telanova Blog

Automating important but tedious IT chores

Details: Created: Tuesday, 09 June 2020; Written by Ella Coles

We don’t just do help desk, projects and maintenance. A significant part of our work is administration:

Setting up new starters
Processing leavers
Changing job titles, names and phone numbers,

There are often multiple systems on which to make these changes: PCs, Servers, Printers, Cloud services etc. It can take hours!

We do these tedious but important tasks for our customers, and because they’re tedious and susceptible to human error we optimize them and automate them!

For an accountant

Before we got involved, a staff member was taking over an hour to set up each new starter. We got the process down to 5 minutes.

For a school

We automated the annual class intake process. Creating the new student accounts, year group transitions, class memberships and archiving the leavers.

Other areas we have improved with automation

Email signatures
Changing properties on mass - such as brand names etc
Pushing out wifi credentials
Adding key websites to web browser favourites
Mapped drives
Deploying software
Deploying new hardware

Spending too much time on tedious but important IT chores, or avoiding them altogether?

Important files on desktops? Are they backed up regularly?

Details: Created: Wednesday, 03 June 2020; Written by Ella Coles

Have you got important documents on your desktop? Or has anyone else you know?

Are those documents backed up regularly? - Probably not!

OneDrive - part of Microsoft Office 365, has a useful feature that will store your Desktop, Documents and Pictures folders in the cloud, automatically back them up, and provide you access to them from a web browser on any device.

It’s pretty easy to switch on, but if you can’t trust your colleagues not to save important files on their desktop then you definitely can’t trust them to switch on the setting in OneDrive! This is where telanova can help, we can seamlessly enable the feature in the background for all your accounts and make sure it is enforced.

This is just one of many reasons why Office 365 is a no-brainer for small businesses and why you should choose telanova to unlock all the benefits for your business safely.

How we’ve helped businesses keep working during COVID19

Details: Created: Monday, 18 May 2020; Written by Jonathan Hobson

As the outsourced IT team for our customers, our challenge during COVID-19 was to keep each one up and running as best we could in the evolving situation. This is how we responded.

Before Lockdown started – we helped our customers prepare.

In February (seems an age away) the prospect of mass work-from-home seemed likely. We helped our customers identify what the challenges would be and how they could prepare. For one customer we provided training for staff who were not familiar with working from home, and carried out a stress test by getting everyone to work from home on the same day. So when the government instruction came to work from home it was business as usual.

For every customer we prepared our own plan, even if they weren’t ready to consider it at the time. So when the crunch came we were ready to keep them working.

Setup and configured servers (including one in our living room)

For a London based customer we remotely deployed a Remote Desktop server farm so that 100s of users could remotely connect. For another we procured and installed a new server to increase the remote working capacity. It didn’t arrive until just after lockdown started, so we had the delivery diverted to one of our engineers’ homes. They set up and configured it in their living room! This minimised the time needed at the customer’s site and made sure we could bring the extra capacity they needed online as quickly as possible.

Installed hundreds of VPNs and Remote Desktop connections

Even with all that preparation (see above) we still had to manage a tidal wave of tickets. Our skilled engineers configured hundreds of VPNs and Remote Desktop connections so that our clients could work from home. And we advised on how they could make their work from home solutions secure.

Want to check your work-from-home solution is secure? Check out our blog here.

Helped with Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Google Meet

Whatever platform our customers needed to use, we have been there to provide 121 training and help desk support to help them set up and make sure the audio and video was the best it could be. We even wrote this blog to help decide which is the best platform to use. And put together 11 Microsoft Teams tips.

Stayed in contact with everyone

We have been regularly keeping in contact with our customers, making sure they have what they need to navigate this unique time.

Stay safe everyone – we are looking forward to when we can write blogs from the office soon.

Business rename IT challenges

Details: Created: Monday, 25 May 2020; Written by Ella Coles

When a business re-brands there are a lot more IT changes than you might think.

We have helped numerous businesses through the IT challenges involved in a rename/re-brand. This is a good checklist to start with:

Website

Domain name

Content

Downloadables e.g. Brochures, reports, etc

Redirecting the old website to the new website

Email system

Domain name

Signatures

Aliases

Line of business software
Templates e.g. Word
Invoicing systems
Computer logins
Wifi

If you’ve got any doubts about your IT provider don’t let them mess up on this or it could seriously affect your brand. Now is the time to consider the obvious alternative - telanova

Microsoft Teams Tips and Tricks

Details: Created: Tuesday, 12 May 2020; Written by Ella Coles

We have put together 11 top tips and tricks we think everyone using Microsoft Teams will find useful.

Tip 1 - Save important messages

Locate the message you want to save
Hover your mouse over the top right of the message
Click on the three-dot icon
Click Save this message

To find a saved message

Click on your profile icon in the top right corner
Click Saved

Tip 2 - Learn some simple commands in Teams

Click in the search bar at the top of Teams
Type the following character: /
All the commands you can use will show

For example /saved will take you to your saved items

Tip 3 - Grab someone's attention in a post

Type the following character: @
Immediately start typing the person's name
A list will appear, select the appropriate person

You can also remove their surname by pressing backspace once

Tip 4 - Add someone new to your team

Go to the Teams section
Right-click on the team you want to add someone to
Click on Add Member
Search for the user and select them
Click the Add button

Tip 5 - Make a high priority channel more visible

Go to the Teams section
Right-click on a channel name
Click Pin

The channel will then move to the top of all your teams

Tip 6 - Find posts you have been mentioned in

Go to the Activity section
Click on the filter icon
Click on the three-dot icon
Click Mentions

In the command bar in the top type the following: /mentions

Tip 7 - Use a virtual whiteboard to brainstorm in a meeting

Note: This only works in a meeting not a call

When in the meeting click the share button
Click on Microsoft whiteboard
If this is the first time you have used it clickUse whiteboard in Teams instead

The whiteboard will then load up for everyone to see and use

Tip 8 - Start a group chat

Click on the new chat icon, in the top left of teams
In the To: bar, enter each person’s name
Type a message in the bottom
Press enter or click the send button

Tip 9 - Add more functionality your channels

Go to the channel you want to enhance
Along the top, next to the other tabs, click the + button
Select the app you want to add e.g. Planner

Experiment with the available apps, you can add simple files like Word and Excel, link to YouTube videos, or integrate information from other cloud services.

Tip 10 - Share your sound when sharing your screen

Note: By default when you share your screen it does not share your sound

Click the Share button
Tick the include system audio box
Select the screen you want to share

If you forget to tick that before sharing your screen you can click this icon on the presenting bar along the top of your screen.

Tip 11 - Add a virtual background to your video calls

Note: This video effect requires a processor with Advanced Vector Extensions 2 (AVX2) support so the option might not be available.

In a video call click the three-dot icon
Then click Show background effects
Select the image you want
Click Apply

telanova: the outsourced IT team that feels like your own

Providing advice, consultancy, helpdesk, monitoring and maintenance, updates, upgrades, security: all the things your in-house team would do, but better and at a fraction of the cost and hassle.