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On NetDocuments Roadmap: Embedding Governance Policies Within Documents

NetDocuments is developing an approach to protecting documents that does an end run around the end user.

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The Achilles’ Heel for law firm and corporate data-governance policies is the end user. No matter the policies and procedures an enterprise adopts to protect its data, it takes just one careless employee to cause a breach.

Recognizing this, the cloud-based email and document management company NetDocuments is developing an approach to protecting documents that does an end run around the end user. Later this year, it will release a governance module that effectively embeds governance policies in the document at the platform level, so even the most careless of users cannot violate the document’s protections.

This governance module is among a number of forthcoming enhancements outlined last week by Alvin Tedjamulia, NetDocuments’ cofounder and chief technology officer, during my meeting with him in the company’s Lehi, Utah, headquarters. Also planned for release in the second half of the year are:

  • Enhanced ShareSpaces.
  • Binders.
  • Contextual annotations.
  • Compound project management.
  • Mobile predictive filing.
  • Expanded Workspaces.

All these features are intended to further NetDocument’s vision of its product as a platform that brings together multiple applications and integrations to support content management, collaboration, productivity, compliance and governance.

Alvin Tedjamulia and Bob Ambrogi.

Of these developments, the most significant is the governance module, Tedjamulia believes, which is due out in the second half of the year. He called it a “monumental step” for the NetDocuments platform.

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NetDocuments is known for its extensive data security, including encryption of every document in use, in transit, and at rest; unique decryption keys for each document; and double encryption of each key. But the end user remains a weak point, Tedjamulia says.

“Someone at a law firm can be malicious, naïve or careless,” he says. “A document can still be externalized because the end user is careless.”

Law firms and other organizations attempt to counter this by setting policies and educating the end user about those policies. They also use end-point solutions that, for example, regularly scan all of an organization’s laptops and other devices to detect threats. For a large organization, that is a massive task to manage. Worse yet, it detects threats only after they occur.

“The world today tries to protect the end user — companies try to strengthen the borders of the area you have to protect,” Tedjamulia says. “So maybe you create two-factor authentication. That’s border protection. But what happens when someone gets in? They can throw as much of a party as they wish.”

“Everyone these days is talking about creating walls. What we’re saying is, we have nothing against walls, but the real jewel of end-user protection is action protection.”

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The forthcoming governance module will put data-loss prevention (DLP) at the level of the documents, so the documents themselves will effectively know the policies that apply to them. If a user tries to email a confidential document, the document will prevent it. If a user overseas tries to download a geographically restricted document, the document will prevent the download.

“Governance policies will be contained within the document,” he says. “The module will create a DLP shield that will be enforced by the platform, as opposed to within an application. There should be no difference in how any of our applications enforce the document’s policies.”

Other Features in the Works

Other features and enhancements due out this year:

Enhanced ShareSpaces. Within NetDocuments, a ShareSpace is a container used to share documents with clients or others outside your firm. Until now, ShareSpaces have been limited in size and do not allow subfolders.

Later this year, NetDocuments will introduce a number of enhancements to ShareSpaces. Among them, they will be able to contain many more documents than they do now, they will support ndThread within a ShareSpace, and they will allow subfolders.

Binders. Last November, NetDocuments announced that it had acquired Closing Room, a deal-management application developed by the AmLaw 200 financial services firm Chapman and Cutler. The application was designed to streamline transactional closings by enabling deal teams to automate the manual process of creating closing binders.

With its new binders feature, slated for release in the third quarter of this year, NetDocuments is incorporating that technology into its workspaces, enabling teams to aggregate any set of documents into an indexed binder. This creates a final set of documents that cannot be modified, even if the documents that make up the binder are subsequently modified elsewhere.

Contextual annotations. This feature, due out in the third quarter, will allow collaborators from within and without an organization to work on a document together at the level of a paragraph or sentence.

Using this feature, collaborators will see a document in view mode within the NetDocuments platform and be able to annotate any part of the document in context. Viewers will not be able to change the text, but will be able to engage in discussions through annotations at a granular level within the document.

Compound project management. NetDocuments currently allows users to collaborate within Workspaces through discussion threads (ndThreads). This feature will build on that by allowing users to create projects within matters. They will be able to delineate project tasks, assign responsibilities for completing those tasks, and track the progress and status of tasks. At any time, a lawyer working on a matter will be able to go in and see who is working on what and where they stand.

While there are already third-party applications NetDocuments users can use for project management, they require that documents be moved to separate repositories. By incorporating project management within the Workspace, everything is kept within the NetDocuments environment and users are ensured of the same levels of security across all documents, Tedjamulia says.

Mobile predictive filing. NetDocuments’ ndMail application uses predictive filing to file emails based on their unique characteristics. Later this year, the company will introduce mobile predictive filing, which will extend that capability to Outlook on iOS and Android mobile devices.

Expanded Workspaces. Within NetDocuments, Workspaces are where users view client documents. Later this year, NetDocuments will expand Workspaces to allow users to see not only documents stored within NetDocuments, but also content from a variety of partners and applications, such as time entries, invoices, and legal research materials.

“You will see not only the NetDocuments content, but you can branch out to all the associated repositories associated with that content,” Tedjamulia says. “We will continue to develop NetDocuments to establish the idea that the Workspace is the center of gravity for a lawyer.”

Robert Ambrogi Bob AmbrogiRobert Ambrogi is a Massachusetts lawyer and journalist who has been covering legal technology and the web for more than 20 years, primarily through his blog LawSites.com. Former editor-in-chief of several legal newspapers, he is a fellow of the College of Law Practice Management and an inaugural Fastcase 50 honoree. He can be reached by email at ambrogi@gmail.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@BobAmbrogi).

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