Being a company that provides value for its clients is a source of pride. However, there's a strong difference between talking about providing value and putting it into practice. In 2017, the value of Diligent's products stemmed from innovation. Diligent combined the talents of over 600 full-time, in-house employees across departments - including engineers, developers and security teams. These Diligent teams took raw ideas, experimented with them, refined them and turned them into usable solutions.
Their collaborative efforts brought the products that our customers requested to life. To do that, Diligent had to put forth the necessary funds and support that its teams needed. With the right tools in place, Diligent teams put out new products and features one after another, efforts that were unmatched by any other board portal service provider.
Some of those efforts will form the basis of things to come in 2018. Here's a look back at the innovative products that created value for Diligent customers in 2017.
Products, Enhancements and Updates Galore!
The creativity of employees who worked to develop new Diligent Boards products generated an unstoppable stream of ideas that created enhancements and updates for administrators and board directors. Administrator Enhancements Diligent listened to board portal administrators, who told us that they loved the security of the reauthentication process, but wanted more control over preventing unnecessary password requests during board meetings. The reauthentication timeout manager gives them that control. Another development administrators liked is being able to watermark every page on the screen, improving accountability around who can view board content. We also closed the communications loop between administrators and directors with powerful enhancements to our notification center, allowing administrators to send alerts about new and updated materials either securely via Diligent Messenger, or through push notifications on iPhone and iPad. Director Enhancements Our clients told us that they wanted more support for Apple Pencil, so we built a comprehensive solution that feels a lot like traditional pen and paper. We also added a Help link to the iPad and iPhone applications, so clients can get guides, update information and answers quickly. In addition, we also responded to director requests for an auto-sync function for current board books, helping to ensure that they'll always have the latest materials on hand. Board directors use various models of electronic devices, so we expanded the functionality on newer versions of Diligent Boards for Android, iPhone and Mac. Now they provide many of the same features as Diligent Boards for iPad. Messenger Enhancements Feedback from customers about Diligent Messenger motivated us to go above and beyond with the functionality of our secure texting alternative. Messenger users now benefit from true offline access, and they are also able to get automated email notifications. These features made it easier for directors to know when they had new, unread messages. We also redesigned Diligent Messenger for the web, making it customizable and adding support for multiple attachments per message so that it can more closely resemble email in both look and behavior. We were also able to expand the reach of our secure solution when we introduced a fully native Android version of Diligent Messenger. Security Enhancements Our clients don't always know or understand many of the security features that our security experts are developing behind the scenes. In 2017, our security teams added improved code obfuscation technology, enhancing the protective solution that prevents hackers from performing reverse-engineering attacks. Device authorization was also added to all newer Diligent director apps, allowing this optional security layer to be used in ''bring your own device'' environments. Device Updates Diligent teams are always working toward making all of our products as fully featured as possible on every device we support. Here are just a few examples: in 2017, Boards Mac v1.6.0 was updated to include note sharing and commenting. Android v1.6.0 also gained the capability for filtering options and a text highlighter. Messenger got many positive updates in 2017. iOS v1.6 added push notification for multisite users so they can see organization names on each notification, as well as visual indicators on the site list that show where unread messages still need to be addressed. Messenger for Android v1.2 added group management and support for notifications from Boards administrators. The Diligent teams also improved re-authentication flows for Messenger for Web, making it faster to get in and out of messages.Diligent Innovates Into the Future
Future innovations at Diligent will focus on the areas that our clients tell us are most important to them - security, adoptability, reputation and service, governance and functionality. Our security technicians perform regular data breach simulations and penetration testing as they look for any part of the system that may need bolstering. We also have teams that stay in the loop of advancements in governance, incorporating changes in our board portal features to meet new regulatory issues. It goes without saying that we'll continue to offer the best in the award-winning, around-the-clock customer service upon which our clients have come to depend. We will continue to work hard to make sure our portals are intuitive and user-friendly. There's a very good reason that Diligent has the pulse of the board portal customer. In addition to listening carefully to the needs of our clients, Diligent has a Global Advisory Board of successful board directors and board administrators, corporate secretaries and general counsels, who use Diligent Boards on a regular basis and who make regular recommendations for product updates to us. As their needs arose, we responded quickly. With their help, we were able to produce new or updated products to our clients 38 times over the course of the year. 2017 was a great year for Diligent and our clients. We move into 2018 with eagerness and optimism as we strive to continue offering the best in board portal services.![](/-/media/project/diligent/master/au-whitepaper-images/whitepaper-images/a-buyers-guide-to-esg-data-management-software.png?h=511&iar=0&w=765&rev=263be577-e761-4e63-96ef-8ab461f2c7d1&hash=35A71501C65320AF30D85580C75077F4)
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