Shortly thereafter, I had an epiphany.

It was a classic case of “you don’t know what you don’t know”.  Dynamics CRM isn’t just an address book; it’s your sales pipeline, your customer care tool, your reporting tool, it’s almost anything you want it to be.  Whether you just want to rationalize all your information systems into one, or model a specific working practice electronically, Dynamics CRM can do it.  I’ve been trying to think of specific examples of what it can do, but they are just too numerous and no two deployments we’ve customized have been alike; each customer wants to achieve different goals with their systems, and Dynamics CRM enables you to deliver just that.

One of my university lecturers used to define the difference between data and information, as “that which removes uncertainty”.  Dynamics CRM can remove uncertainty by taking everything you know about your customers and sorting, filtering and presenting it in a useful manner.  To put this in context, as soon as I finished the aforementioned deployment for our customer, I went through all our internal systems and replaced them with Dynamics CRM.  For years we operated with several disparate systems – some helpdesk software over here, a few spreadsheets over there, the odd Access database holding some legacy information in the deepest corner of our filesystem.  Sure it (sort of) worked, but we had duplicated information, conflicting records and unrecorded processes.  Now it’s all centralized, tracked, sorted and searchable.  The best part?  Dynamics CRM is also available in the Cloud, so if I wanted to I could move everything off our internal servers, giving me one less piece of equipment to manage.

There is much more to Dynamics CRM than I could possibly hope to touch on in a Musing, so get in touch for more information.  Did I mention we can offer you a 30 day no-obligation trial of Dynamics CRM?  What are you waiting for?

The post Monday Musings: Why Use CRM? appeared first on Agile IT Your Local Cloud Partner.

QRCard takes all of the information on your business card, links to your social networks and your standard Outlook vCard, and combines them into one mobile-optimized website with a URL that is unique to you.  We then generate a QR code of that URL which you can then print on your business card.  All the person receiving the business card needs to do is simply scan that QR code with their smartphone to be taken directly to the website.  From there they can follow the links to your social networks and download your vCard straight to their phone (and therefore their email if they’ve linked them all together).  What’s more, because your URL is unique to you, you can change the details on the QRCard as much as you like without having to worry about regenerating the QR code.  Don’t want to reprint your business card every time your phone number or email address changes?  Simply print a business card with just your name and your QRCard and hey presto!  Problem solved.

So watch this space – QRCard is coming!  We’re already taking early-bird enquiries, so get in touch if you are interested…

The post Monday Musings: The Evolution of QRCard appeared first on Agile IT Your Local Cloud Partner.

• Make company files available outside of the office without resorting to easily-lost USB drives
• Take away the hassle of managing and backing up their files
• Share company files with external users/businesses
• Receive files from external users/businesses

The first two points are very common requests and Cloud Files easily addresses these, but have you thought of the third and fourth points?  Consider the following scenario: you are a bookkeeping practice that requests files from each of your clients on a regular basis; things like expenses forms, scans of receipts etc.  Currently you request these files over email, which will invariably get blocked because of the size of the attachments.  Even once the files come in, you have to go through the rigmarole of saving each of these attachments to the correct area of your file system so the rest of the office can access them.  Then you’ll probably email back a report summary of the work completed, which itself may be blocked because you’ve filled up your mailbox receiving all these attachments in the first place.  Repeat this process every month for every client, and you’ll soon wonder why there isn’t a better way or working.

Oh but there is…

This scenario is perfect for Cloud Files.  With Cloud Files you eliminate the middle-management of the process by enabling your clients to save the required files directly into the correct location.  You can configure Cloud Files to automatically notify you when files are uploaded, and Cloud Files are automatically scanned for viruses, and depending on the solution supplied, can even support versioning and online collaboration.  The best part for you and your clients though, is that you need nothing more complicated than an email address and a web browser – no software to download, install and maintain.  You also get all the benefits of a “Cloud” solution in the there’s very little upfront cost and you’ll get a near-infinitely scalable service.

A certain telecoms company uses the phrase “The future’s bright…”, but I prefer to say that the future is Cloudy .  Get in touch with us and we’ll find the best Cloud solution for your business.

The post Monday Musings: Cloud Files – A Practical Example appeared first on Agile IT Your Local Cloud Partner.

