SynergyOS and OpenAI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automation are transforming the workplace and becoming an increasingly important element of business operations. We are proud to announce that we have recently integrated AI from OpenAI into our platform to provide our customers with all the benefits from OpenAI AI models directly into their content.

What is OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company with the mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. GPT-3 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3) is a language generation AI model developed by OpenAI. It is one of the largest and most powerful language models to date, with over 175 billion parameters. GPT-3 is pre-trained on a massive corpus of text data, allowing it to generate human-like text for a variety of natural language processing tasks, such as text completion, translation, and summarization. GPT-3 has received significant attention for its ability to perform a wide range of language tasks with a high level of accuracy and fluency.

How SynergyOS uses OpenAI GPT-3 and what are the uses cases

SynergyOS acts as the central source of truth for businesses including files, emails, projects, and all company information. This graph of information can be leveraged with AI for a multitude of uses cases:

1. Text generation: generate text for a variety of applications such as writing contracts, press releases, or emails.
2. Text classification: text classification tasks such as sentiment analysis.
3. Text summarization: summarize long documents into shorter versions while preserving their meaning.
4. Language Translation: translate text between different languages.
5. Question-answering: build systems that can answer questions based on large text corpora.
6. Chatbots: develop conversational AI systems that can understand and respond to natural language inputs.

Our integration with OpenAI makes it easy to process any information in SynergyOS with GPT-3. Additionally, we enable more advanced uses cases to customize OpenAI models to our customers' specific uses cases.

For any questions about integration into OpenAI, feel free to reach out to hello@synergyos.com.

The SynergyOS team

ISO27001 announcement

Synergy Inc. announced today that SynergyOS has achieved ISO 27001 compliance to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of all corporate data in accordance with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

This certification adds another third-party industry validation to certify that SynergyOS provides enterprise-grade security for customer’s data secured in SynergyOS. We build on the momentum achieved last month with SOC2 compliance with the goal of becoming the most secure platform for corporate data. SynergyOS has been designed to meet the most stringent security and compliance requirements, including the requirements of professional services firms and regulated industries, in particular financial services.

You can read more about SynergyOS security and compliance at:

SynergyOS Trust Portal.

What is ISO 27001 compliance?

ISO 27001 is the leading international standard for an Information Security Management System (ISMS). It was published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in partnership with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

The goal of ISO 27001 and an Information Security Management System is to protect three aspects of information:

• Confidentiality: only authorized users have the right to access information.
• Integrity: only authorized users can change the information.
• Availability: the information must be accessible to authorized users whenever it is needed.

ISO 27001 is the most widely adopted international information security standard and provides a comprehensive framework with 14 phases that helps organizations develop and maintain a secure ISMS:

• Information Security Policy
• Organization of Information Security
• Risk Assessment and Treatment
• Asset Management
• Access Control
• Cryptography
• Physical Security
• Operations Security
• Communications Security
• System Acquisition, Development and Maintenance
• Supplier Relationships
• Compliance with Legal Requirements and Industry Standards
• Information Quality Management
• Risk Monitoring and Review

Auditor: British Assessment Bureau

Synergy Inc. was audited by British Assessment Bureau, a leader in security and compliance certidication for B2B SAAS companies worldwide. British Assessment Bureau offers UKAS-accredited certification. UKAS is the only government-backed body for ISO certification in the United Kingdom. You can contect them directly at help@british-assessment.co.uk.

For any questions about our security and compliance, or to access the ISO 27001 report, feel free to reach out to security@synergyos.com.

The SynergyOS team

Welcome to the Product Newsletter for 2022-Q4 (October, November, December).

This quarter we are excited to share our new branding, SynergyOS, to align with our end goal of becoming the "One Source" of truth for all your company information. This information includes not only files, but also emails, messages, customer, and project information, as well as all the custom data objects that your company needs.

