MSPNetworks Blog

Many of today’s businesses span continents. That’s not an exaggeration. With faster Internet speeds fueling remote workforces, some businesses choose to strategically use workers from all over the globe to create and sell their products or services. In today’s blog, we’ll discuss some of the adjustments and alterations that you need to make when relying on truly remote teams.

Collaboration is key to modern business operations, and that often involves sharing files of various sizes. Historically, sharing large files has been a challenge, but technology has made this process much easier. Here are some simple ways to share large files with your team.

With collaboration playing center stage for most businesses, it’s no small wonder that file sharing is such a priority for SMBs. If you want to establish solid file-sharing practices, you need the right solutions. Today, we want to explore four ways you can establish an efficient and secure file-sharing platform.

Collaboration is at the heart of any effective business. Most organizations today are trying to make the most of their limited resources, and one of the ways to do this is with a solid collaboration strategy. Here’s how you can do the same to avoid siloing tasks and squandering your workforce’s potential.

Today’s business needs to be able to share files and data securely and efficiently. This process may seem straightforward, but there are a lot of options that the business owner or manager needs to understand. In today’s blog, we look at some steps that will help you create a strong and secure file-sharing system.

A successful business thrives on building beneficial relationships, which generates a lot of data and contracts that need to be efficiently shared and stored. While this might seem straightforward, leveraging today’s technology can significantly cut down on filing costs and enhance file-sharing efficiency. Let’s explore how.

Everyone knows that a telephone system is a core component of a well-functioning business. Unfortunately, many businesses’ telephone systems haven’t advanced, but the way people do business has. If your business is paying a premium for its telephone system and isn’t getting the collaboration benefits needed to stay competitive, the answer might be VoIP.

Businesses rely on data. That is no secret. Regarding a file-sharing strategy for a small business, choosing effective and secure strategies is crucial to ensure smooth collaboration and protect sensitive information. Here are some best practices for small business file sharing.

The entire point of modern technology is to make things easier. Businesses don’t invest in computers and software simply to throw away money—technology exists to streamline operations and help you get more done in less time.

Let’s look at some of the standard technologies your business should consider to gain more value out of your technology.

Effective teamwork is indispensable for business success. Collaboration stands out as an extremely important consideration, yet devising a strategy that expedites project completion and enhances service delivery poses challenges. This week, we get into modern collaboration practices and how technology can help you improve collaboration.

We’ve seen the conference rooms of a lot of businesses, from the modified break-room with stale coffee to immaculate lecture rooms with plush, comfy seats, and everything in between.

A good conference room can do a lot to impress potential clients and customers, encourage collaboration within your team, and leave a great impression on potential employees too. While we’re not going to pretend to be interior decorators, there are definitely some important steps that we can assist with to make sure your conference room is up to the task.

Clear Out the Clutter

First things first, your conference room needs to be neat and tidy. I’ve seen workplaces with conference rooms that often serve other functions depending on the day, and that’s fine. If your office has gym equipment or occasionally converts the conference room into a daycare for employed parents, that is definitely a nice gesture. However, you’ll want to be able to quickly transform the room into a comfortable meeting space without a lot of stuff in the way.

Avoid letting your conference room become the catchall for storage, because this is something that can escalate very quickly. It’s not a room for your staff to borrow office chairs from—you should be providing the comfiest office chairs for the butts that sit at the desks all day anyway. Your conference room should be ready to use for meetings and presentations at a moment’s notice.

Thoroughly Test the Wi-Fi

Anybody working in your conference room is likely going to be on the Wi-Fi. Make sure you have very strong service and direct or very-near direct access to the access point. That might mean installing a wireless access point in your conference room, or adjusting the position of the access point that is nearest to your conference room. 

Either way, imagine the types of real-world scenarios that you will put your wireless network through; your staff is all working on the network, and you have 6 or 8 or more people sitting in the conference room, connecting to the Wi-Fi.

