The Eldred Central School District located in Eldred, New York, required a robust email security tool to support the safe handling of sensitive data. We spoke to Jedd Jacke, Director of Technology, to understand how Zivver is supporting the team to meet their compliance obligations:

“We were using a well-known competitor product to Zivver and the prices were increasing. This prompted us to explore new solutions, which were both cost effective and supported us in meeting our compliance responsibilities. We must comply with ED Law 2-D in New York state, as well as HIPAA. Under both, Eldred must take precautions to protect sensitive student and teacher data and Zivver is a critical tool in helping us to achieve this.”

Effortless user-experience for staff

“The thing that stood out to me about Zivver was its ease of use. This was a priority for me; our email security tool has to be user-friendly for employees. It needed to look and feel familiar, and we didn’t want to have to undergo any training. Zivver is easy to use and provides a great number of data loss prevention features missing from our old solution, at a far more competitive price.”

“User feedback has been quiet, which tells me there have been no challenges from a user perspective. They understand how it works and how to use it, and the implementation was very smooth.”

“I have no doubt that, come the new school year, parent feedback will be very positive, too.”

Secure, easy two-way communication

“One particular tool we have been touting to other schools in our region is Zivver’s Conversation Starter functionality. If we encounter another organization who doesn’t have the ability to encrypt an email, they can email into our organization securely with Zivver.”

“It might be that we’re engaging with parents, or a doctor needs to share medical data with one of our school nurses, for example. They can go to our website and access a secure link there to send sensitive data to us, and begin a secure conversation. Alternatively, they can reply to one of our staff securely. The fact that we can open up secure communications channels with people will be very useful.”

“Conversation Starter automatically enables 2FA, keeping the message secure. We can guarantee that only the authorized recipient has accessed data, which is great peace of mind for us.”

Improving security awareness

“Zivver integrates with Gmail and puts security tools within reach for staff. Our old security solution was very basic. Zivver is far more intuitive and provides human error prevention tools. In this way, Zivver will help to build people’s awareness around security.”

“One particular function I feel will be beneficial to us is the reporting suite, which provides insights into user behavior.”

“Zivver enables us to share large files securely by email, which is something that our old solution didn’t enable. Previously, if we went over the 25GB limit enforced by Gmail, we were forced into sharing the file via Google Drive which wasn’t user friendly. Many of our teams are already benefiting from the ability to share huge files, such as videos. Now, they can now attach the file to an email and send it encrypted.”

“We’re encouraging more schools in the region to use Zivver, as this will enhance seamless communication across organizations. I’ve already been having conversations with colleagues in the county and explaining the benefits. I feel that Zivver will sell itself, honestly.”