GENERAL UPDATES​

New Progressive Web Apps (PWA) from customers own domains.​

We are moving all applications to the browser to make them easier to access and keep everything up to date automatically. The first application is the new Drive webapp, which now runs in the browser. This means that you can (and should) delete the previous desktop application, as they become obsolete. Furthermore, all applications are now served from your (the customer's) own domains to promote your own branding. For example, imagine a company called Greendation, with a company domain www.greendation.org, will access SynergyOS under its own domain: drive.greendation.org, workflow.greendation.org, portal.greendation.org, and so on.

Preview tab​

There is a new tab in the Drive webapp to facilitate the preview of files. Click on preview (or use the dot-key . as a shortcut) and immediately see the content of Microsoft Office files, images, text files, and notes without the need to open a separate application. This is especially useful when reviewing many documents at once, as you would when using a Data Room.

You can also open previews in full screen and share preview URLs with your colleagues.

New Drive Search UI and options​

Drive User Interface (UI) updated with 2 features to make it easier to use:

• Global search on top bar: search everywhere directly from this box

• Folder quick search on sidebar: find folders instantly from the File Explorer tab

Save files to Synergy from Windows Explorer and Mac Finder​

You can save files to a folder in your operating system called “Synergy Save As”, which you can find directly in your pinner folders.

Once you save a file there, a Tools window will open automatically with Synergy’s File Picker to select where you’d like to save the file.

Additional version control improvements​

1. New files created and file uploads to be minor versions by default (internal)

2. New option to overwrite last saved version (if that version was saved by you). This is very helpful when you identify a small typo or small change to be made. Now you can open the file, make that correction, and in the save version dialog you can overwrite the last version (and avoid “noise” in you version history)

3. New option to convert a version (major or minor) back to Draft status (if that version was saved by you). This improvement follows the same train of thought as the previous point. We have more improvements we plan to release next quarter, including the option to receive notifications by email when new versions of a document you have edited are saved. This has been requested by several partners. An initial design of the User Interface has already been produced. If you have any thoughts on this, please get in touch to discuss.

Additional features in public links: enable end-users to customize expiration date, passwords​

Now you can add a message, a password and a custom expiration to public links.

Subscriptions and folder/file notifications​

You can now subscribe to receive email notifications for important actions on files and folders. We have released the most important file and folder actions first and we are adding new options for subscriptions every week.

Subscribe by clicking on the subscribe button:

Change your notification setting from here:

Manage all your subscriptions from this tab:

Company Directory to invite and manage guest users (external) from the Drive​

There is a new tab in the Drive to quick manage users and groups. From here, you can quickly invite new guest users to share information.

Recent 5 folders in sidebar​

Your most recent folders now appear in the recents section, automatically updated, to make you more efficient to go back to those folders. Those 5 folders are automatically updated when the following actions are made to files inside those parent folders:

Drive keyboard shortcuts page​

You can learn all Drive keyboard shortcuts from a new page withing the Drive to become a pro user and save time in your workflow.

Co-Authoring in Desktop Office applications​

New integration with SharePoint to edit collaboratively Microsoft Office files in your desktop Office applications. You can enter this mode with right click on a file and click on "Co-Authoring with SharePoint".

2023 Q1 ROADMAP​

The upcoming features on our Drive roadmap include:

• New search fields: author, file creation date, and file modified date
• Bulk lock and unlock of files
• Convert old Office files to current format automatically (.doc to .docx)
• Copy several hyperlinks at the same time to paste in emails/chat
• Revamp our offline functionality in Tools to include folders

We are very excited to announce that we plan to release the first version of Synergy's Workflow product in February: a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Project Management product. In this first iteration, Workflow will include the following core features:

• Projects / Deals / Matters: same concept but different naming depending on industry.
• Company list
• Contacts list
• Pipelines

We would very much welcome your feedback, comments and suggestions. We are always keen to hear how we can make SynergyOS better for you and your organization.

Thank you for your trust,

The Synergy team

SOC 2 Type II announcement

Synergy Inc. announced today that SynergyOS has achieved SOC 2 Type II compliance for security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy in accordance with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).

Data security is our north star in everything we do. We are very conscious of the fact that our customers trust us with one of their most important assets: their company information. SynergyOS has been designed from the ground-up to meet the most stringent security and compliance requirements, including the requirements of professional services firms and regulated industries, in particular financial services.