You’ll want to make sure you have a reliable wireless network, and that you segment out the network for guests. 

You can do some creative things to help guests get signed into the Wi-Fi; I’ve seen people simply put up a sign with a QR code, or use NFC chips that you can scan with most smartphones. You’ll likely also want to post the guest password for those who can’t scan QR codes or NFC chips.

Wireless Peripherals to Pass Around

If you have a screen (or multiple screens) to display presentations on, make sure you have some easy-to-use wireless peripherals to control and manage on-screen content. A wireless keyboard and mouse assigned to the conference room will go a long way to make things easier for participants to work together and collaborate. 

Usually, that means having an endpoint (usually a mini PC) connected to the screen, so users can sign in and pull up presentations. If this is a standard endpoint on your network, you will also want to make sure that it is secured and monitored like the rest of your endpoints.

Clear Audio and Video for Remote Meetings

There may be times when you want to host a meeting with participants who can’t physically make it to your conference room. Thanks to the pandemic, these are typically called Zoom Rooms, and they are a great way to have multiple participants on your end meet with clients and teams remotely.

There are plenty of devices on the market that accomplish this task, from conference room phones that sit in the middle of the table, to small tablets that can be moved around. Either way, you’ll want a clear audio solution that everyone will be able to hear and participate in.

Need Help Modernizing Your Conference Room?

Your conference room should be dressed to impress. We can help provide the technology that makes it a place of collaboration for your staff, partners, and clients. To get a quote, give us a call at (516) 403-9001.

Businesses have a lot of stressful things going on at any given moment, especially when timelines and deadlines are considered. You have projects that you need to complete for your customers and employees who need to be paid on time, and you would be hard-pressed to find a situation for your organization that isn’t under some sort of time crunch. How can you use technology to make sure that these timelines are met? Let’s go over some solutions.

Automate Processes for More Efficiency

One of the best ways to save time is to make your current processes more efficient, and you can do this through automating repetitive tasks. With this technology at hand, you can complete projects and tasks faster. There are other ways that automating processes improves efficiency, as it can make it easier to organize, collaborate, and track tasks. With the right tools, you can get more done with less, making the end result even better for your bottom line.

Implement Communication and Collaboration Tools

All businesses need collaboration and communication tools, and the fact that they can now integrate allows for some pretty neat functionality. You can use video conferencing, instant messaging, and collaborative document editing and sharing to improve communication across teammates and departments. Since these solutions are hosted in the cloud, physical location is less of an issue. With anytime-anywhere access, your company can be productive in even better ways than before.

Use AI to Predict the Future and Analyze Data

If you can understand the data your business collects, you can make more informed decisions about the future. AI-powered solutions can analyze your data for trends and, in some cases, can even predict specific events, allowing you to allocate your resources accordingly.

How are you going to use technology to change the way your business operates for the better? We can help you start this process with a consultation from MSPNetworks. To get started, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

Collaboration tools can be remarkably helpful for businesses, if not downright essential to their success. With the right tools that are, of course, configured the right way, you can see exponential returns on your investment as your staff enjoy the many benefits they provide. Today, we want to discuss four common pitfalls with your collaboration tool security that must be addressed.

Ensure Secure Data Sharing Protocols

It’s easy to assume that your collaboration platforms are properly securing your business’ files when you share them through the apps, but this is not necessarily the case. You want to do some research and make sure that any tools you use—particularly those that are a part of the public cloud—use encryption to keep your files and communications secure. Yes, this also means your email solution!

Do Research on Your Solutions and Providers

When you are working with providers during the initial setup of your collaboration tools, you’ll need to be extra careful to ensure that you are appropriately configuring your solutions for maximum security. It’s easy to make the assumption that what one business finds useful will work for another, but it’s simply not the case, and providers who aren’t going to help you ensure you get the most value and security out of your solution have no place being on your business’ payroll, so to speak. In other words, make sure you understand your business’ needs first, then clearly articulate those needs to your providers so they can be obligated to help you get what you need from the agreement.

