Nira streamlines IT and Security operations for leading SaaS platform

Ray (a pseudonym) is the IT Manager of a ground-breaking SaaS company. After his company ramped up hiring and acquired two companies, Ray needed to get a better handle on how his company information was being shared. 

“We had documents in all sorts of different locations. It was important to consolidate these files and get a feel for how our documents were being shared, both internally and externally,” said Ray. 

But getting that much-needed visibility was a real challenge. The company had tried other solutions including Google Apps Manager (GAM), a command-line tool that offered some relief but was cumbersome and not sustainable long-term, according to Ray. 

This ultimately led Ray’s team to seek a solution that would give them the complete visibility they needed, with a fast time to implementation and an easy-to-use interface.

After running a proof of concept with Nira, Ray immediately reached out to his company’s executive leadership to show them the risks he had identified and explain why Nira was better and more efficient than any other solution on the market. 

Nira was the best tool I'd used for managing files in my almost 20-year career in IT. I saw Nira and didn’t need to look at any other solutions.

Ray,

IT Manager - Leading SaaS platform

Protect critical company files from external exposure

Nira helps identify files that are shared or owned externally, then allows teams to investigate and remediate risks

For Ray and the team, the biggest use case for Nira has been protecting their files from external exposure. 

With Nira, we can ensure our documents are not exposed externally. It’s been the easiest thing to accomplish in the shortest time.

Ray,

IT Manager - Leading SaaS platform

The team can now get comprehensive data on how many of their files are shared or owned by external accounts. This includes files that were created by external parties and shared with employees.

“You think, these files are externally owned, that’s somebody else’s problem, but then you realize what the implications of that are,” Ray said. 

Rather than being forced to move on due to a lack of visibility or never knowing about the problem in the first place, Nira allowed the team to gain insight into every file with external access. 

Seeing how many files are shared externally or owned externally is crucial, and then being able to ask questions and investigate, that visibility is phenomenal.

Ray,

IT Manager - Leading SaaS platform

After making two acquisitions, Ray’s company needed visibility into all the documents owned by and shared with the acquired companies. Ray said it was a challenge to sort through company-owned documents alongside files owned by the acquisitions.

“It was a nightmare to determine who owned what,” Ray said. “But with Nira, I was able to see it all.” 

After gaining much-needed visibility, the team could ask questions and investigate risks, including reaching out to former contractors who had later changed roles. 

For example, a design contractor became an employee, and Ray noticed that she owned a lot of company files that she worked on as a contractor with her personal account.

“That started a conversation about what should be done to fix the issue,” Ray said. “I would have had no idea because I had zero insight into her files that were owned externally prior to using Nira.”

With Nira, the company can immediately reduce external exposure to company documents. Ray said the ability to take bulk action on thousands to even millions of files has been extremely valuable to him and the team. 

“It’s infinitely possible to think about fixing hundreds, thousands, even millions of files with Nira because it can happen in a couple of clicks,” Ray said. 

Secure Google Workspace without the scripting

Nira helps find and fix issues without requiring scripting or specialized knowledge

Nira allows the company to investigate information about files and their permissions, without spending valuable time on cumbersome scripting. Ray can conduct better, more thorough investigations, faster than ever before. 

I love Nira’s feature of being able to get a list of files and gain more insight into them with a couple of clicks and keywords.

Ray,

IT Manager - Leading SaaS platform

Before Nira, when Ray was relying on writing scripts against Google’s APIs to find and fix issues, he would run into problems with authentication and delegating access to service accounts. According to Ray, sometimes queries wouldn’t work in the way he expected. Or, they would return thousands of files or the automation might break. 

“There were so many things with scripting that would work flawlessly, and then it would break,” Ray explained. 

With scripting, Ray might be able to get some information for a specific file. But when he needed insight into hundreds or thousands of files, the process became too time-consuming.  

Without Nira, if I was faced with fixing access for 50,000 to 100,000 files, it would take ages. You could hire someone to do that job full-time because it can be so cumbersome, especially as a company grows and the document count increases.

Ray,

IT Manager - Leading SaaS platform

The team’s ability to replace their time spent using scripts has enabled the company to enhance efficiency. Plus, Nira’s automation of remediation processes has further boosted productivity and performance. 

Empower smaller IT teams, saving time and resources

Nira gives IT teams more time to focus on the initiatives that matter most

For Ray, every day working in IT offers something new, whether it be user support, project planning, or dealing with unforeseen issues. 

“Being the only IT person means that my schedule and my day-to-day are always different,” he said.

While juggling diverse tasks, it can become impossible to find the time to reduce risks on thousands of documents. This is where Nira has been a huge benefit. Nira has allowed Ray to save time by setting up automations and implementing the tool’s employee security portal. 

With Nira, we could automate processes - for example, documents that haven’t been modified in a year or more - and take care of them on a rolling schedule. It was easy to automate in a number of clicks.

Ray,

IT Manager - Leading SaaS platform

The employee response to Nira has also been positive. Nira’s employee security portal allows them to identify and remediate risks on their documents, without needing any technical expertise. This frees up time for Ray, who can now set employees up to fix unauthorized access issues on their own.

“I had one user that was really excited about the employee security portal and reached out to make sure she was on the right track,” Ray said. “We went over it and what she thought and how Nira presented the options to her. The tool has been so straightforward and easy for employees to use.”