At SynergyOS, security is one of our core pillars and we constantly strive to not only meet but exceed industry standards as well as our customers’ expectations for security controls. Today, we are proud to announce that SynergyOS has achieved SOC 2 Type II compliance in accordance with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) standard for SOC for Service Organizations. Achieving this standard with an unqualified opinion serves as third-party industry validation that Synergy Inc. provides enterprise-grade security for customer’s data secured in SynergyOS.

What is SOC 2 compliance?

SOC 2 is a security framework, audit, and attestation that specifies how organizations should protect customer data. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) developed SOC 2 around Five Trust Services Criteria: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy.

• Security: best security practices like Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), access controls, identity management, encryption, thread alerts, and firewalls.
• Availability: systems to ensure uptime, timely disaster recovery, and incident management.
• Processing integrity: system processing is complete, accurate, timely, and authorized. This includes quality assurance and application monitoring.
• Confidentiality: data is safe from unauthorized access following best security standards such as encryption, access controls and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).
• Privacy: confidential information is protected and personally identifiable information adheres to the organization’s data usage and privacy policy.

There are two types of SOC 2 compliance and both require an external audit:

• Type I: the company is compliant at a point in time.
• Type II: the company stays compliant during an observation window, typically 6 months to a year.

Auditor: Prescient Assurance

Synergy Inc. was audited by Prescient Assurance, a leader in security and compliance attestation for B2B, SAAS companies worldwide. Prescient Assurance is a registered public accounting in the US and Canada and provides risk management and assurance services which includes but is not limited to SOC 2, PCI, ISO, NIST, GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and CSA STAR. For more information about Prescient Assurance, you may reach out them at info@prescientassurance.com.

An unqualified opinion on a SOC 2 Type II audit report demonstrates to Synergy Inc.’s current and future customers that they manage their data with the highest standard of security and compliance.

For any questions about our security and compliance, or to access the SOC 2 report, feel free to reach out to security@synergyos.com.

The SynergyOS team

As we expand the suite of products in the Synergy Platform, we are adding the OS branding to reflect our goal of becoming the One Source of truth for all your company information. Today, Synergy Platform becomes SynergyOS and we launch our new company domain: synergyos.com.

Over the past few months, we have invested a significant amount of time on advancing our vision to become the centralized productivity platform for all your company information. This would encompass not only files, but would also expand the platform’s reach to include emails, messages, projects, customer information, as well as all the custom data objects that your company currently operates with.

Our ultimate goal is to become the one source of truth for all your company information that today lives dispersed across multiple disconnected silos. We envision an open platform that unifies all this information through API integrations and thus centralizes your company knowledge into one platform, and in doing so solves the age-old and persistent problem of information management across an organization.

There are distinctive benefits for the two major groups of personas across every organization:

• For end-users: SynergyOS is a unified platform that improves their productivity by providing a secure and intuitive access to all information and enabling collaboration and AI-powered search and automation.

• For management, IT departments, and compliance departments: SynergyOS is a highly secure platform that enhances employees’ productivity while satisfying all security and compliance requirements. The platform has the flexibility of being deployable in any data center of choice under the customer’s control, as well as being designed for interoperability across servers on a new open protocol.

We are very excited to publicly launch the new SynergyOS products and APIs to our current and new partners in the coming months.

The SynergyOS team

Welcome to the Product Newsletter for 2022-Q3 (July, August, September)

GENERAL UPDATES​

New standard Color Tags​

We have added default color tags for files and folders to allow for easy categorization of documents on the go without using the full tag functionality. For example, you might have to review several documents. To easily mark all the files to review, you can color tag them in yellow. Once you finish with each file, you can remove the color tag.

Thumbnails view on sidebar​

When you save a MS Office file (docx, pptx, xlsx), a PDF file, or an image, the server creates a thumbnail of the document in the details pane. This will make it easier for you to quickly identify files.

Outlook for Windows​

Re-enabled the functionality to attach files: we have found a fix to the issue users encountered when attaching files from Outlook. Now files and emails can be saved from Outlook by using drag and drop again.

