Since the acquisition of Citrix ShareFile, we’ve had many reasons to feel optimistic about the future of the file transfer service and its potential. With the strength of Citrix behind it, the possibilities for innovation are endless. On the other hand, another advantage to Citrix’s acquisition is that ShareFile can bring a secure file transfer solution to the already broad suite of virtualization products Citrix provides.

Citrix Receiver allows users to access their published applications from any number of devices, including their tablets, phones or PC. With ShareFile now playing a part, your documents are available along with all of your applications. Need to edit that PowerPoint presentation before you get in? Receiver with ShareFile integration will allow you to open up Microsoft PowerPoint on your tablet and then open any PowerPoint files you may have saved within your ShareFile account! With a quick edit and save, the presentation is saved back into your ShareFile account and ready to be opened in the conference room PC where you are giving your presentation.

Ten ShareFile employees have volunteered to have their heads shaved in support of St. Baldrick’s Foundation. St. Baldrick’s funds the most promising research to find cures for childhood cancers. Pledging to shave in exchange for donations has become a fun way for our employees to get involved in raising money and awareness for a great cause.

Prior to deciding to partner with St. Baldrick’s, we were presented with the facts about childhood cancer- and they’re devastating. More children are lost to cancer in the U.S. than any other disease. Before reaching their twentieth birthdays, about 1 in every 300 boys and 1 in 333 girls will have cancer. Worldwide, a child is diagnosed every 3 seconds.* These statistics were eye opening to us, and we realized we want to do something to help support the research for a cure.

Here at ShareFile, we strive to follow our three core values: to always be Customer Centric, remain Data Driven and ensure Responsible Growth—While it might seem that these values only truly relate to customer service or sales, we pride ourselves in making them an integral part of our software development life-cycle (SDLC).

You may ask yourself, “what exactly is the SDLC, and how does it relate to me as a customer?” Read on to learn what goes into each software release and how your feedback and concerns shape our new development goals.

The first step of each development cycle is to determine the requirements for the upcoming release. We review open bugs and customer issues, consult customer feedback for new feature implementations, and set the expectations for upcoming efforts. Devoting adequate time and commitment to proper requirement specification is critical to ensuring quality and timely releases, and most importantly it helps us ensure we’re always serving the best interests of our customers.

On any given day, you can walk through the ShareFile sales floor and hear the constant hum of people prospecting, performing demos with clients or huddling together to share insights with each other. At the same time, you may see a person whizzing by on a scooter or two people battling it out on the foosball table. I sat down with a few Sales Managers to see what keeps our sales team performing at such a high level while enjoying a fun work atmosphere.

Grant Kitching, Senior Manager of Vertical Sales, believes that daily collaboration among teams is the main driver of a high-performing, innovative sales team. One of the ways ShareFile supports this idea is through “scrums.” These daily meetings were originally a part of the agile development movement to ensure better product releases through tighter communication between developers, product managers and other key stakeholders. Every morning at ShareFile, Lead Generators, Sales Executives and Directors on vertical sales teams meet in “scrums” to discuss daily numbers and projections, competitors, or articles. This gives an open forum for team members to share best practices and hold one another accountable.

Do you collaborate on projects often with colleagues and clients? Are you constantly emailing files back and forth to give and receive feedback on important documents? If so, you can save loads of time and create an easier workflow for you and the people you work with by utilizing folders within ShareFile. You will fall in love with folders in no time after learning about these four ShareFile folder features!

Distribution Groups
If you have a certain group of people you work with on a particular project, you can create a distribution group to organize a group of users. Instead of adding several users to a folder or as recipients on an outgoing send or request email, a distribution group can be created to represent several users at once. Folder permissions to a distribution group will apply to every member. If for any reason you need to remove a member from a distribution group, they will lose folder access permissions given to that group.

Are you using the latest version of Windows? We have great news for you! ShareFile for Windows 8 is now available for download. Easily access ShareFile through a full-screen experience by clicking on the ShareFile tile. Check out our 2-minute demo of the ShareFile for Window 8 app below.

The tremendous growth ShareFile has experienced since our acquisition by Citrix begs the question, “How does a fairly small startup handle rapid expansion effectively and efficiently?”

Ashton Smith, Project Manager on the Facilities and Operations team, describes the requirements for successful growth in this way, “I think flexibility to deal with changes and preparedness are important. After all, things are changing all the time, and it’s important to keep a cool head in those situations. But I think the most important requirement is good communication skills. A team like this is so dependent on each member that it’s critical for us to keep open lines of communication – and for people to be willing to step up and lend a hand when it’s needed.”

We believe in small businesses; in fact, we were one prior to joining the Citrix team. To show our support for small teams accomplishing big things, we are on a national tour to thank these companies for their hard work. We’re teaming up with Silver Lining Limited, an organization dedicated to helping small businesses flourish, and coming to a city near you.

We’re hosting FREE events for small business owners across the US in February and March. Find your nearest city and register via the links below.