Quick article to help you decide what to do- how to organise your staff and set standards for home working. It all comes down to the decisions below-
- Take a work computer home
Positives- it has all the data you need apart from stuff on the server, it’s set up exactly the way you like
Negatives- risk of getting busted during transport, data needs to be backed up before it leaves work, risk of data leakage, risk of damage from tiny humans if you leave them un-caged - Use a home computer to VPN into work
Positives- will get you secure access to the Server, computer is set up for home, doesn’t require much bandwidth
Negatives- work ends up on home computer, you may need a copy of Microsoft Office, no access to files on your work computer, needs email set up - Use a home computer to share your work computer screen
Positives- access to all your data, access to server data, relatively secure, very convenient
Negatives- requires a lot of bandwidth, requires use of home computer, may require a large display
Server
Most of our clients have a Server that is actually a Synology NAS unit. These have several ways of allowing outsiders to access files securely, primarily through the Synology Drive web portal. If you need this set up, let us know.
Cloud
If most of your files are stored in the cloud, you already have access to them- but now is a great time to check your security- is everything tightly secured?
Email
If you use an IMAP based system like G-Suite or Office 365 you can simply go web based. for others, it’s a bit more complicated because getting access to your historical emails means getting access to the specific computer where they live- or uploading everything to an email archiver like MailPile etc.
Phone System
If you’re using a VOIP based system like 3CX, these often include collaboration tools like WebMeeting. You should practise using these and provide instructions for staff to use. These tools are super useful and include features like shared whiteboards, text chat, share screen etc. You may never go back to traditional meetings…
In addition to this, VOIP phones (or the soft phone extension) can easily be moved across the room or across the world- have normal communications from wherever you are… BE AWARE- headsets and POE adaptors for phones are currently in high demand, as these are items that you’d need to buy to make your workforce more mobile…
Other Remote Tools
The IT industry has really come together for this crisis, many of your under-leveraged tools are now free to use for a limited time. Have a look at Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, G-Suite Hangouts, LogMeIn, Zoho (we are big fans of Zoho) and of course 3CX. But watch out for that hit to your credit card when the free trails end!