Thumbnails view in drive navigation​

You now have the choice between the standard list view and a new thumbnail (Tiles) view. This is particularly helpful when you are browsing folders with multiple image files or documents with a specific visual look and streamlines the identification of files and removes the need for opening the files.

 

SEARCH IMPROVEMENTS​

Improvements in search engine with exact search and Boolean operators​

We have added several new options to the search engine to make it more powerful to find what you need.

Default search: fuzzy search with OR​

A fuzzy search looks for close matches with the search term, rather than exact ones. For example, search for a term and the engine will look for:

• The word
• Similar words. Example: if you search "test", it will search for tests", "testing", "tested", etc.
• Inside other words. Example: if you search for "end", the search results can be "send", "ended", etc.
• If you include several words, by default the search engine uses the OR Boolean operator to search for one search term or the other.

Exact search:​

For exact search, you need to use quotation marks (“term here”) before and after the search terms. With the exact search, you will only look for those specific terms.

Boolean search: AND, OR, NOT.​

Now you can use Boolean operators to make your search much more powerful. For Boolean search, you need to use CAPITAL LETTERS for the AND, OR, NOT symbols between search terms.  

AND Search​

Use AND to search for both terms/phrases at the same time. Example:

 

OR Search​

Use OR to search for any of those terms/phrases independently. This is the default behavior of standard search. Example:

 

NOT Search​

Use NOT to exclude a term from the search terms/phrases. Example:

 

Combination of several Search options.​

You can use any combination of search terms and Boolean operators with parenthesis. Example:

DRIVE MOBILE APP UPDATES​

We have made improvements to the iOS and Android Drive app:

Share files​

Now the share menu provides visual feedback when it is downloading files before opening the share menu.

Microsoft Office previews​

There is a better viewing experience when you open Microsoft Office files. Now you can also control zoom levels.

You can download the apps from here: iPhone / iOS Android

 

VERSION CONTROL SYSTEM IMPROVEMENTS​

We have been working to improve Synergy’s Version Control System based on feedback from our partners. We have made the following improvements and we will keep iterating with the roadmap below.

New version naming for drafts​

Drafts are now named logically after the previous version. We have changed from “6.00 Draft” to “Draft post 6.00”. We have heard from several partners that this new nomenclature is much easier to understand. If you have any additional feedback, please let us know.

Add more information about versions in the save version dialog with:

1. Minor: these are internal versions, for sharing within the company
2. Major: these are external versions to be shared outside of the company

In addition, we plan on making the following improvements in the coming weeks:

1. New files created and file uploads to be minor versions by default (internal)

2. New option to overwrite last saved version (if that version was saved by you). This is very helpful when you identify a small typo or small change to be made. Now you can open the file, make that correction, and in the save version dialog you can overwrite the last version (and avoid “noise” in you version history)

3. New option to convert a version (major or minor) back to Draft status (if that version was saved by you). This improvement follows the same train of thought as the previous point. We have more improvements we plan to release next quarter, including the option to receive notifications by email when new versions of a document you have edited are saved. This has been requested by several partners. An initial design of the User Interface has already been produced. If you have any thoughts on this, please get in touch to discuss.

 

2022 Q4 ROADMAP​

The upcoming features on our roadmap include:

• 5 recent folders in sidebar.
• Additional version control improvements
• Convert old Office files to current format automatically (.doc to .docx)
• Additional features in public links: enable end-users to customize expiration date, passwords, previews, etc.
• Drive multi-account to connect several accounts at the same time
• Virtual Data Room
• Webhooks and file notifications

Separately, we would like to share (again) with you that our development team is currently hard at work on Synergy’s next product: a Workflow / Customer Relationship Management (CRM) product, which is fully integrated with rest of the Synergy platform. In the first iteration the Workflow we plan to include the following core features:

• Company lists
• Contacts lists
• Pipelines
• Projects / Deals / Matters (same concept but different naming depending on industry. The name can be customized to your industry)
• Tasks
• Time Tracking

We would very much welcome your feedback, comments and suggestions, which in turn might inform and influence the finished article. We are always keen to hear how we can make Synergy better for you and your organization.

