Firmex Virtual Data Room Features

Firmex is easy to use on both an admin and user perspective. The support from Firmex makes it easy to troubleshoot issues. Firmex is by the far the best VDR platform I've used (cost combined with functionality).

The process of allowing users to view certain documents within the VDR could be improved. For example, not having to setup permissions by group, but by user. Further, understanding when users are downloading information by receiving email notifications.

Hi, Thanks for the review! We hear you loud and clear. The majority of our clients prefer group-based permissions and the advantages that come with it, but we understand that certain projects require user-based permissions. Our Client Services team would be happy to customize your project to allow for user-based permissions. This will allow you to hide documents inside a folder by user, as well as setting up users instead of groups. I'd be happy to hop on a quick call at your convenience. Thanks again for choosing Firmex, Kyle Bardsley Senior Director, Customer Operations & Growth

Easy to learn, good interface, very transparent functionality and both Customer Support and Customer Success Manager is very fast at responding and providing updates.

I find it a bit difficult to manage permissions and groups. Having to click set permissions on individual folder to check and no overview of which permissions I've given to which folders.

The application is easy to use and gain familiarity with. It provides all necessary functionality that a virtual data room should.

Can lag at times with document upload or navigation.

Thanks for the feedback. In terms of lagging, it is a web based application which can be impacted by internet speed/performance. Our document uploader can handle up to 50 GB at a time which is the most within the industry.

Gone are the days of having to courier USB sticks!

I can't think of any cons. Sharing information has never been easier.

Thanks for the great piece of feedback, always great to hear.

i have used Firmex multiple times in my career as a CFO and as the Administrator of the VDR. I have mostly used in in an M&A due diligence VDR model. I find the software to be intuitive and easy to use. I have had very few users come back to me and not understand how they can gain access tot he files they need, so it is first time user intuitive as well.

On con is to ensure you set up the file structure correctly in the first instance, as it will impact the flexibility you need to create multiple group access restrictions.

Thanks for the feedback on how intuitive and easy to use the platform is based on your experience. We do have the ability to drag and drop folder and documents to reorganize them if they are in the incorrect order. Our support team is 24/7 and always available for any questions you may have, I always encourage our clients to speak with our support team for any assistance needed. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions james.lehuquet@firmex.com. - James Le Huquet, Director of Sales

I like the easy to use platform and upload capabilities. I felt I had strong control over the VDR as Admin.

The only thing that was missing was creating sub groups when separating buyers/investors. For example, if one buyer wants to give access to their outside advisors then that party should be able to be a sub group of the buyer.

Hi Michael, Appreciate the feedback and the interest in using us once again for your VDR needs. As for the ability to create sub-groups, we have heard this before from clients but at this time isn't possible. We are looking at ways to improve our group permissioning system. I would love to connect with you to discuss more and learn how you have done sub-groups with other VDR providers before. Feel free to reach out. James, Director of Sales james.lehuquet@firmex.com

The customer support is world class. Easy to start using once you start getting use to the functions.

The advanced controls are not as intuitive and relied on the customer support to guide our team.

Thanks for the feedback and comments about our best-in-class support team, as it is one of our biggest differentiators in the space. As for the advanced controls, I would be interested to better understand what specific controls you are referring to. We strive to have one of the easiest and most intuitive platforms in the VDR space. Feel free to email me so I can better address your feedback.

The ease of use and organization of the data rooms made the implementation very easy for our company. In addition, the initial and follow-up support for our internal users is unparalleled in the software industry.

n/a. So far we have had no issues with the software and it has performed as expected.

Thanks for the amazing piece of feedback, we are always pleased to hear this.

The bulk upload/download options are very helpful. The whole VDR is very simple and easy to use.

The set permission feature could be improved a bit. It can be a bit confusing when setting permissions for users/groups and for folders.

Appreciate the feedback on how bulk upload/download has been helpful in your process. We are one of the only providers if not the only provider that allows you to upload up to 50 GB at a time. What might help with the permission of users/groups is our View As tool which can give you sightlines into what those guest user groups can/can't see. I do however understand the feedback and is something our product team is investigating with our new UX/UI release.

Pricing per month and per gig — allows us to use Firmex no matter the size of the deal.

