Evolution from Sharing Files to Databases
From messengers carrying messages by foot to data transfer via letters and then digital channels, human beings have come a long way. Although fax and telephones had made information sharing much easier, it was the advent of the internet and email service that revolutionized the business world.
Today, email is just one of the many modes of data sharing as businesses have moved to more secure, fast, and multidimensional data management solutions like virtual data rooms.
Virtual data room software is a remotely accessible database employed by companies and professionals from all fields of the business world. Here is a brief introduction to online data room software and how it has revamped the data sharing practices.
What is online data room: Virtual data room explained
Data room virtual software is a digital document repository for storing, sharing, organizing, or managing corporate or personal documents. Data rooms are a product of cloud technology. That means these databases are accessible from any place in the world, and this is what makes virtual data rooms a great data management tool.
Remote accessibility is not the only thing that attracts businesses to this technology — VDRs are one of the most secure databases in the world right now. All data room services like iDeals, Merrill, Firmex, DealRoom, CapLinked, etc., have the latest cyber security tools in their inventory. These tools can keep paramount security threats away from your data.
Three primary functions of virtual data rooms
Data management
Online data room software allows you to store, share, edit, exchange, organize, automate, and manage your routine use or sensitive data. These solutions provide you with all tools needed to view, edit, annotate files, or create new documents. You can also integrate Microsoft Office tools with your data rooms.
Real-time business communication
Communication tools are an added benefit in virtual data rooms, and this is what you don’t usually get in other data management platforms. Any standard virtual data room software has chat messenger, Q&A modules, and online meeting tools such as audio/video calling, live polls, and voting tools.
Deal management
You will often see virtual data rooms being used as a medium of data sharing and communication in unusual business transactions. For example, the corporate sector has been using the virtual data room for due diligence in M&As, initial public offerings, fundraising, bidding, joint ventures, strategic partnerships, litigation, and real estate.
Virtual data rooms: Revolution in data security and information sharing
Data rooms have given businesses something they couldn’t get from email services. Here are some prime examples.
1. Ease of sharing large files
Sharing large-sized files is not a feature you can get on email or other file-sharing tools. For example, Gmail or Yahoo doesn’t allow you to share a file exceeding 25MB in size. You have to switch to Dropbox or Google Drive.
On the contrary, electronic data room software allows you to upload or share large-sized files. Apart from that, you can just drag-n-drop multiple files into your data room in one go.
2. Ease of use
On average, a person receives almost 100-120 emails every day. That is a massive number, and important emails can easily drown in a clutter of emails in your inbox.
Virtual data rooms give you a separate or dedicated inbox in which you can receive messages of files shared via the data room. Also, while using a data room, you can share hundreds of files with a large number of users in a matter of seconds.
Moreover, data rooms allow you to schedule file sharing at a future date/time. The data room will send files to scheduled recipients at the set time. You won’t get this luxury on many data-sharing platforms.
3. Controlled data sharing
Once you share a file through email or online data sharing platforms, you cannot undo it. An electronic data room either allows you to delete the file which you have sent mistakenly. Or, you can revoke access to that document anytime you want.
If you want the recipient to only view the file, you can restrict them from editing, sharing, overwriting, saving, downloading, printing, or scanning that document. In addition to that, you can also allow the file to be viewed for a specific time, and after that, the VDR will purge that document.
4. Data security
How secure are virtual data rooms? For starters, data rooms have military-grade data encryption tools (256-bit encryption). Multiple data security layers protect the data room and the files in it. That said, features like two-factor authorization or multi-step verification restrain the entrance of hackers or cybercriminals.
Audit reports provide detailed information on all activities in the data room, while remote device purging deletes all VDR documents from any device logged into the data room.
Final words
Virtual data rooms have been game-changing solutions for information sharing. You can share tons of data or files with multiple users at once. The best thing about this technology is that it employs military-grade data security features.
