The H1N1 influenza virus is reminding organizations to review business continuity plans. Organizations need to prepare for the possibilities that some employees will quarantine themselves and avoid the office in the even of an outbreak, or that...

The H1N1 influenza virus is causing organizations to review business continuity plans. Organizations need to prepare for the possibility that some employees will quarantine themselves by avoiding the office during widespread flu outbreaks....

When business needs outweigh support hours, IT must answer the call. Creative solutions are required when economics and enterprise size won't support 24/7 help desk operation. Apply these innovative techniques for extending support without...

Remote desktop control saves valuable time and resources. Eliminating desk-side visits and reducing help desk workload by up to 30% can turn the help desk team into miracle workers. Use the right solution to enable your help desk to meld...

Teleworking continues to rise in popularity, and in embracing such an initiative, many enterprises overlook the training required for effective teleworking among employees and managers. In this research note, learn what kind of training...

Teleworking continues to rise in popularity, but in embracing such an initiative, many enterprises neglect the development of telework policies and performance measurement. Learn how to build policy and performance frameworks that enable both...

It is difficult to provide 24/7 support when economics and enterprise size do not warrant round-the-clock help desk operations. Some enterprises have met this challenge with tremendous success using creative solutions. Adopt these techniques to...

Significant improvements in issue resolution and user satisfaction are realized when the help desk does the driving. Everyone wins by enabling the help desk to connect to a user desktop for issue resolution, problem definition, or a quick user...

Help desk solutions have evolved from a variety of different approaches. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems have been adapted to service desk duty, and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery is now a real alternative to on-premise...

Choosing the right help desk solution is a crucial task. With offerings from help desk, system, and customer relationship management software vendors, the marketplace is packed with choices. Narrow down the list of prospective packages with...

Cost containment initiatives and budget cuts are forcing companies to re-evaluate criteria for assigning laptops to employees. Follow these recommendations to identify and recall unnecessary laptops.

Skype's combination of strengths and shortcomings make it a complicated issue when it comes to use in business environments. However, while the desktop application poses similar security risks to other consumer messaging tools, small business IT...

Help desk incident management, and more importantly, IT service management, is a critical component of any well run IT department. When making a decision about help desk software, look to emerging trends in help desk software, the potential...

The options for providing remote workers connectivity to enterprise applications and resources continue to expand, and enterprises should assess available options. At the end of the day it's about delivering secure access to the necessary...

File sharing can be done in a variety of ways. However, obstacles such as file size, bandwidth, storage, security, and accessibility often get in the way of what should be a simple process. Use dedicated solutions for document collaboration to...

Template/Policy

Internal Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are the single most effective tool for managing stakeholder expectations of IT service levels. Use Info-Tech's Internal SLA template as a guide to developing SLAs in the enterprise.

Note

Service level management lends transparency and accountability to the IT department, thereby improving IT/business communications. Small shops should keep it simple, and start by defining and establishing baseline service levels with business...

Web conferencing has become a common tool for collaboration among employees, customers, and partners. While core Web conferencing features have become commodities, vendors are bringing specialized products to market for training, sales and team...

By delivering enhanced collaborative capabilities to end users, Unified Communications (UC) solutions can create new telework opportunities for a great number of job roles in an organization. Small enterprise IT leaders should understand the...

Case Study

Despite the prevalence of security threats from the use of public instant messaging (IM) software such as Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo! Messenger, many small enterprises have yet to put their feet down and ban the use of these...

With the media promoting the benefits of Instant Messaging (IM) as part of unified communications, but discouraging its use due to security concerns, it may be difficult to determine which side of the argument to buy into. If IM helps the...

Adobe Systems recently announced general availability of Version 9 of its flagship Acrobat product. Adobe's addition of advanced live document collaboration between Acrobat Professional and the free Adobe Reader requires that organizations once...

Although IP softphones have emerged as a practical and low cost alternative to desk phones for many environments, organizations need to look beyond financial factors when evaluating adoption. Enterprises that are planning an IP Telephony...

IT leaders in small enterprises need to look beyond financial factors when evaluation the adoption of IP softphones. Understand the scope of benefits and tradeoffs associated with softphones.

"Teamware 2.0" promises particular benefit to small enterprises due to the low cost and increased use of an on-demand delivery model. However, organizations must resist deploying teamware as a substitute for project management or content management.

To derive value from both first and second generation collaboration technologies, organizations must look beyond simply applying Internet collaboration technologies from outside the firewall to inside the firewall. Organizations must also...

Template/Policy

Some enterprises provide laptop computers for short-term use. Employees can borrow laptops while awaiting service for their regular computer, or for short-term travel.

Recovering from a disaster cannot occur without having key people in place to bring system, equipment, and services back online. Recruit, train, and empower these individuals in order to achieve DRP objectives for mid to large-sized enterprises.