The permissions for me has been my least favorite feature. I have 40 groups for one of my deals right now because each employee needs specific access to 1-2 folders. I wish there were an easier way to set permissions. For granular permissions for subfolders, maybe clicking a check box instead of a drop down menu would be helpful.

Hi Andrew, Thanks for the positive feedback and outlining one of our competitive advantages in our pricing model versus legacy providers pricing model. In terms of the permissions, we can activate user level permissions for you, which should help the issue you described. Your feedback is noted and we are always investigating ways to better improve the granular folder and sub-folder level permissions. It would be great to connect with you on ways we can improve this feature based on your VDR experience. James, Director of Sales

Very easy to use with every feature that is required for our business unit and clients.

Difficult to find reporting and total usage.

Thanks for the feedback on the user experience and how easy the platform is to use, it is something we are always aiming for. Our reports are located in the reporting tab if you have the appropriate user access. There are analytics on document activity, user activity, as well as advanced reports for admin users. I would be interested to better understand what you mean by total usage, feel free to email me if you'd like help.

We use firmex internally for our staff in addition we use Firmex to send documents to our customer. Its user friendly and easy to navigate once you have been granted access.

cannot delete documents submitted unintentionally.

Thanks for the update and feedback as it sounds like our platform is meeting your needs based on your use case. I would be interested to know what you mean by unintentionally submitted documents. If you have the appropriate user permissions, you can delete documents that were uploaded in error. We also have quick views on the top left, above the folder index that shows what documents have been newly uploaded or unread for you to view to make sure these documents weren't uploaded in error. Please let me know if you want to connect, my email is james.lehuquet@firmex.com. - James Le Huquet, Director of Sales

Simple application with very intuitive front end user experience

Possibly the unloading of data once finished - a little clumsy when you are running a large number of rooms

I love how intuitive the software is. It's sleek design makes it very user friendly.

The viewer could use some improvement to better reflect the actual document.

Thanks for the feedback on your overall experience on how we offer a great product. In terms of the viewer, we are always looking at ways to improve this feature. As of now, you can access office documents within the viewer in its native format. I am curious to understand what improvements we can make, feel free to email me to discuss.

Ease of use, the reporting features that allow you to monitor progress and those that have accessed the data-room. Confidentiality is paramount in our sector and being able to restrict companies and individuals on the data they can see is very useful.

The only area that I think needs improving on (and I'm not sure how this can be done), when inviting people into data-rooms, on quite a few occasions the invite will end up in junk folders and not picked up.

Thanks for the feedback on the reports and being able to monitor progress of your deal. Since security and confidentiality is important it is the main reason why we created the View As feature to see what your guest users can/can't see based on their permission settings. In terms of user invites going to spam/junk, it's an issue within the VDR industry based on how the invitations are sent and individuals spam filter settings being high. Again appreciate the feedback and look forward to continually working with you.

Firmex VDR is easy to use. It offers the ability to toggle quickly between projects, has an intuitive folder structure, and allows for easy uploading and viewing of documents.

Having an embedded version control option would be valuable, with an easy way to distinguish between drafts and final versions of documents.

Hi Ian, Thanks for the review! With regard to Firmex having an embedded version control option, you'll be glad to know that we have one. Here's a quick summary of our versioning and document status options: Firmex's versioning feature is built-in to our system. You can choose to upload a new document, or a new version of a document. You and your team can always access the version history, while...

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The software is easy to use and inexpensive relative to comparable solutions. Monitoring and Q&A functions come in handy when working with multiple groups on a project.

The software lacks a good viewer and is sometimes complicated to use with regard to the automatic numbering function. Moreover, it should support more languages.

I love how easy is it to set up data rooms and add users with different tiers of access. It allows me to set up permission structures and then just worry about getting the right data in the proper folder. I also like how intuitive the software is - it allows me to onboard clients quickly.

I wish they would allow sessions to last longer - I'm in Firmex all day and find that I have to log in many times. I also wish there an iPhone app.

The functionality is perfect for running a VDR to share documents and files with many parties while controlling the document flow and accessibility of any party on any document. The product is very competitively priced compared to a lot of the service providers out there. Customer service is very prompt and happy to walk you through any issue, small or large. Firmex is also continually improving its services.

