Box Inc. today introduced some planned new features that it says will help make users more productive, while keeping the information they collaborate on more secure.

The updates, announced today during the company’s BoxWorks Digital event, include an extension of its annotations feature for mobile users, support for Apple Pencil and enhancements to Box’s Relay and Shield tools.

They’re the largest number of new products introduced yet at its BoxWorks event, Chief Executive Aaron Levie said in an interview, adding that that’s no accident, since the COVID-19 pandemic has forced millions of people to find new ways to work remotely.

“We’re seeing a complete change in how people want to work,” Levie told SiliconANGLE, a change that is likely to continue beyond the return to offices he thinks will largely happen once a vaccine is created and widely distributed. But he also thinks there will be a more hybrid office-remote model in the long term.

“The short-term scramble has evolved to longer-term digital transformation,” he said. “There will be a much more flexible way of working.”

The announcements today are aimed at supporting that longer-term trend, Levie said. The main update today is the annotations feature, which will make it possible for Box users to add notes to files such as PDFs, images and slide decks quickly in preview mode.

The feature was first enabled on Box for the web in May, and Box said it will come to the iPad and other mobile devices later this year. One nice touch is that the feature also supports Apple Pencil, so iPad users can even add handwritten notes that will be converted to text with Apple Scribble, eliminating the need to use an unwieldy keyboard.

Meanwhile, the Box Relay workflow automation tools that are used to automate everyday tasks such as digital asset reviews and work order submission approvals are getting new capabilities too. They include the ability to create, publish and manage custom-built workflow templates that can help to standardize teams on common processes that incorporate their best workflow practices.

Box Relay also gets new application programming interface extensibility to enable cross-system processes with applications such as Salesforce and ServiceNow. Box said the custom workflow templates will be available in October, while the API extensibility will be added in December.

In addition, Box revealed new features for users who access Box files from directly within Microsoft Teams. For example, it’s making it possible to select Box folders that will automatically sync within a Microsoft Teams chat and instantly grant access to Box files from within Teams. In addition, they can also receive notifications related to Box content activity within Teams.

Elsewhere, users can look forward to a redesigned App Gallery. From early next year, the App Gallery now will have a more functional layout that makes it easier to discover and enable integrations with third-party apps, Box said.

Finally, there are new compliance and security features aimed at helping Box users better protect and govern their cloud-based data. They include a new “policy exception” capability for Box Shield, which is a security service that offers malware detection and classification. That will enable users to make policy exceptions for specific files by providing business justification, which will then be recorded for auditing purposes.

On the compliance side, Box is adding a new event-based retention capability to its content lifecycle management tools that enables certain types of files to be retained for a specified amount of time, depending on the customer’s specific business needs.

“For example, customers will be able to set a schedule for disposition of files after a client account is closed, a contract expires, or an employee departs,” Box said.

The policy exception and event-based retention features will both be made available early next year, Box said.

With reporting from Robert Hof

Image: Box