Make Sure Collaboration Tools are Centrally Managed and Maintained

If you’re having your employees use collaboration apps and tools, then you should ensure that they are not finding alternative solutions that are outside of your company’s control. You can dissuade them from making use of external apps—a concept known as shadow IT—by providing them with the tools they need to effectively do their jobs. The reason for this is that you don’t want them sharing company data through third-party or external apps that you cannot control or gain access to if needed.

Make Sure Your Team is Secure, Too

How do your employees access the resources they need to do their jobs? You need to make sure that employees who work out of the office for any reason are using secure Internet connections, further reinforced through the use of a virtual private network to obfuscate your data from any onlookers.

MSPNetworks can work with your business to secure its collaboration tools, from your productivity suite to your email communications solution to your networking solutions. To learn more, call us today at (516) 403-9001.

Productivity suites are universally one of the best tools for getting work done in the business world, so if you’re not familiar with the term, then take a moment to consider how often you use Microsoft Office products or the Google Workspace apps. These are productivity suites, and they are remarkably important and valuable for your company, whether you realize it or not.

A productivity suite gives you a collection of tools for getting work done, quickly and effectively, in a variety of modalities. You can expect the following benefits from using a productivity suite for your business.

Increased Collaboration

When people have access to the tools and resources they need to do their jobs, they can work more effectively, and more effectively together too. Productivity suites have collaboration tools built right into them, particularly for cloud-based applications that can enable multiple users to edit documents, spreadsheets, or slideshows in real-time. Sometimes productivity suites will also have other collaboration tools built right into them, like video or voice chat.

More Accessibility and Efficiency

It doesn’t matter if it’s on a desktop, laptop, or mobile device. Productivity suites are generally quite accessible in some format or another, although features might vary depending on the version you are using. They are great for remote or in-house workers, and they can be accessed from anywhere using a web browser. Depending on the solution, you might not even need to install the apps—they are that convenient and dynamic these days.

Attractive Cost Savings

Of course, there are financial benefits to going with productivity suites as well. When you subscribe to one of the aforementioned services, you get access to the whole range of apps in the suite, so instead of installing multiple instances of each app on each of your devices, you are instead setting up accounts for employees who can then use the apps as they see fit. It’s better than purchasing licenses per user, and it’s more convenient when it comes time to upgrade to new versions of the software. It makes maintenance and patch management much easier, too.

MSPNetworks can help your business implement and manage not only its productivity suite, but its entire range of software solutions. To learn more, call us today at (516) 403-9001.

Ultimately, your employees are going to be the ones using your technology to accomplish their daily duties, so it helps to treat them like customers rather than end users. If you examine industry trends to make the best decisions possible with your technology and communications solutions, then you’ll allow your team to flourish in the process.

Salesforce conducted a survey of 500 industry leaders and 6,000 customers to determine how people consume communications solutions and how their expectations have changed over time.

Online and In-Person Experiences Are Equally Important

One thing you should take away from this study is that consumers want communication experiences that aren’t exclusive to just in-person or digital. 51% of respondents preferred to do business online, while 40% wished to visit an in-person store for their communication needs. 64% claimed they visited the provider’s website over the past month, and 35% have done business both online and in-person. The takeaway here is that your employees will seek help with their communications technology both in-person and online, so you need to respond to their needs appropriately.

Your Customers Do Matter

Great customer service is crucial to keeping your business running, and it all stems from having great internal operations—at least, that’s what 90% of the survey respondents believe. 40% claim they are unsatisfied with the way their providers handle their cases. If you think of your employees as customers, you can ensure they are getting the support they need from you to do their jobs to the best of their ability. Your employees are more likely to use a good or service if they know they have support from you and they know their feedback is appreciated and valued.

Digital Transformation Is Important

Most customers might prefer to use online services, but it’s equally important for you to embrace your own use of digital services within your own communications infrastructure. You should implement tools that can be effective in both a remote and hybrid work environment. One way you can do this is by implementing cloud-based solutions. You might find that your organization benefits greatly from their implementation.

