Important Information Regarding IT and COVID-19

At this point in time we are in a national emergency, events are being cancelled, and the government is advising limiting interpersonal contact. Due to this, we feel obligated to address the issue from an IT perspective and how Inline Computer Support Consulting will be operating and how we can help your organization throughout the next couple of weeks to months.

Facilitating Working from Home for Your Business

While we know not all job roles can be completed from home, there are a significant number that can. We can help your organization enable employees to work from home often, at minimal to no cost, by leveraging your existing infrastructure and software packages available.

Phones
If you're using hosted VoIP phones it's likely that these phones can be plugged in anywhere in the world with a stable internet connection and function as if they were at your office. We can help evaluate whether your current system can do this and if not show you what it would take to allow your employees to bring their phones home.

Remote Access Software
As your IT provider typically we have access to secure tools that enable us to help support you remotely and quickly. We can help you leverage our remote access tools so your employees can access their computers from home. This process is secure, uses two factors of authentication and is compliant with most Cyber Security regulations. If you're a Freedom! client, we can set this up free of charge for your employees. If not, we can help set this up at minimal cost.

Office 365 Email and Teams
Most of our customers use Office 365 email. This email is accessible from anywhere using the url: https://portal.office.com. Depending on the license you have you probably have access to Microsoft Teams as a part of this. Microsoft Teams is a collaboration suite with tools like instant messaging, video conferencing, screen sharing and a host of other tools that allow remote workers to communicate.

VPN
A significant number of our clients use a SonicWALL security device as their router/firewall. If you have this device in your network or server room setting up a VPN is very easy. There is a small fee to pay SonicWALL for the VPN licenses but beyond that there are no costs. This can help you access resources in the office when your work computer is at home. If you have an ERP, CRM or other business app you need to access from home using your work computer this is a solution to help.

File Sync and Share Tools
There are a multitude of options for filesharing and syncing. These tools can help you access files and folders you have at the office while at home. They function much like DropBox would but are more secure, and give you control and management over them so your company data isn’t scattered insecurely amongst your employee's personal drop box accounts.

Delays for Hardware and the Supply Chain

Starting end of year 2019 Intel had a chip shortage affecting a significant number of computer and server lines. This shortage is ubiquitous across the world suppliers and resellers. This shortage has continued throughout the beginning of 2020 and has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 spread. Hardware fulfillment can be delayed by a month or more due to this shortage. Mainly workstations, laptops and servers are affected. Other accessories and devices have been available and in stock.

What Inline Computer Support is Doing

We're monitoring the situation and have prepped and tested our capabilities of having everyone work from home. We have every capability to do so. At the moment we will continue to work from our office and operate business as normal until further notice. However, this could change at any hour depending on the advisement of officials or decision by our leadership. Additionally, we will be limiting onsite work and visits to absolute necessary and emergency tasks.