LANcom Technology Blog

The LANcom button is an exciting new service that will allow our customers to be only three clicks away from knowing everything they could want to know about their IT.

The LANcom button will quite simply be a button that sits on your computer desktop. It will connect you with easy to understand, up to the minute, information on your IT tickets without you needing to log in to anything. It will also provide you with easy access to specially selected training material on the software applications you use.

Here’s a closer look at the features of the LANcom button:

1. See the status of your service tickets – You will be able to quickly see how your open tickets are progressing with easy to understand graphs. You can see when a ticket was created, when it was worked on by an engineer, when we last contacted you, and then when the ticket is closed. You will also be able to fast-track a ticket if the issue has become urgent.
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2. Log new tickets – The LANcom button will provide you with the fastest way to log a new ticket. We will already know who you are and what computer you are using, so all you need to do is tell us about your problem.
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3. Improve your skills with personalised training – The LANcom button includes a learning centre full of easy to follow training material. We have curated this content to ensure it includes the most relevant information for you. You’ll have access to training on commonly used applications like Word and Excel, and will be able to easily filter the courses to find exactly what you are looking for.
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4. No log in –The LANcom button sits on your desktop, and since you are already logged into your network when you use it, you don’t need to login again for the LANcom button to work.

We will begin rolling out the LANcom button to our customer’s computers very soon. If you have any thoughts, suggestions, or questions about the LANcom button, please let us know in the comments.

We have just passed the 18 month mark without a salesman at LANcom. In January 2010 we decided to give our sales force the boot and it has been great for us - with record revenues and profits - and great for our customers – undiluted advice direct from experts who give their advice directly from their qualification and experience. When anybody at LANcom Technology gives you advice about your server infrastructure it will be from the hands-on experience of building and maintaining servers.

This was not the case with our sales team because no matter how many features and benefits lists they committed to memory they didn’t actually know how the stuff works. We knew that customers mostly came to us for IT advice and expertise, and a sales team just got in the way.

We are in the minority among other IT companies in Auckland, but we are in the majority among our peers – professional companies like consulting engineers, architects, lawyers, and accountants. I would be appalled if every time I wanted some advice my accountant or lawyer insisted that I work through an “account rep” intermediary who would hear out my issues and maybe sell me some consulting time as part of a package.

One of your most important IT decisions to be made is “what do I want from my IT partner?” If the primary need is advice and expertise go with Professional IT, modelled on the other professionals you engage with and not a salesman to be found. Like the other professions you will almost always find someone with a technical background leading the company.

If you have plenty of in-house IT expertise and your primary need is an up to date run down of the features and benefits of the various technology then go with Reseller IT. You will know them because they will send a non-technical salesman and will very rarely have someone with a technical background leading the company

Don’t mix the two. When a company needs Professional IT but gets Reseller IT the costs can be in the tens of thousands. We find a common source of disagreement is server warranty extension. At the end of its initial 3 year warranty Professional IT will review the load on the server and assess the needed performance and make a recommendation. In the last 5 years, this recommendation has consistently been to extend the warranty. Reseller IT has a non-technical salesman making that call and with no ability to make the assessment and some inherently misaligned incentives the call usually goes with new servers. The outcome is the same, reliable servers, but the cost of one solution is $30,000 – $40,000 greater than the other.

When we pick up new customers we often find no one has done a data plan review, telephony review, or printer review despite there being easy wins of $2,000-$5,000 per month on the table. This is simply because there is no product to sell when reviewing the plan – we just do it as part of our engagement. Our biggest win to date was $48,000 per annum on a data contract. We were able to deliver this saving only weeks after taking over the IT partner role because we look at problems from the perspective of what can be done (Professional IT), while the previous partner had worked exclusively from what could be sold (Reseller IT).

LANcom Technology is a Professional IT services company.

We are happy to announce the release of our new backup and business continuity service RecoveryPoint. RecoveryPoint protects your data, your servers, and your business and can:

1. Recover lost files in minutes
2. Recover a failed server in 2-4 hours
3. Give you remote access to your data and applications within 24-48 hours of a disaster that destroys your office

The great thing about this service is that in the event of a disaster or a server failure we will be able to have critical programs up and running in a fraction of the time it would take using conventional tape or remote data backup services.