We Can Help You Make Communications Easier

Your communications infrastructure is not simple, and you need tools that allow you to stay in touch with both internal and external stakeholders for your organization, be they employees, clients, or prospects. Through the use of tools like Voice over IP, instant messaging, intranet solutions, and more, you can share your knowledge and services with your clients while also giving your team the tools they need to be successful. To learn more, reach out to MSPNetworks at (516) 403-9001.

Today, there is a greater focus on mental health and wellbeing than ever before, especially in the shadow of the pandemic. Do you want to improve your employees’ relationships with their colleagues, family, and other important people in their lives? The key to doing so might be remote work, according to a new survey.

What the Research Says

A survey conducted by Deloitte’s Center for Technology, Media and Communications examined 2,005 United States consumers to gain some insight into people’s use of technology throughout the pandemic. You might be surprised by the results, or you might not be. Spoiler alert: it’s overwhelmingly in favor of remote or hybrid work operations.

The survey determined that among employed adult workers with remote work experience, three-quarters of them prefer remote or hybrid work compared to commuting to the office. About half of employed adults overall prefer remote or hybrid work compared to the traditional office environment. Note the significant difference in preference for those who have gotten a taste of remote or hybrid work during the pandemic, but even overall, there is a strong preference for remote or hybrid work.

Relationships Can Flourish from Remote Work

One of the big surprises from the survey focused on the benefits that employees experienced as a result of working remotely. The vast majority—eight-in-ten employees—found that their relationships improved or stayed the same as a result of working remotely. These types of relationships included personal, professional, familial, and even their relationships with themselves, citing better mental and physical wellbeing. About half of the respondents found a significant improvement in these areas of their lives.

It is worth noting, however, that employees did not see too significant an increase in their relationships with their bosses, supervisors, or colleagues, although they did not suffer a decrease either.

Implement Remote Technologies to Help Your Team

Many businesses were forced to transition to remote work policies following the pandemic, and while most employees have returned to their workplaces by now, there are still plenty who remain remote or under hybrid work arrangements. If your business wants to expand its capabilities by offering remote or hybrid arrangements on a more permanent basis, then we urge you to contact MSPNetworks.

We can help you implement all of the technology solutions your team needs to stay connected even while out of the office, including communication and collaboration tools, security solutions, and cloud-based storage or applications to ensure operations can continue as smoothly as possible. You might be surprised by how many employees can effectively do their jobs without being on-site.

To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

In any business, the capacity to collaborate is critical to success. In order to do so most optimally, it helps to carry out a few preliminary and overarching practices. Let’s go over a few such practices to help bring your team’s collaborative activities together.

Make Your Expectations Clear

In simple terms, you should make sure your team knows what you want them to be doing. Set the prerogative for your team in no uncertain terms. Emphasizing the focus you want them to commit to teamwork and designing your workplace processes around this goal will ensure they know how they are to proceed.

Equip Your Team with the Right Tools

In addition to making it clear what you want your team to do, it is important that they have the technology needed to do so effectively. Various platforms and standalone software solutions exist that make this cooperation far more easy to accomplish. Acquiring and training your teams to fully utilize these tools will only make it easier for collaboration to make its way into their processes.

Use Various Methods to Collaborate

Speaking of tools, having a variety available for your team’s use—especially those that feature different modes of communication—also makes it more convenient for them to do so. With that kind of accessibility, collaboration can become a more natural reaction to workplace needs.

Understand and Appreciate the Hurdles Your Team Will Face

Finally, you need to take a moment to acknowledge that the adoption process may not go smoothly. Old habits are tough to break, after all, and a lot of people are finding normal work processes more challenging to get through. “Zoom fatigue” is now a recognized thing as well, so accepting whatever feedback (yes, even some complaints) they have to offer will show them that their thoughts matter.