Thank you very much for your trust,

The Synergy team

We are very much looking forward to attending this weeks’ Legal Geek conference in London. Join us in the Startup Alley on the 28th and 29th of September. Come and speak to us if you want to network and learn more about document & case management and how Synergy could streamline workflows for your firm, drive productivity and increase billable work in a Web3.0-way. You can contact us on hello@synergy.page or connect with Jaime or Michael directly via LinkedIn.

Legal Geek is a leading legal-tech conference that brings together decision makers across established law firms, in-house legal functions as well as over 250 legal-tech innovators and entrepreneurs. Especially after two years in which in-person events were not possible, this is a great opportunity to network, learn about the newest trends in legal-tech and of course meet like-minded people who are looking to make their contribution towards a better way of delivering legal services.

The Synergy team

Welcome to the Product Newsletter for 2022-Q2 (April, May, June)

GENERAL UPDATES​

Synergy Clipboard integrated into your operating system for Windows & Mac​

This upgrade allows you to easily upload files to any webapp in your web browser or any desktop application using our new file system integration. Now, every time you copy files to the clipboard in Synergy (“copy/attach”), those files become accessible from the Windows File Explorer and Mac finder. In Windows File Explorer, the Synergy Clipboard folder is automatically added to Quick Access. In Mac Finder, you can find it in the Documents folder, for ease of use we recommend to (manually) save that folder under favorites.

 

Active Directory integration – Single Sign-On​

You can now sign in to Synergy using your Microsoft credentials (no need to remember an additional user & passwords). The full Microsoft AD (active directory) integration includes the System for Cross-Domain Identity Management (SCIM), and the Single Sign-On functionality. Please note that company administrators must enable those functions and that we plan to make additional changes to the interface.

Multi-window in Windows and Mac desktop versions​

You can work more efficiently with multi-window. Now you can open several interconnected windows of Synergy Drive. This will make moving files, copy & paste, and other actions easier and more convenient.

ZIP files integration (zip and unzip inside the Drive)​

Zip and unzip files up to 5GB directly from Synergy without requiring your local operating system.

New Links for Paths with several options​

We have replaced the previous shortcuts options with more powerful and easier to use alternatives. Now you can create 4 types of Links from the Drive:

• Path: URL of the folder or file that opens Synergy Drive in the browser (e.g. https://drive.synergy.page/path/File-65587b14-e561-4870-aba3-e27f06a92809)
• Hyperlink: same link as above with the item name to share by email or chat (e.g. Synergy S-1 JR (docx))
• Path to edit in Office Online: direct link to directly open the file in edit mode in Office Online
• Path to view in Office Online: direct link to directly open the file in read-only mode in Office Online

When you open the standard path link or hyperlink, it opens in Drive Online (web version) and you can easily open in Desktop App or in the web with Office Online:

New dialog to append files from 2 separate files in the Drive​

You can select 2 files from the Drive and click on the append button. This will open a separate dialog that allows you to append one file to the other (i.e. merge the files and add a version to the intended file).

New functionality in the file versions panel in the details pane​

Now you can attach versions to the clipboard, as well as saving a version as a new separate file.

Convert PDFs to Word files​

PDF files now have a new option in the context menu, which allows them to be converted from PDF to Word files with the Microsoft Word engine.

Append compared Word file as a version to the main file with one click​

After performing a compare of a Word file, you can now append the compared version directly with one click.

New update dialog in both Drive in Tools​

Going forward all major application updates will include a synopsis of the key changes in the update dialog.

Additional breadcrumb to easily locate files​

We have included a breadcrumb in the search results tab, recent files, quick access and smart folders, in order to streamline file navigation. Moreover, you now have the option of right clicking on the breadcrumb and open that folder in a new window.

Improvements in automatic file locks to prevent clashes​

Now we identify the specific computer or device that locks the file. If, for example, you left a file locked on your account on your work computer, and you then tried to open that locked file from another computer (e.g. at home) - the following dialog will appear with guidance to help you avoid losing any information:

Bug-fixes in the Stay Logged In functionality​

We have identified some bugs in stay logged in and have deployed a number of fixes that should resolve the issue.  

