The North West Company
Challenge:
Overcome security concerns about email attachments so that medication can be delivered to residents of Northern Canada
Industry: Retail
Products: AttachView
Messageware Software Helps Leading Retailer Deliver Medication to People in Northern Canada
Situation
Imagine filling a prescription without ever meeting a pharmacist in-person or, receiving your medication via an automatic dispenser that is triggered by a pharmacist located hundreds of miles away.
Thousands of people in Northern Canada are now getting their medication via The North West Company’s Northern Telepharmacy. Up until recently, the people who live in these areas did not have a convenient means to get prescription drugs. Recognizing the growing health needs of people in these remote locations,The North West Company, a leading retailer of food, everyday products and services for people in rural communities and urban neighborhoods across Canada and Alaska, decided to take action.
The North West Company was using Microsoft Exchange Server and Outlook Web Access as their messaging platform. As a part of the rollout, security risks were taken into consideration. “Security was our chief concern,” said Kevin Dyck, Senior Technology Analyst at The North West Company. “Mainly, the huge security risks that are involved when someone opens, saves or views email attachments in native OWA. So, we made the decision to turn off this feature and for a good several months our 1,300 users did not have a means to view attachments. We knew this could not be a permanent solution, as our pharmacists send and receive a large amount of correspondence daily. Also, hundreds of users now relied on OWA exclusively for email access.”
Solution
In order to allow attachment viewing for all of North West’s employees in approximately 200 remote locations without risking company security, the company deployed Messageware AttachView. AttachView prevents OWA attachments from being stored in the Temporary Internet Files of
shared computers by converting attachment files into secure HTML web pages, giving fast, secure access to documents that The North West Company and their Telepharmacy employees need to make decisions.
“We chose Messageware AttachView because it would allow our OWA users to do their jobs from any location without compromising our company’s strict security standards,” said Dyck.
– Kevin Dyck, Senior Technology Analyst
We chose Messageware AttachView because it would allow our OWA users to do their jobs from any location without compromising our company’s strict security standards.
Results
With AttachView, 300 different file types can be viewed without the native application and the resulting secure HTML view is a near mirror image of the actual file so that document elements, such as a prescription signature, are not compromised. In addition, despite the fact that their employees can be located as far as hundreds of miles apart, they can continue collaborating on documents thanks to AttachView’s feature of viewing Microsoft Word documents in Final or Markup View, for those using Word’s popular Track Changes feature.
Dyck concluded, “Everyone has seen immense benefits from the solution, but especially our head pharmacist likes the fact that his pharmacists can use email more effectively.”
About Messageware
Founded in 1993, Messageware develops and markets solutions that secure, enhance, and customize Outlook Web App. A trusted Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and a Global Exchange ISV for over 15 years, our applications give com-panies of all sizes a greater return on Microsoft Exchange. Messageware products are used by over 2,500 enterprises and 4 million users worldwide, from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses, in every industry including banking, education, financial services, government, healthcare, and legal services.
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