There are many traditional methods for transferring confidential data like email, online storage, mail, pickup, and an online service. But with the advent of increased bandwidth more businesses are choosing to take their client’s confidential data online. Putting client’s data online comes with many challenges and choosing the wrong solution can put your practice at risk. When considering options on the web many hear words like web portals (horizontal portals, vortals), cloud computing, and SaaS. But with all these terms it is increasingly difficult to navigate this sea of cryptic words and acronyms. It’s important to understand how they all affect your business. This article will teach you about new web technologies that will influence your choices, and what that means for your clients’ confidential data.

Web portals are communication tools that help businesses better connect with their clients. They provide a single point entry for all end users and almost always are extremely difficult to integrate into existing workflow.

Cloud computing is a form of grid computing with no singular server but a multitude of servers that can act as one. They provide scalability, increasing server capacity as needed, which makes them a viable option for growing businesses. However, with fast computing comes the need for form and design.

Software as a Service (SaaS) is essentially software without needing to install anything locally on your machine. But with the ease of deployment comes the need for scalable data storage and computing. SaaS also needs good workflow and a singular entry point for end users.

All of these options present good cases for use but they don’t quite offer the right solution for you and your clients’ confidential data. The reality is that you need to use a solution that provides you a hybrid from those technologies, not just one or the other. But now you have to consider how your solution adheres to current compliance levels, security, and technology choices.

When talking about data compliance you must review your requirements for SOX, HIPAA, EUDPD, PCIDSS, GLBA, and state requirements such as California SB 1386. With these requirements a breach can be devastating. A data breach is any instance where personal information is made available to, or viewed by an unauthorized party. Ensuring your compliance is imperative to your business and should not be ignored.

While compliance is important, it is just as equally important to consider the security being implemented in your solution. Physical security must be in place such as access to the building, rooms, and servers. Independent security audits must be performed routinely. Environment elements must be considered such as power, heating, and cooling. Equipment like redundant hardware and fail-over internet connections are a must. Network security and account security are essential for secure transactions to occur, so ensuring that SSL, network technicians, sessions, and caching are all in place help create a more solid solution. Security is a much larger issue than what bit-strength the SSL certificate is; examine all aspects of security before making a choice.

All of these options are enough to make your head hurt for days and give you panic attacks. But finding a solution can be a lot easier than you think, make sure your solution allows for these features: is a simple solution to your complex needs, integration into your existing workflow, scalability, singular entry point for your clients, as wells as the ability to store, transfer, gather data securely and quickly.

When considering confidential data you must examine the life cycle of the data; every type of confidential data will be created, stored, transferred, and at some point destroyed. You must decide which of the previous choices you want in your solution; this will affect your choice of options and cost. Data rights are also often overlooked when choosing an option, you should examine: if your client needs access to data from multiple companies, your client needs their employees to have access to just their company, your client needs to have their vendors (ie. Bank) to have access to their data, bank needs information from multiple clients of yours. Again, these choices will affect the cost of your solution.

Many solutions on the market will entice you with fancy but rather useless features while completely ignoring the ability to track historical data. Tracking confidential data history is very important; every solution choice should be able to track creation, changes, reviews, and delivery. If your solution doesn’t allow you to track the history of your data you can be sure that you are putting your practice at risk.

Your confidential data solution should offer you the ability to control the data whether it is sent to your client, from your client, and or when you are no longer retaining a client.

Overall the best solution should always be a hybrid of confidential data and web portals. Your solution should not force you to change your workflow; it should however, always keep or improve security, provide easy end user involvement, and be simple to manage.

Choosing a confidential data and web portal solution doesn’t have to give you chest pains, check out the website for solution options and pricing.