New Synergy Tools to move all save file notifications to a new Save Dialog window​

Now all save notifications come from Synergy Tools (instead of Synergy Drive). The new “Save Dialog” gives you with a greater level of context by providing you with a view of all previous file versions when saving a new version.

Word Compare for Mac​

The compare feature works similarly to the Windows functionality. You can select several files or versions and click on compare. After this, a Word document with tracking changes will be automatically opened and you will also have the full compare dialog with Word and PDF in the Drive.

Two-Factor Authentication​

Improved security with email-based two-factor authentication. When you log-in, you will be asked to insert the code received by email. The deployment of two-factor authentication is done by company administrators.

Faster file / folders browsing searching by the first letters of the name​

You can write the first few letters of a file / folder to go directly to it in the main file explorer view. The letter you write pop up in a dark dialog to give you visual feedback. After one second, the search is reset and you can write a new name again.

Uploads: new replace / append / upload with same name dialog​

When you try to upload a file with the same filename as a file currently in the Synergy Drive folder, a new dialog appears with several options: Replace the file, Append the new file, or Save anyway with the same filename. This also happens now in the Office add-in when saving as new or as PDF.

Copy Hyperlink​

In addition to copy path (a URL identifying the path of the file) you can also create a Hyperlink. The Hyperlink is the same URL but showing only the name and type of file, to make it easier to paste in emails, chat, etc.
Example of a Hyperlink: Synergy S-1 JR (docx)

Collabora LibreOffice integration​

We have added an integration with LibreOffice from Collabora as an alternative to the Microsoft Office Online integration. This allows to view Office files in the browser and can also deployed to enterprise accounts (on-premise/custom deployments). This is the first step towards our Data Room product.

OFFICE ADD-IN UPDATES​

• Improved File Picker with recent files and a new breadcrumb

• Updated Ribbon Add-in icons: added some newly designed icons for a more coherence experience.

• Improved File Picker with search and filter: now you can also search and filter folders in the file picker to make it easier to save files as new and save as PDF.

• Save as New button now takes you to the original folder of the file for faster navigation

• Save as New and Save as PDF: now both buttons offer the option to change the file type to Office format or PDF.

• Saves as New / PDF: new replace / append / save with same name dialog: when you try to save a file from the Office Add-in with the same filename as a file currently in the Synergy Drive folder, a new dialog appears with several options: Replace the file, Append the new file, or Save anyway with the same filename. This also happens now in the Drive application.

• Versions panel with automated refresh: to easily see the versions and history of the file you are working on.

ROADMAP​

The upcoming features on our roadmap include:

• Recent folders (automatically updated) in left sidebar
• Convert old Office files to current format automatically (.doc  .docx)
• Additional features in public links: enable end-users to customize expiration date, passwords, previews, etc.
• Authorization section in Admin Center to approve/reject end-user sharing requests
• Drive multi-account to connect several accounts at the same time
• Virtual Data Room
• Webhooks and file notifications
• Additional performance improvements

Separately, we would like to share (again) with you that our development team is currently hard at work on Synergy’s next product: a Workflow / Customer Relationship Management (CRM) product, which is fully integrated with rest of the Synergy platform. In the first iteration the Workflow is highly likely to include the following features:

• Company lists
• Contacts lists
• Pipelines
• Projects / Deals / Matters (same concept but different naming depending on industry. The name can be customized to your industry)
• Time Tracking

We would very much like your feedback, comments and suggestions, which in turn might inform and influence the finished article. We are always keen to hear how we can make Synergy better for you and your organization.

Thank you very much for your trust,

The Synergy team

 

We are very excited to share the roll out of the following enterprise features:

System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM)

The System for Cross-domain Identity Management, SCIM, is an open standard protocol designed to securely automate the exchange of user identity information between your company's universal directory (such as Azure Active Directory or Okta) and any service providers, such as enterprise applications like Synergy.

