Our primary use case is for anybody who has Microsoft Office as an additional filtering security encryption purpose. We utilize it for all of the said functions that it provides.
Solid features, priced competitively, without becoming cumbersome
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
The primary benefit for our organization is we have it set up to receive digests rather than being notified of every single spam or potential quarantined message. You can simply receive those and review them very easily in a single interface. Unlike other programs that are out there, it is multiple tabs waiting for it to load and it can be quite cumbersome. This is all in one central location for ease of use.
What is most valuable?
I really like the email encryption and archiving feature because when you are talking about legal holds it is very helpful in case somebody departs the organization. Those items are retained indefinitely.
What needs improvement?
The is some confusion that happens in the initial setup and configuration when you are configuring lists in Microsoft Office as well as the connectors. If it could be built into an enterprise application that could work much more smoothly with Microsoft Office or Azure Enterprise applications, that would be a great asset.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Proofpoint Essentials for the past eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is excellent and we have not experienced any issues or problems with it compared to other products such as AppRiver.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
You can do a thirty-day trial on scalability with all of the key features or products included and it is excellent. We have around three hundred users that can use the solution.
How are customer service and support?
We have reached out to customer support a couple of times about simple questions and concerns and honestly, they are great.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously tested out a couple of other platforms. We tried, if I am not mistaken, Barracuda and AppRiver, and we switched simply because of consistent uptime without any issues.
How was the initial setup?
We work with deployment in the evenings or on weekends to minimize downtime. Once we have access to the domain itself and we input the DNS or the MX records in the DNS to create a connector and then the exceptions themselves, it is a relatively simple process. If you have access to all of the tools, it takes about two hours from start to finish.
What was our ROI?
It has definitely made users review their quarantine items and be more cautious when items that come through are questionable. End-user security is always a concern whenever you are dealing with people.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is comparable to Defender. It is correct, and there are no surprises. The different tiers that they offer, are all scalable.
What other advice do I have?
Prepare for some downtime, but make sure you have access to everything before you start to implement this because it does take time for the MX records to be properly updated. But once that is done, everything else from there and double-checking your settings is usually the hardest thing you have to do. There is a long list of exceptions for the connectors that you have to create for Proofpoint.
I would rate Proofpoint Essentials an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