We Can Ensure that Your Team Has the Means to Collaborate

Reach out to our team to find out how we can equip your team with the tools they need. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 today.

Microsoft Teams is a video communication and collaboration platform that your organization can use to great success, but it helps to have a couple of pointers so you can make the most out of the software. Here are five ways you can maximize the value you get out of your Microsoft Teams software.

If you don’t already use Teams, you can think of it like this: it’s similar to other services out there, like Slack and Discord, in that it gives you access to various channels for communication through a variety of mediums, like video, instant messaging, voice chat, and so on. Knowing how to get the most out of Teams means maximizing your use of these features and using them to their fullest potential.

Pin Important Messages

While you are chatting with your team or coworkers in Teams, you might notice recurring themes in your conversations. If you think something is important enough to keep at the top of the conversation at all times, you can pin that message to the top by clicking on the pin icon. This will keep it in place so that everyone who opens the chat will see that message first. All you have to do is click the three-dot symbol on a message and select Pin.

Tag Someone in Conversations

Sometimes you really need someone to chime in and contribute to the conversation. In cases like this, you can use the @ symbol to tag someone in the conversation. This will send the user a notification that you have tagged them in the chat and are hoping they will respond. It’s not the best or most perfect way to convince someone to contribute, but it at least lets them know you want them to see the message.

Organize Your Teams Into… Well, Teams (And Channels)

Teams operates on the premise that your communications are segmented into various “teams,” or specific places dedicated to collaboration for various groups of employees or departments. You should have your Teams set up so that each department has their own dedicated space to collaborate as needed. These Teams can be further split into Channels for specific purposes, all of which can be customized according to what your needs are. For example, you might have a Team set up for human resources where only your HR staff are allowed to chat or view the messages within, or the same could be said for the executives within your company. Be sure to control permissions for these Teams and Channels as needed.

Connect Teams to Other Office Applications

As a Microsoft software solution, Teams integrates quite well with other Microsoft tools. For example, it can connect and sync to OneDrive and OneNote, which is helpful for when you need to share files with others within your organization. Furthermore, you can add files and other documents directly to your various Teams and Channels so that users in those Teams or Channels have access to them quickly and efficiently. It’s a great way to make sure everyone has access to the information they need to be successful and productive throughout the workday.

To learn more about how you can utilize Teams as best you can, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

Workforces have been increasingly distributed and many businesses aim to continue that strategy for the foreseeable future. There are a fair share of challenges that distributed employees have themselves, but for the business, it can be tough getting them to do the things that need to be done to secure the business. Here are a few actions that need to be taken if you want to make that happen. 

What Changes When People Work Remotely?

One of the things that workers don’t understand is what exactly changes when they work from home is that it effectively distributes the operational network over a wide array of networks, making it difficult for security teams to provide the comprehensive services that they typically do. This requires the employee him/herself to do most of the diligent work to ensure that their endpoints don’t become problematic for their business. This gets more difficult as the number of new endpoints and those who are new to working remotely increase.

For many businesses, the procedures that dictate a work-from-home policy have been hashed out at some point over the past two years, but it is important to not be complacent when onboarding new workers or dealing with current staff that all have increasing numbers of endpoints in their home. Do you supply the devices that your employees are working on? Have you migrated your production to Software-as-a-Service applications?  Do you use any other cloud-hosted environments to make it easier for remote employees to access information? If not, do you have secure access for remote employees through a VPN or some other remote access service? 

Staying up to date and present on these issues will help you do more to protect your network and infrastructure from any threats that could be brought in by unwitting employees. 

The Threat of Personal Devices

For many organizations, the thought of purchasing endpoints for every employee now working from home is an impossible ask. Even if it is possible, is it a prudent way to spend capital? Some would argue yes since one of the biggest cybersecurity risks to your company is a personal device that isn’t secured against today’s various threats. This isn’t because your security platforms can’t secure your network, it is because the user may not have up-to-date antivirus software, or their applications aren’t updated properly, or they don’t use password practices that help ward against outside infiltration.