With the SCIM protocol, user information is transferred automatically with different applications, complex exchanges are simplified, and the risk of error is minimized. SCIM also improves overall security for your company, ensuring security policy compliance across all accounts.

Single Sign-On (SSO)

Single Sign-On (SSO) is a user authentication solution that enables users' access to multiple applications using only one set of credentials. Single sign-on eliminates the inconvenience of having to manage multiple sets of log-ins and passwords. It streamlines the access to a range of platforms and apps without needing to log in individually.

Our Single Sign-On integration is built on federation protocols with OpenID Connect, an open and trusted authentication protocol. We have publicly launched our integration with the Microsoft Identity Platform and Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) to all customers. We also support Okta and other providers for enterprise accounts.

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

In addition to the Multi-Factor Authentication methods provided by your identity provider (Azure AD, Okta), we have launched our own MFA functionality to bring more security to companies that do not have a centralized identity platform.

We also use our own MFA for external users in your company repository, to enforce security policies and compliance internally but also externally.

We are very pleased with the initial feedback provided by our clients and early adopters of these features. We look forward to sharing more regular updates on the things we are doing to provide the best security and compliance in the months to come.

The Synergy team

Welcome to the Product Newsletter for 2022-Q1 (January, February, March)

MAJOR UPDATES​

Folder browsing performance improvement (loading times)​

We made significant improvements that will increase loading speeds, especially under the following conditions: large folders (1,000+ immediate subfolders) + role with restricted access + slow internet connections.

Uploads improvements​

Faster uploads and various bug fixes to eradicate upload queues getting stuck in a loop (this issue should now be resolved, but as always, please do contact us if you experience issues with uploads).

Comparison improvement for Word​

New dialog that allows you to select files from different folders, select what version to compare, and define the original vs revised document.

Stay signed in​

You have the option to remain logged in across all applications and add-ins, both desktop and mobile. With this new option, you only have to log in once and you will only need to insert your credentials again when there is no activity from your device for 10 days or more (e.g. if you go on vacation, you will have to log yourself in again).

 

Templates​

We created this new functionality for both “folder templates” (create a folder structure in bulk) and “file templates” (insert one or several templated files or documents).

 

Tags relaunch​

We launched a new, improved and fully customizable tag system with categories (single select, multiple select) and standard tags. Users now also have the option to apply tags to all folder and files in cascade.

External versions​

Highlight external versions in green color in the file versions panel, to easily identify versions from external collaborators / outside the company.

Roles​

We have created a new default role, the “restricted editor”, which can be configured to each client’s needs (e.g. limit downloads to a number of files).

Outlook add-in​

The add-in allows you to save emails, attachments, append versions, and insert attachments, directly from Outlook into Synergy and also from Synergy into Outlook.

Office Add-in improvements​

When you click on save as new file or as a PDF, now you can select any existing file and apply the same name directly, giving you also the option to replace or append the file.  

ROADMAP FOR NEXT QUARTER​

We plan to make monthly releases with new features and send the corresponding monthly product updates. The features in the roadmap include:

• Two factor authentication: we will roll out this increased security layer of 2 factor authentication, which will send a single-use codes by email to complete a user’s log-in.

• ZIP files integration: zip and unzip files directly from Synergy Drive.

• Append file versions from Office add-in.

• Admin Center improvements: focus on adding self-service options.

• Webhooks and file notifications: subscribe to file/folder notifications and webhooks for external systems integrations.

• Virtual Data Room: We plan on creating the option of setting up “data rooms” within Synergy. This is different from the external sharing functionality given the focus on secure sharing (files cannot be downloaded or copied, analytics on usage, etc.). Part of this workstream includes a new integration with LibreOffice.

• Active Directory integration: initial work to integrate user accounts into Active Directory.

• Additional performance improvements: we remain very focused on continuously improving performance for older computers / less powerful devices as well as reduce the impact of limited network scenarios (i.e. poor internet connection).

Lastly, we wanted to let you know that we plan on communicating improvements and new features monthly going forward. We would very much like to encourage you to inform us if you have feedback and suggestions that might inform how we can make Synergy better for you.

Thank you,

The Synergy team