IMAuditor is a centralized platform that provides the organization with the ability to monitor and control instant message communications among its employees. The platform provides tools allowing the organization to control certain aspects of IM communications, such as blocking file transfers or limiting their size; as well as provides the ability to log and provide for later review or analysis all IM communication threads. According to the vendor, the product supports multiple enterprise and public instant messaging networks, including Microsoft LCS, IBM Lotus Sametime, Antepo, Jabber, Parlano MindAlign, Reuters, Bloomberg, Communicator Inc., WebEx, MSN, AIM, Yahoo!, GoogleTalk, and more.

For messaging control, the platform allows admins to manage allow/block lists as well as implement content filtering or challenge-response methods in an effort to block unwanted communications such as SpIM. File transfers can be blocked or size-limited; and messages sent between employees of the organization can be automatically routed internally, to avoid sending employee messages via the public IM network at all. Messages themselves can be blocked based on keyword watch lists, patterns, or full regular expressions. Privileges can be managed at the company group, or user level.

For monitoring and compliance auditing, the platform provides automated binary storage of IM use, including logins/offs and multi-party chats; a customizable legal disclaimer is displayed to all parties participating in the IM conversation. Workflow processes allow for the monitoring and reviewing of content, and stored data is protected via checksums of time-stamped messages to avoid external modifications.

Other features include:

- IM "buddy" names can be automatically associated with the Employee's E-mail address in the corporate directory

- Available APIs/SDKs allow for the integration of IM and presence capabilities in custom applications, as well as the ability to manage IM from those apps

- On-premise or distributed multi-tenancy deployments are possible

- Fail over support for redundant proxy servers

- The ability to archive file transfers in addition to conversation text; and the ability to archive conversations conducted over public networks using enterprise clients

New features in the latest release include:

- Granular permissions to control audio and video across all applications

- Support for Sametime 8.0

- Redundant connector capability for Office Communications Server

- Support for Reuters Messaging 7

- Support for VMware as a deployment option

- Consolidated transcript export option

- Ability to import employee identities from nested directory groups

IMAuditor is available now, pricing starts at $5,000. Visit the FaceTime Communications Web site for further information.