What is our primary use case?
We are our business is a nonprofit medical, dental, behavioral health, and optometry.
We have HIPAA in the United States. This is, basically, a patient privacy protocol. We have to stay compliant with HIPAA. Therefore, we have to monitor the content of the mail, both in and out, on a very basic level to make sure that it doesn't give outpatient information. This product has a built-in HIPAA dictionary, So that it will automatically scan inbound and outbound emails, based on a set of parameters that we feed into the system. It will stop anything it thinks might be a problem. It will let us know, and then we can review the mail and release it or reject it as needed. That's extremely important for us so that personal health identification information doesn't get out there for any patients.
We also use it to track messaging. If someone says, "I didn't get a message," we can confirm or deny that based on what we see.
We use URL protection inside emails so it will potentially block what it thinks is a bad URL. Those are often false positives. However, it's better safe than sorry.
We do all our spam filtering through it so that it will block any spam. If it's on the borderline, it will let the user know and ask them if this is a legit email; however, mostly, it's just blocking things, and we review. A couple of times every day, we'll look just to see if anything's getting held there that shouldn't be.
How has it helped my organization?
If you violate HIPAA, you will be subject to a potential investigation or fines or have other problems. This solution helps mitigate issues surrounding that.
For example, once, an email came into a provider, a medical provider, and it had personal information in it regarding patients, and it got blocked. We are able to pick that up. And essentially, we wrote to the organization that sent it and said this is not allowed. You can't send it this way. Please send it as an encrypted email and just move forward from there.
We've had a couple of catches on the outbound side too. It's really helped. Also, on the spam or virus-type avoidance side of things, it's really helped there as well.
What is most valuable?
Due to our specialized use case, that HIPAA dictionary really comes in handy due to the fact that you just can't find that in a lot of products out there.
It can scale.
What needs improvement?
The interface needs improvement.
If I'm looking at the administration panel right now, I can track messages. I can see what was accepted. I can see what's held. I can see what's rejected. I can see what's bounced. I can see delivery. I can see processing. However, it's all seven different things, and that's just silly.
Also, if something's held and shouldn't be, I can release it, yet I can't add it straight to an allowed list from there. I have to go to a whole separate section, create a policy, update the policy, and add the email address, whereas in our prior product that we used to use, called AppRiver, if mail came in and it should be white-listed or allowed, you would just click the little box and say always allow, and it would just add it straight to the appropriate filter to allow it. The way we have to do it in this product is very convoluted. On the back end, there are ten different places to check for things before you finally figure out the right spot.
I'd like to have better support from the product in the future. I have noted that support has gotten worse over time.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for almost five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is mostly stable. We've had some times when we just can't log in the product whatsoever. That's not uncommon for a cloud solution. However, it's not good when it happens.
We had an outage once for twelve hours on their end where no email was going through.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution has been scalable.
Every single user here who has an email account essentially is part of this product since it's filtering every single email address. That's about 450 users. People that use it don't really know they use it.
We're growing as a company, and we're opening up another new facility next month and then one in the fall. So we'll probably add another 75 to 100 users by the end of the year.
How are customer service and support?
Initially, the support was okay. It's gotten worse as time has gone on.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did previously use AppRiver.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was fairly complex, quite frankly. We forced it into a smaller time frame partly due to them, and partly due to us.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm not familiar with the pricing of the product.
What other advice do I have?
We are on the cloud version. We are always on the latest version.
I'd advise potential new users to do research and figure out the best solution for their needs. Ours was very specific, being in the healthcare industry. We could have benefited from really doing a little more research since it is difficult to use on our end.
Overall, I would rate the solution seven out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.