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Online IT Support - News

Don’t be like Bob

Large businesses often have their own IT teams. Smaller businesses tend to have the unfortunate soul who happens to know a bit more about IT than his or her colleagues – let’s call him Bob.

Bob is the guy that people call when their computer goes slow, their phone stops syncing their email, their printer chucks out a load of gibberish or their Facebook refuses to load at lunchtime. He’s a happy, go-lucky kind of guy and he’s very happy to help. There’s a satisfaction in fixing things, and Bob gets that warm, fuzzy feeling every time he makes someone smile. Bob loves his job.

However, this isn’t Bob’s job at all. Bob isn’t here to fix Facebook, troubleshoot the WiFi, create new users in Office 365 or update the privacy policy on the web site. In fact, Bob’s job title is ‘Company Director’.

In reality, Bob has lots of important things to do. None of them are associated with IT Support – but Bob finds helping out with IT do be an enjoyable distraction. Does this sound familiar?

It’s amazing to see just how many people spend their valuable time in an IT support role when their job is actually something else. Time spent fiddling with things Bob barely understands is a considerable risk to the future of his business. This is time that he should be using for business development. He takes at least twice as long to fix each issue as a professional would do, too. This means twice his time, and also twice the time of the person he is helping.

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Online IT Support - News

Newsletters going to customers’ spam filters?

Newsletters going to spam filter

Configuring your SPF record is vital

Do your emails get lost in other peoples’ junk mail or caught in their spam filter?
Do you find a low response to newsletters on platforms such as Mailchimp?

Correct configuration of a domain name is vital for reliable delivery of email and the avoidance of spam filters. There is a DNS record that we call the SPF record.

This is used by everyone’s mail provider when they try to work out whether your email is spam or not. If your SPF record is missing or incorrect, then your messages probably won’t get through.

If you’re struggling to get through to your contacts, please get in touch.

Talk to us TODAY about checking that your DNS is configured correctly.

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Online IT Support - News

Adapting your business to working from home

It has been a difficult time for most of us over the recent weeks. We are clearly not out of the woods just yet although some businesses, mainly in the manufacturing and construction industries, are now returning to work. Early indications are that business owners are finding it difficult to get many of their key members of staff back to work due to childcare challenges. With schools remaining closed, staff are finding that they are unable to find suitable care for their children during the time when they would need to be at work.

There are, however, ways in which we can adapt to cope with some of these circumstances. There is a mixture of opportunities that can soften the blow, although few of them are ideal for anyone. Staggering working times so that parents can take it in turns to look after their children is one idea. There are also very interesting and affordable ways in which technology can help, too. Working from home is not just becoming normal, it’s becoming a necessity.

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Online IT Support - News

How to work from home – Professionally!

Working from home is great. However, it comes with a strong warning:

DO NOT LOSE SIGHT OF PROFESSIONALISM!

We’ve all seen a marked change in the way that people have worked since the pandemic. Working from home is set to become a major part of many people’s lives for the future. However, professionalism needs to be maintained in the workplace – be that an office or a home.

So, what can you do to present a professional appearance while enjoying the benefits of daytime retail therapy, a trip to the hair salon, a mid-afternoon school run, a dash to the gym or a walk in the park?

Well, one way we have become used to keeping in touch with our clients is via email. Unfortunately, emails have a habit of being urgent and often cannot wait for a well formatted reply from your PC – instead, you may feel you need to reply ‘on the hoof’. However, with the formatting of an email from a mobile device often looking very different to one from a PC, the professionalism is somehow lost. Gone is the carefully crafted branding across the footer – it’s simply been replaced by something like ‘Sent from my iPhone’. The game is up – you’ve been rumbled!

Step forward, Exclaimer Cloud Signatures for Office 365. Simply turn off your standard signature and send your email. Your corporate branding is added automatically to your email – regardless of whether you sent it from your PC, your iPad, your mobile phone or even logging in through a web browser on your friend’s PC.

The recipient of your email won’t know that your having your hair done or that you’re having a pint at the local with your mates. You could literally be anywhere – and remain professional at the same time.

Talk to us TODAY about our automated email signatures.

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Online IT Support - News

Solving Your Remote Connectivity Issues

The number one question we’ve been asked over the past 14 days is “Can you help us work from home?”. This has kept us extremely busy, as you might imagine.

The second most popular question has been “Can you please do something about the speed of our remote connection?”. The answer is yes. The solution can come in many forms – and can be a mixture of all of them.

Microsoft Teams offers you a simple, yet feature-packed, video conferencing system. Not only can you talk to your colleagues with full video and audio, you can blur your background, make written notes, demonstrate your ideas with a team whiteboard and share your desktop screen to show your work in progress.

Check your broadband.

One useful tool is a broadband speed test. You can do this yourself for your home broadband with tools such as https://speedtest.net which will give you a good indication of the performance you can expect. Here’s some tips:

  • 1. Ensure that you are not connected to your office or any other VPN before you start the test.
  • 2. Ensure that nobody else is using the internet in your house while you run the test.
  • 3. Ideally, connect your computer directly to your router with a network cable to ensure that your wifi doesn’t slow your test’s performance.
  • 4. Test results guidelines:
    • Ping: This number should ideally be a number LESS than 50ms. The lower the number, the better your service. Ideally, this number would be less than 20ms.
    • Download: This number should be as HIGH as possible. Expect to receive a number HIGHER than 5Mbs. Ideally, this figure would be in excess of 20Mbs.
    • Upload: This number should also be as HIGH as possible but is generally a lower number than the download figure. Expect this to be no lower than 0.5Mbps or 500Kbps (These are roughly the same value but written in different units). Ideally, this figure should be in excess of 10Mbps.

