Our Cloud is Always on the Move: Introducing DocAve Online Service Pack 3

Promises are made and promises are kept here at AvePoint. When I wrote about DocAve Online – AvePoint’s software-as-a-service platform for Microsoft Office 365 management – late in 2013, I mentioned our brand new rapid release schedule. As promised, I’m proud to announce today the details of our feature-rich January update for the product, also known as DocAve Online Service Pack (SP) 3. This round of updates features governance, data protection, and reporting enhancements that empower your organization to maintain the same level of protection and control over cloud-based assets as on-premises solutions.

Policy Enforcer

Policy Enforcer – built from the ground up and based on feedback from customers, Microsoft MVPs, and Microsoft – was a huge hit last year with the release of our on-premises platform, DocAve 6 SP3. Now we bring our powerful policy driven governance tool to the cloud with DocAve Online. [caption id="attachment_1295" align="alignnone" width="625"] Policy Enforcer feature in DocAve Online SP 3.[/caption] With Policy Enforcer you can quickly and easily apply a set of rules to your SharePoint Online sites to ensure all actions and changes to your cloud environment fall within your organization’s defined governance policies. Some examples include:

• Enforce corporate branding and unified information architecture (IA) design: Easily control which site templates and themes, web parts, apps and other components can be deployed to Office 365.
• Responsible sharing of content: Define lists of users or groups who shouldn’t have access to specific content due to ethical walls and security policies. Enforce the native security model by ensuring that inheritance isn’t broken with one rule.
• Ensure best practice: Define policies to keep List/Library versioning settings, Site Feature activation, and more under control.

Policy Enforcer can notify content owners and site collection administrators quickly via e-mail alerts, a dashboard, or summary reports. Some issues can even be configured to be resolved automatically without any user involvement.

Your Data on Your Terms

Quite often I’ve been asked the question, “What if Office 365 goes down?” With your backup data stored in Windows Azure, Rackspace, S3 or on-premises via SFTP/FTP, even if Office 365 goes down you can now restore your SharePoint Online, SkyDrive Pro, and Exchange Online content to your chosen storage platform for easy access.

• SharePoint Online and SkyDrive Pro Content: Restore your content easily and access business critical documents while your sites are down.
• Exchange Online: Restore your Inboxes and more from backup as a Personal Storage Table (.pst) file to any location available.

[caption id="attachment_1298" align="alignnone" width="625"] Data restore storage type selection in DocAve Online SP 3.[/caption] Not only have we added improved support for content restoration but we’ve also enhanced our backup capabilities. You can now target granular scopes of content and run hourly incremental backups, providing your users with the best possible Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for Office 365 content. Everyone has a different data protection strategy, and we aim to accommodate them all.

Deeper Insight into Your Cloud

We’ve also enhanced DocAve Online’s reporting capabilities. You can now get even better insight into the graphical topology of SharePoint Online for streamlined architecture planning. Additionally, DocAve Online allows you to monitor and report on who created, deleted, and modified content – as well as settings and security – across an entire SharePoint Online tenant. With this information at your fingertips, you can bolster your overall plans for your cloud deployment and easily deliver reports back to the business. [caption id="attachment_1299" align="alignnone" width="625"] Report settings configuration in DocAve Online SP 3.[/caption]

Getting Started

If you’d like more details on DocAve Online, you can schedule a demo by contacting our sales team. If you’re ready to try it yourself today, you can register for a commitment and credit card free, 30-day trial at www.DocAveOnline.com.

The Future of AvePoint Online Services

DocAve Online SP3 is just the beginning of some exciting new developments for AvePoint and the cloud in 2014. For more details, be sure to stay tuned to this space and stop by our booth at SharePoint Conference 2014 in Las Vegas!