Key Board Portal Requirements

Diligent is considered the pioneer of board portals—now serving many of the most powerful and influential corporations in the world.

Diligent prides itself in serving directors and executives with concierge level support. Listening to their comments and requests over the years has enabled Boardbooks to evolve into a solution that satisfies the four key requirements of a board portal:

1. The system should not leave any Director behind.
2. Directors have the choice of viewing online or offline (or, printed books).
3. The board portal must be totally secure and technology neutral.
4. It must be so easy-to-use, Directors happily embrace and use it.

Here's how Diligent successfully meets these top 4 Key Requirements:

Key Requirement #1: Simple and Easy-to-Use

Boardbooks was designed to "look like a book and work like a book." Because the interface is completely intuitive, Directors find it easy-to-use and are quick to embrace its many conveniences. All that is required is Internet Explorer and access to the web. No training or additional software is needed.

Boardbooks is a simple "point and click" system. One or two clicks will navigate you throughout the book. Since documents are displayed at a page level vs. a document level—Directors and executives do not have to wait for large files to download.

Directors view all material from one central database, so they are viewing only the most current information at all times. And, they can begin reviewing sections of the book instantly—as they become approved.

Key Requirement #2: Flexible Online/Offline Viewing

Boardbooks may be viewed online via the Internet or offline directly on your PC. The offline version of Boardbooks allows a user to download a secure encrypted database of the entire Boardbooks website. With Boardbooks' One-Click™, a Director simply clicks "sync" and within moments has a complete copy of not only the recent books, but the entire Board Portal. This allows meetings to be run off-site without a dependency on the Internet. The same intuitive "book like" interface is used to view offline as well as online.

Additionally, when paper copies are requested—Boardbooks has a Print Book™ feature that allows you to print the entire collated Boardbook complete with page numbers, agenda related footers and more. Simply click the Print Book™ icon and a hard copy of the Boardbook is available if needed.

Key Requirement #3: Complete Security

Each Boardbooks user has a distinct user name and password, which is required to access the site. You control who has access to what—and when they get access. This ensures only the most current approved version of your board materials is in distribution at any time. An automated intrusion detection system blocks malicious activity, and reverse proxy authentication provides yet another barrier of protection.

Boardbooks is a server-based system that features encrypted communications and data transfer along with continuous deployment of the latest security technologies to ensure absolute protection of data.

Diligent's Global Hosting Model features regionalized hosting of each client's primary data (data is hosted in client's native country) to ensure there are no latency issues. In addition, our dual redundancy network is geographically dispersed for maximum security.

Application Security: For an added layer of security, Diligent allows your Boardbook to be viewed, but does not allow documents to be downloaded as PDF files and left behind on PC desktops. All pages are posted as an encrypted, password protected database—and are removed from cache when viewing is complete.

Technology Neutral: The Boardbooks application architecture was carefully designed to ensure it is technology neutral—in other words, not creating discoverability exposure greater than paper systems.

Key Requirement #4: 24/7/365 Global Support

Diligent serves the highest level officers of some of the largest companies in the world. We have developed our culture around completely meeting the expectations of these directors, general counsels, executives and administrators. Our support team is highly trained to interact at a Director level to solve any PC, browser, or Internet connectivity problem that may arise. This concierge level support is a core competency and has helped ensure successful implementation for over 27,500 + registered users.

Full Management/Implementation Team

Diligent prides itself on the high quality account management and implementation it provides to its clients. Each client is assigned an Account Management team that includes:

• A Director of Accounts – who has experience of implementing over 60 accounts across a wide range of industries
• A Project Manager – who works with the client to provide a tailored implementation plan that meets the client's needs and goals
• An IT Specialist - who work as a liaison with client's IT departments and identify and resolve any problems before they impact your Board members

Diligent Account Managers personally guide each client through the implementation process and the initial training sessions. Managers are also available at all times to handle account maintenance.

In addition, Diligent Executives always remain involved from start to finish and remain hands-on bringing industry specific compliance requirements and expertise to each client.

"Before deciding on Diligent Boardbooks, I considered the business case for a Board Portal... Reluctant to add unnecessary expense, we compared portal technology costs to prior photocopying, courier and postage costs, as well as the legal risks.
   "We concluded that the Boardbooks board portal could pay for itself while delivering significant additional benefits.
   "Three years after implementing the board portal...there's also a risk-based benefit in helping the bank manage e-discovery issues, an emerging problem facing all companies."

— Kathleen Quenneville
General Counsel
Mechanics Bank