If your home broadband is good enough then talk to your colleagues. If everyone else is also experiencing slow connections to the office, then it is worth considering upgrading your business’s broadband speed if at all possible. Most of the time, this can be done by simply paying more money to your service provider. However, it’s also worth checking whether your internet service provider intends to send a new router in order to achieve this – if so, it might be worth reconsidering your options as simply plugging it in straight in may not work and you may need on-site support which could be tricky in the current climate. Please talk to us before placing an order that would result in you needing to take any action other than paying more money.

Improve Productivity with Microsoft Teams

Change the way you work.

Another way to take a load off your office broadband is to reduce the number of people that need to connect by making most, or even all, of your data cloud-based. This means that your files and documents are stored securely on the internet instead of on the office network. Your team then securely accesses the files directly from their own internet connection instead of clogging up your office’s internet connection.

There are many cloud-based file storage solutions but the most popular and up-to-date is Microsoft Teams. Not only does this provide a fantastic file storage facility, but it also unlocks many other valuable systems to make it exceptionally easy to collaborate with your colleagues, customers and suppliers.

Audio and video calling similar to Skype comes bundled in Microsoft Teams with the ability to schedule video meetings with many people at once, access to a meeting whiteboard, attach files, make meeting notes and even continue a text-based conversation thread after the meeting. There are many other features that give the ‘Wow-Factor’ and are guaranteed to impress even your most stubborn colleagues!

Talk to us TODAY about managed Microsoft Teams implementations and how we can guide you and your staff to a more modern, cloud-based, business model – freed from the ties of your office network.

Just give us a call on 0115 8240825 for more information.

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Online IT Support - News

Microsoft Teams – Enabling business as usual throughout COVID-19

Coronavirus is set to make physical meetings very difficult in 2020. Guidance from the UK government, large organisations and the government intends to slow the spread of the virus by reducing unnecesary social and business contact. This poses a sudden new challenge to businesses since traditional methods of holding meetings to discuss every day processes may become difficult – or even illegal. Business owners are being urged to plan alternative ways of working to enable them to continue to operate as normally as possible during the next few months.

Microsoft Teams offers you a simple, yet feature-packed, video conferencing system. Not only can you talk to your colleagues with full video and audio, you can blur your background, make written notes, demonstrate your ideas with a team whiteboard and share your desktop screen to show your work in progress.

Not only is Microsoft Teams a formidable video-conferencing tool, it is also the hub of your file sharing activity, too. On-site files servers are now being replaced by Microsoft’s latest cloud technology. It is possible to run a secure network sharing files and securing access to your company’s computers – purely with Office 365.

You may also be surprised to learn that the cost of Microsoft Teams is included in the mailbox subscription that you are already paying. That’s right – you already have the ability to use these features. They just need to be structured correctly for your business.

At Your Computer Department, we are experienced Microsoft Teams migrators. We will structure your Teams, migrate your data, tweak your PCs and then show you how to use it effortlessly. We do all of this for you using our ‘magic’ remote-access technology, too. This means that we can migrate any business, anywhere, without sales or technical visits. Maybe you’re already in self-isolation or perhaps you’re just wanting to do your bit to slow the spread of COVID-19. Whatever your circumstances, give us a call and let us help you and your staff to work more effectively than ever with Microsoft Teams.

Contact us TODAY for more information about how Microsoft Teams can make life easier for your business.

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Online IT Support - News

Introducing: YCD Shoebox Server


YCD Shoebox – All your files. In your control.

Historically, there’s generally been a choice for the small business. Either splash serious cash on an office-based server, or compromise on functionality, backups and security levels with some file sharing software such as Dropbox, iCloud or Sync. A traditional server is often too expensive for a tiny business to afford – yet the file sharing solutions offer comparatively little flexibility along with a not-insignificant subscription cost for any business-sized volumes of data.

The solution that ticks the boxes has arrived in the form of what we like to call the YCD Shoebox. A small shoebox-sized device that connects to your office or home-based office network and offers to tick all of your organisational requirements, automates hourly off-site backups, allows you remote access while you’re out with clients and, most importantly has state-of-the-art security measures to protect your data.

The flexibility of this system allows any, all or none of the following – plus much more, besides:Direct, fast access to files across your local networkRemote access to files via a ‘Dropbox-style’ app.3 levels of file security: General users, Team leaders, Owner/managersData encryption – Your data remains protected should your Shoebox device be stolen.2-Step authentication – Keeps hackers out, even if they know your username and password!Mirrored internal storage – if an internal storage hard disk fails, there’s another one there to keep you running while we fix it.Automated hourly off-site backups (small subscription applies)Roaming profiles – Any user can log into any computer and see the same files.

Contact us TODAY for more information about how a YCD Shoebox can improve your productivity.