Collaboration software companies Box Inc. and Slack Technologies Inc. are launching a revamped integration in the form of a new application that should make it easier to for users to manage and share content more easily.

Box is a provider of cloud storage services, while Slack is best known for its instant messaging and chat tools.

The new Box for Slack integration enables users to share links to Box content inside Slack more easily than before, Faizan Buzdar, vice president of product for apps and integrations at Box, said in an interview with SiliconANGLE. By sharing a link from Box, users can see rich thumbnail image on Slack (pictured), play videos, view PDFs and Google Docs files and more. “It represents a big jump in the end-user experience,” Buzdar said.

Other new features include being able to update the collaboration permissions of a Box file from directly within Slack, and Box “slash commands,” which enable users to perform common actions such as searching for files and viewing recent files within Slack.

More interesting for large enterprise users perhaps are the new admin tools in the app (below). The features, which were created based on feedback from customers, allow users to customize the integration to align with their organization’s security posture and ensure security settings are as consistent as possible across applications, the companies said.

“This represents the best of what Box and Slack hold dear in their hearts,” Buzdar said.

With the new features, company admins now have the option to display previews for shared content based on Box file permissions. They can also choose whether or not the contents of shared Box files are indexed and surfaced in Slack’s native search. Finally, there’s a new whitelisting feature for admins to enable specific Slack workplaces to connect to an enterprise Box account.

“We have a lot of people who are using Slack and Box together and they know what they want,” said Bradley Armstrong, vice president of business development at Slack. “Increasingly we have really large enterprises that have security and compliance needs.”

The companies said the new Box for Slack integration is available now via the Slack App Directory.

With reporting from Robert Hof

Images: Box