is then known only by the user of the app. bigtincan hub removes the contents of a private content bundle after the user moves away from the content. When the user moves back and unlocks a private content again, the content is re-downloaded, ensuring that the content is delivered securely, and then wiped after use.
Reporting
The power to easily deliver secure content to mobile devices is important, but for many organizations the real power of bigtincan hub is the ability to audit and report on user interactions with data/content. From the server, the administrator can view which user has viewed which Story, opened each specific file, how long they spent on the Story or file or leveraged the server sharing capabilities to share content from the system with others. Reports are viewable on the web or exportable as CSV files to be
Using bigtincan hub, Marketing Managers, Sales/Service Executives and Corporate Education Managers can now see how their materials and content are being used in the field, allowing them to make real time changes to optimize content and see the impact of those changes across the entire field organization.
Content Intelligence
One of the biggest challenges for everyday users of information is the explosion of content that is available. Content comes from the Internet, internal document management systems, and even across multiple network file servers and local files on personal computers.
Gaining access to the sum of this information on a range of devices, both fixed and mobile, is addressed by a number of technologies including file sharing, file transfer, or remote access. However, getting access to information (content) is only a small part of the real problem that users face. To increase productivity, users need access not just to the entire set of content, but to a way of having the content organized for their specific use.
bigtincan hub dynamically prioritizes content based on relevance, providing workers in the field with significant time savings, and the business with analytics on content usage. You can learn more about
Internal document management system Network file servers Internet Loca l files Local files Local files
Volume
I have to navigate through vast amounts of information and can’t determine which is best for me.
Location
I have access to information in many locations, through a range of devices, but I don’t know where to look.
Mobile Content Enablement Use Cases
1. Mobile sales force productivity tool
bigtincan hub delivers secure documents to mobile sales forces so they can access and consume content easily. bigtincan hub’s “feeds” feature is the ideal way of delivering real-time Internet-based content to the field sales force when they are on the move.
bigtincan hub enables productivity growth through information distribution, with the ability to integrate legacy content distribution and management systems.
2. Secure executive board meeting document distribution system
Company Directors need access to secure documents on the go — and not just lists of files.
They need documents grouped together in a way that makes sense, and that can be updated in real time without needing to look through long lists or configure complex software. Directors need the maximum possible security over their documents, and up-to-date information from the company and from the industry delivered directly to their mobile device.
bigtincan hub delivers for Directors. It sends highly secure content, such as documents, grouped into stories containing other relevant content. Its real time feeds feature, and the easy to use web portal, make bigtincan hub the ultimate tool for Directors who need to get access to key documents and materials over mobile devices.
3. Government executive: Secure documents on the go
Government employees need secure access to documents and materials in real time in a way that allows them to respond to the needs of their colleagues and constituents. Government workers need documents delivered and stored with the highest levels of security and performance, without having to implement expensive technology systems at the taxpayer’s expense.
bigtincan hub is the ideal platform for Government workers. bigtincan hub stores encrypted files on the device and allows for the use of a private server to ensure no government content is hosted in the Cloud.
4. Small business: Information to all
In today’s tough economy, small businesses need to be as efficient as possible to survive. Each employee and manager has to have immediate access to all the company materials, and to be able to present the company in a professional manner. Flexibility, security, and ease-of-use are all critical elements to a successful solution. To be successful, small businesses need simplicity and power combined with easy and powerful document handling on their mobile devices.
5. Large enterprises: Getting internal company news, Internet info and social feeds to the right people at the right time
One of the key success factors for large enterprises is employee productivity. Each employee needs to be empowered with access to the right internal information, external data, and even social network feeds to allow them to be successful. In the fast moving world of large business, each employee needs to have access to the right content and up to the minute data in a format that is can be used to win for the corporation.