Did you know that 50% of small to mid-sized businesses will go out of business within three years if they can’t get their data back within 24 hours? (Gartner)

When you lose a file this service is a huge convenience, but when disaster strikes it’s a life preserver.

To learn more about RecoveryPoint and how it works go to www.recoverypoint.co.nz .

From the end of March onwards LANcom will be an authorised reseller of the VoiceCenter Microsoft Response Point phone system. This is a phone system designed with small business in mind and as such ease of use and manageability play a big part in what makes it great.

Microsoft Response Point’s key features include:

1. A user friendly management console which makes it easy to set up new phones, change preferences for voicemail or call handling, and create call distribution lists. So as your business grows your phone system can easily grow too and if you move locations your phone system easily moves with you.

    

2. Voice commands. All you have to do is press the auto-attendant button on your phone and tell the system what to do. Call anyone in the company directory or in your Microsoft Outlook just by saying their name. You can also transfer, put on hold, and retrieve calls this way too. For example you could just say ‘transfer my call to Joe’ and the system will do it, you no longer need to remember or look up extensions.

    

3. A customisable automated receptionist. You can choose to have your calls answered by a fully customisable automated receptionist which uses voice recognition technology. You can record your company message and caller options using your own voice and callers can simply ask for the option or person they want for the system to put them through.

    

4. Manage your voicemail through Outlook. You can retrieve, forward, and archive voicemail either through your phone or through Microsoft Outlook

    

5. Incoming call notifications. You can receive incoming call notifications on your pc, letting you know you are receiving a call and from whom.

We have a lot of experience in voice over IP technology (VoIP), but are just now branching out to include this Microsoft Response Point system. If you would like to learn more about how LANcom could implement this technology in your business please contact us at info@lancom.co.nz

If you would like to learn more about Response Point from the Microsoft website click here.

LANcom is soon to offer a new backup and business continuity solution which means you could finally throw your tapes away. Not only will it deliver faster recovery after a server failure but it covers you for business continuity if you lose your office in a disaster.

This solution can recover lost files in minutes, recover a failed server in two-four hours, and can give you access to your data and applications within 24-48 hours of a disaster that destroys your office.

Here’s how it works

Firstly your data is backed up to a local machine that lives on your network. If your server fails, using virtualisation technology, it can be recovered to this on-site appliance which can run as a temporary solution until you have a server up and running again.

If your server fails

Secondly your data is also backed up over the internet using 256bit encryption to two separate locations in the US. If you lose your office to a disaster our team in the US can recover your entire network offsite and allow you remote access to it through any computer with the internet.

If you lose your office to a disaster

The great thing about this service is that in the event of a disaster or a server failure we will be able to have critical programs up and running in a fraction of the time it would take using conventional tape or remote data backup services.

Keep watching this blog for the full release of this new backup and business continuity solution in the next few weeks.

We are happy to announce that we are in the process of implementing a new professional services automation system which will allow us to deliver an even better service to our customers.

This new system will allow us to deliver the fastest possible service, while keeping you better informed, and ensuring that nothing can fall through the cracks.

Delivering the fastest possible service

Included in this system will be new dispatch management software that is able to evaluate the skills, experience, certifications and availability of our engineers in order to find and assign the best person for the job very quickly.

We will also be implementing a new knowledge base that will record and index all work history with detailed searchable data. We will now be able to search through history faster, see more detail, and when facing a current problem be able to quickly search for how we have solved similar problems in the past.

Keeping you informed

We will also now be able to replace our current online console with a new and improved LANcom Web Portal. From this new web portal you will have access to much more information. Not only will you be able to enter and track jobs online, you will also be able to:

1. See all of your invoices
2. Check the status of any projects
3. Search through your project and service history
4. View any emails that have been sent and received regarding a particular job
5. View reports on our performance. This new system will be able to generate reports on our performance, e.g. average time taken to complete jobs, so you can see that we are meeting the level of service promised to you.

In addition, you will now be able to choose to receive automatic updates from the system on the progress of any concerns you have logged with us.

Ensuring nothing gets missed

The new Service Management system will automatically escalate and notify us of any jobs that need completing in order to meet the performance level we have promised to you, making in impossible for anything to slip though the cracks.