Security functionality is limited once the files have been downloaded by another party (if you allow them to download). Once a party bulk downloads you lose the ability to track their access and usage of documents and delete the document if you would like to remove their access from the information completely.

Hi Matt, Thanks so much for taking the time to reflect on your Firmex experience. We very much understand the benefits of being able to track how your users are interacting with files once they've been downloaded. We do offer a selection of Seclore-supported document protection options that can be applied to help monitor the document activity of your users even after the documents have been downloaded from the platform. The Lock to Computer, Expire Access and No Print document protections will give you the insight you're looking for! I encourage you to reach out to your Firmex rep or Firmex Support to get more information and explore if these protections are right for your project. Many thanks, Maren Van Zutphen Customer Success Manager

I love the ease of setting it up. Other products have more features as far as downloading and tracking, but everyone does bulk downloading so it is irrelevant. You get the key features you need: Accessed, % downloaded, ability to revise documents, etc.

I haven't had any issues with the software. The customer service is the best I've seen. Very amenable if a transaction takes longer or goes on pause (i.e., they are willing to be flexible with pause periods and/or affordable monthly extensions)

Thanks for your review and we are happy to hear you're enjoying Firmex! We're always looking to improve our product, so your feedback is valuable in providing the best product and service to our clients.

I like that it is user friendly and cost effective relative to alternatives. Also excellent customer service.

Creating folders once the main folder structure is set can be difficult.

Michael, we appreciate your review and feedback. Within the platform you can create new folders by using the drop down arrow that is located either at the index level or folder level. This will allow you to create a new folder immediately within the desired folder structure area. Here is a link to support this. We also have an excel template that can be customized to your due diligence folder structure. The excel template can be uploaded into the data room directly which will automatically create an entire index folder structure for you. Andrew who is your rep at Firmex would be more then happy to connect and show you how this can be done within Firmex. James - Director of M&A Coverage https://support.firmex.com/hc/en-us/articles/205148527-Upload-folders-documents

This product is easy for our attorneys to use as well as staff. Setting up a platform for outside parties to use is easy and quick. Adding documents, removing documents is very easy to do. Setting up and adding folders, no problem - I love this product!

Updating the user list when someone's email has changed or they have changed companies could be easier. It could be a lack of knowledge on my part how this can be done.

We are pleased to hear the platform is easy to use for your firm. Being a turnkey solution which minimal set up time is paramount in getting deals done. In terms of updating users email information, it would be great to better understand how you are currently doing it as you said there may be an easier way. Feel free to reach out to me.

Once you figure out how to use its easy but I had to take the time out to figure out. Uploading and downloading is very easy, this function is easy to figure out. But we have to make sure the "Upload, all at once" button has to be clicked. Customer service is excellent.

Its easy to use once you used it. But its not easy to figure out how to use. If I want to create a new folder, it should be easy to find and to use it. Its not clear what "Add Directory" is. I had to go to the help section to obtain a clear answer. It looks like a folder once I "ADD Directory". And the folder color is grey and stays grey. To me, grey is not being used or not functioning. Color should be change to a folder color or some other color. I had ppl email me that they had access and no longer have access. I have to send another invite, so there is some disconnect there. And it happened with ppl that used Firmex many times before. Is not clear how to add or delete ppl when you are adding them to the Firmex.

Thanks for the feedback, like any platform using for the first time there is somewhat of a learning curve which is why we have best in industry support. Our team can help you navigate and are available 24/7/365 for any user assistance or troubleshooting. For the additional folders, sub folders and users, the drop down arrow once selected by a user, folder or sub folder will give you all the options needed to make changes.

Very easy to upload and organize files, very easy to set permissions.

Possible could make the download function easier to use and more reliable.

Paul, Thank you for taking the time to submit your review. We're happy to hear that you're having a positive experience using Firmex. We are continuously looking to improve our product and appreciate the feedback regarding downloads. The download function within the browser will email a zip file containing all of the requested documents, however if you'd like to download directly to your desktop you can use our desktop tool. If you have any questions or require assistance, please do not hesitate to contact myself or your Customer Success Manager directly. Of course, our 24/7 support team is always available to help. Jason - Director of Client Success https://support.firmex.com/hc/en-us/articles/206358288-Download-the-Document-Exchange-for-Desktop