Proximity London is an integrated creative agency based in London with clients including Save The Children and Volkswagen.  The organisation has been using Square Group (filetransfer.co.uk's sister company) as its preferred Mac supplier and support provider for over 7 years.  

This relationship led to the installation of the Accellion Courier Secure File Transfer Application (SFTA) two years ago.  The Courier SFTA allows you to securely send files of any size, including gigabyte-sized files, to recipients at any location and organisation.  Senders receive a download receipt whenever a file is downloaded. 

“We were previously using FTP, but we had to configure too many sites and there were security issues,” comments Michael Curtis, Head of Technology Integration at Proximity.  “Accellion is a very easy solution that facilitates secure and large file transfer between us and clients.”

By moving file transfer to the dedicated SFTA appliance, users and administrators at Proximity will also notice improved email server performance and the end of restrictive file attachment quotas. Sending files through the SFTA can eliminate nearly 80% of the email load, which typically consists of attachments.  This will avoid issues similar to the one Proximity experienced when an employee tried to send a 300Mb PDF to a client, which subsequently brought down the entire company's Exchange Server!

Installation was simple, as filetransfer.co.uk sent Proximity the Accellion appliance, which they simply plugged into their network.  Michael continues, “Installation and training was done quickly, efficiently and remotely.  We have had no issues with internal or external client users, which proves the stability and simplicity of the solution - it just works!”

Any client of Proximity doesn't have to have an account set up, just access to a web browser.  An email is then sent stating that a file is available for download.  “The beauty of Accellion,” states Michael, “is that we know when a client has downloaded a file, as we receive a receipt.  This means there are no issues over whether someone has or hasn't received what we've sent them.  We also have in-house control and peace of mind over the security of our data transfer.”

Proximity has branded Accellion as their own system, called Jupiter, which also gives them and their clients brand consistency.  What's more Accellion gives the ability to set timing for files and how long they stay on the server, which avoids overloaded systems.  Michael continues, “This feature is especially useful if people have confidential and time critical files they don't want to hang around for too long.  They can simply send an email out saying this file will remain on the server for 24 hours, after which it is removed.”

Proximity London has between 40-50 Macs and also utilises Square Group as its Service Contract Provider.  As an Apple Authorised Service Provider, Square's service team look after all the groups' Mac based IT infrastructure.  With its own team of fully trained engineers on hand, Square can handle simple warranty repair to a major server failure.  The purpose built call management system keeps a log of all Proximity London machines under contract, together with their full service history.

Michael concludes, “We have a good relationship with Square Group and feel the team is very knowledgeable.  Having the service contract provides us with total peace of mind that, should we have any technical issues, they will resolve them quickly and efficiently with very little involvement from us.”