This system also links to our monitoring and management software, so when it notices a problem it can, rather than just alerting us to it, automatically create a job and assign an engineer.

If you have any questions about our new PSA system please feel free to contact us. We will be implementing this new system throughout January and February, so stay tuned to this blog for updates.

We are in the process of deploying a new monitoring and management technology produced by N-Able, which will allow us to provide even greater service to our customers.

With this new technology we will be able to monitor more devices, services and operating systems in more ways.

We will be monitoring desktops, laptops, servers and firewalls and be able to tell not only if a device is working or not but also if it is near failing, misconfigured, disconnected or not reporting data. This means more problems can be avoided because we will know about them ahead of time before they become an issue.

Another great advantage to this new technology is the remote control abilities. In many situations we will be able to take remote control of a machine to work on it without disturbing the user. So users will be able to continue working while we are working on their machines.

This new system will also make installing new applications much faster, and help with keeping machines up to date with the latest Microsoft patches.

LANcom will soon release a free time keeper application that will be able to keep track of what you have done for the day, and let you know just how much time you have spent on each activity.

So how does it work?

Well the time keeper will record the program and the file name of the window that is in the foreground of you computer screen. If the program is an internet browser it will record the website you are on, and it can even tell when you’re away from your computer and will record this as idle time. This information will then be securely uploaded to a central server and you will be able to access all your information by logging into the website.

This application could have a number of uses such as:

1. A personal time management tool – Find out if you’re allocating your time in the best possible way and identify areas for improvement.
2. A billing tool – See exactly how much time you spent on project for a particular client.
3. A management tool – Analyse employee’s jobs and workloads, and identify where changes need to be made.

One of the best things about this application is it doesn’t get in the way of you doing what you would normally do on your computer. All you need to do is install a small agent on the computer; it works through most firewalls, and it uses a very small amount of your computers resources so it won’t slow anything down.

The free version of this time keeper will soon be released and this will be followed by a pro version which will have more features for analysing your results.

If this is something that interests you please leave us a comment on this blog with your thoughts, or for more information you can contact us at info@lancom.co.nz

The LANcom 7170 IT management plan may very well be the missing piece of your IT solution. The new 7170 service is designed to complement an existing in-house IT department by providing them with extra resources when they need them.

Why might you need extra resources? Here are some examples

• Advanced technical work - For example server builds and deployment of new technologies.
• Work overload – For example during busy times of the year
• Special projects – For example software upgrades
• Staff absence – For illness, holidays and training courses.

When existing IT staff are not available for any of these reasons LANcom provides professional support for all the standard applications at your site for only a modest increase in the investment you are already making in your IT.

This support plan is structured as a month by month allocation on 10 hours that can be activated for any of the reasons listed above. Here is what you get every month with the 7170 plan:

• Access to our engineer pool of desktop, system, and senior engineers who have experience in working with on site IT staff and adding to their resources where needed.
• 10 hours of highly skilled support from a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner
• Priority response (With 95% success rate targeted). When you log a job through our helpdesk system we will respond within a maximum of two hours to discuss the required outcomes and your job will be actioned in the time frame mutually agreed upon.
• Documented reporting of hours used and the tasks achieved in those hours. You will also be able to see what is happening with each job on your LANcom online console. From here you will have access to a jobs status, the amount of time that so far has been spent on that job, transcripts of exactly what has been done up to that point, and much more.
• No Lock In. We ask for a 12 month term and you will be invoiced monthly in advance. But if you believe that we are not delivering the value we promised you may withdraw from the program giving only one month’s written notice.

For more information on the LANcom 7170 IT Management Plan you can contact us at info@lancom.co.nz

As I mentioned in an earlier post ‘Navigating Excel 2007′, if you have recently switched to using Office 2007 you may be finding it little hard to find certain features.

To help you with this Microsoft has an interactive guide of Word 2007 available here on their website. It shows the familiar Word 2003 menu and when you click on a feature a view of Word 2007 pops up showing you where this feature can be found in the new version. You must have Adobe Flash Player 7.0 or higher for this to work, click here for version 9.0.

There are also interactive guides of PowerPoint 2007 and Excel 2007 available.