Since the threat of a data breach increases substantially when there are open vulnerabilities, it is prudent to expand your security protocols to ensure that all company-owned information is being saved to company-owned storage solutions; whether that be an onsite server or company-owned cloud platforms. The less company data is found on employees personal devices, the better the chances of protecting it. 

Collaboration Challenges

It was so when everyone was working side-by-side, but employees depend on collaboration apps even more today to get projects out the door and keep lines of communication open. Unfortunately, these tools were never designed with security in mind—they are designed with cooperative productivity in mind—so it opens up new problems for people working in these apps if their data isn’t secure in transit; and when it arrives on your employees’ computers. 

One solid tip is to ensure that the people that are collaborating on a project or service are the only ones inside a specific group. Since anyone can initiate conversations, it is important that only the people that need to be in on the conversation, data flow, and administration of any project be in the chat. Otherwise, exposing potentially sensitive information to insecure parties is possible. This happens more than you think, especially in enterprise and medium-sized business settings where people are added and removed to mailing lists and collaboration lists all the time. 

Finally, you will need to train your people. In the collaboration age, where doing more with less is a business model, you need to ensure that you invest resources in getting the people that work for you the information they need to keep your business’ IT and data secure. They don't necessarily need to be experts in computer maintenance to do this either. Just teach them the basics—how to spot phishing and other potentially harmful messages and report them to the IT administrator; how to put together a secure password; why your business has the password and security policies it does; what resources are managed by your IT team; and what they need to do to ensure that they aren’t a weak link in your business’ cybersecurity efforts. 

A lot of people like the experience of working from home, and for the business (with today’s technology) it can be of great benefit, but in order for it to be a good experience, strategies have to be altered to ensure that you aren’t constantly battling your team and scammers alike. If you would like some advice about how to navigate a remote team, the technology needed to ensure you’re ready and any other IT or workflow related questions, give MSPNetworks a call today at (516) 403-9001. 

If you’re trying to productively work from home, what you use and how you use it are equally important considerations. To assist you, we felt it would be helpful to share a few best practices for each variable, so that you might be able to boost your remote productivity.

Technology Tips

Make sure you have the technology you’ll need. To work from home as effectively as you could in the office, you’ll need to have the tools that allow you to do so—and the same goes for everyone on your team. While it may not be critical that everyone’s remote setup is identical to their in-office one, their capabilities should be somewhat consistent. Your team shouldn’t have to rely exclusively on a cell phone, for instance.

Provide software and data access with cloud solutions. Having the right tools is good, but it doesn’t help if your team doesn’t have access to the work they are supposed to be doing with these tools. Using the cloud to host data and solutions can make these resources accessible to your remote workforce.

Make sure your team uses a VPN. If your team needs to instead connect to your in-house infrastructure while working remotely, instruct them to always use a virtual private network. While it isn’t a solution for all your security needs, it will help sensitive data from being intercepted or compromised as it traverses the Internet between your office and your team members.

Productivity Tips

Stick to your typical work schedule. While working longer hours is much easier when working remotely, thanks to the 100 percent decrease in travel time, do your best to discourage your team from doing so. Otherwise, they could subject themselves to faster burnout, especially if it becomes a regular habit.

Designate “office” space. It should come as no surprise that the home has much more tempting distractions than the office would, with minimal supervision to ensure that the team is being diligent. Your team’s best bet is to minimize the distractions that are around them by establishing a set place to work while working remotely. This helps boost productivity and focus alike.

Keep in touch with your team. When working in the office, clearly communicating with those that work with you is a much simpler prospect than when working remotely. To compensate for this discrepancy, you should strongly encourage your team to overcommunicate with their coworkers. Make sure you lead by example as you do so as well, to make it clear what level of communication is expected.

What has your experience with remote work been like? Share your thoughts in the comments, as well as any tips we may have missed, and be sure to subscribe to our blog!