How to Share Important Documents in a Spam-Free Environment

An extranet is a web-based tool that provides a secure environment for the organization and exchange of documents and information among a defined group of users.

Extranets are often used to support team collaboration in circumstances where the team members are geographically dispersed or are drawn from variety external organizations. Examples include a group of departments within a company that collaborate on a common project, or service companies that collaborate with a variety of outside clients, customers and partners.

Access to the extranet requires a valid password with username. The permissions given to your unique username by the network administrator determines which part of the extranet you can have access to. Thus, an extranet allows you to share important documents, exchange information and conduct online collaborations in a secure environment, free from spam and un-authorized access.

Spam-Free Environment
An extranet has the same look and feel of an ordinary web site hosted on the World Wide Web. The only distinguishing feature is that an extranet has a security protection base where access is restricted only to those who can view information on the network. This secure environment of an extranet prevents unwelcome access.

The prime use of an extranet is for document sharing, facilitating collaboration among personnel who have access to the network. Extranets can be accessed from remote locations wherever Internet can be accessed. This convenience makes extranets very popular as against those network technologies that use proprietary protocols. They are an excellent means for information exchange.

Document Sharing
The standard feature of every network is the feature of document sharing. Extranets are no exception to this. They facilitate document sharing between people within an organization, with customers having authorized access and with business partners like suppliers, distributors, channel partners etc.

Better than email
When communicating with a group, sharing of information through an extranet is superior to using regular email messages. In addition to eliminating spam, an extranet permits storage of much larger file sizes than that allowed by email service providers. Thus longer messages can be sent over extranets. In addition, extranets have facility for sharing of graphics and web pages that are useful.

Facility for Collaboration
Another important feature of an extranet is that it facilitates collaborations. Many enterprise processes and projects require collaboration from multiple people across organizations for them to be successful and or efficient. An extranet provides an excellent platform for different people concerned with a particular enterprise process or a new business project to share information, documents and collaborate on one to one, many to one, and/or many-to-many basis to bring things to fruition efficiently and successfully. For example, consider the setting of a new manufacturing facility being built. Many people from different organizations are involved in the project. In an extranet, all people who are concerned with the project will have access to the network. The work's progress can be visible over the network and different people will have the facility of collaborating together and draw out future necessary plans to keep the project on course.

Conclusion
Extranets are very secure due to their access being restricted. They provide a spam-free platform and environment for exchange of information in a secure and reliable way. Using Internet technologies and protocols make these networks accessible from remote locations. As such, they are increasingly becoming very popular among corporations and other organizations.

 
 
About the Author
Laura Schweiker writes extensively on the use of technology by businesspeople and is an evangelist for document sharing and extranet solutions.

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