Unfortunately, not all Cloud services are born equal.  For every “good” Cloud solution, there seems to be a “bad” one, and I found such an example this weekend.  Now it may be a surprise to some of you that I’ve been known to play the odd computer game (whoever heard of a tech-guy playing games eh!) here and there.  One of my favourite childhood games was SimCity 2000, simply because it was the first game that I had that you didn’t really “complete”.  By its nature the game is almost infinitely replayable, and I sunk countless hours into managing my virtual denizens, so when I found out a new version was coming out I knew I’d be buying it.  The problem is that the game has an always-on requirement AND the game’s progress is only saved in the Cloud.  This wouldn’t normally bother me as there are plenty of games out there that require a persistent internet connection to play, but the issue here is that the service so far has been horrifically unreliable.  Within my first hour of play I had been booted out three times, each time losing all my progress, and my subsequent attempts to play the game have been foiled by messages of “server unavailable”.  The net result is that my experience of SimCity “the game” has been severely marred by my experience of SimCity “the service”.

So let’s look at examples of good Cloud services, services like Exchange for email and SharePoint for document management.  Email and document management are two essential services for almost every business and it just so happens that by their nature, they lend themselves very well to Cloud Computing.  What elevates them from other Cloud services is that they have an offline component.  You can use Outlook 2007/2010/2013 with your Cloud Exchange and have all your email cached on your computer, so you can roam around without and internet connection and still view all your email history.  You can do the same with Cloud SharePoint using SharePoint Workspace or SkyDrive Pro, meaning you can carry your documents with you wherever you go without needing to be tethered to the internet.  You can even rent Office 2010 from Microsoft, with it only periodically checking-in with Microsoft to ensure you are still licensed to use it.  Imagine the headache that would be caused if you had to be persistently online in order to create a Word document!

So there we have it – there are plenty of Cloud services available, but only the best are designed to be as flexible as can be.  Need advice about the Cloud?  Get in touch and we’ll get you a solution that fits your business.

The post Monday Musings: Bad Cloud vs. Good Cloud appeared first on Agile IT Your Local Cloud Partner.

So back to this past weekend and as invariably happens at our weekly gatherings, my friends and I had an assortment of movie trailers, home videos etc. we wanted to share with each other.  Normally this means we huddle around each other’s phones, but I noticed a new “Sync Device” option in the PlayStation’s YouTube app.  This option puts a QR code on the TV which any smartphone can scan.  Once paired, the smartphone can then push any YouTube video onto the TV in full HD quality.  The best part is that multiple smartphones can pair with a single PlayStation.  Now my gang of friends are all tech-savvy and hard to impress, but the process was so easy to set up that within minutes everyone was paired up and queuing videos.  It was the perfect example of how technology should work – swiftly and seamlessly.

Now for the flip-side of the coin.  Those of you that know me, know of my opinions of the Android mobile OS.  Don’t get me wrong, there are some truly excellent devices available – notably the Samsung Galaxy S3 & the new HTC Hero, but having a completely open-source OS has also led to Android’s biggest Achilles Heel; fragmentation.  Not only has Android itself been through several revisions, but each manufacturer offers a different overlay by which they’ve differentiated their mobile experience from their competitors.  This means when you get an Android device to configure for the workplace, it’s a bit of a crapshoot as to what options you are going to get, where those options are and whether it’s going to work or not.  The lack of consistency is even more frustrating if you have to try to configure these devices remotely over a phone call; a user might have a HTC phone so you’d expect to be working with the “Sense” overlay, but there’s every chance they’ve rooted the phone and loaded stock Android.  As powerful as Android is, it’s a bit of a shame when you can configure an iPhone or Windows phone to pick up email within 60 seconds, but struggle with an Android phone for an hour.

Like the A Team, “I love it when a plan comes together” and it’s particularly sweet when something works better than expected.  Have you had any tech revelations?  Get involved and let us know.

The post Monday Musings: When technology works (and when it doesn’t) appeared first on Agile IT Your Local Cloud Partner.

The broken laptops/mobile phones

Now I’m not saying that people get a little reckless over the weekends, but we seem to get far more broken hardware through our doors on a Monday morning then we do on any other day of the week.  Usually we get the odd mobile that fell into the sync (did you see what I did there?) or laptop that was trodden on by an over-excited toddler, but occasionally you get some spectacular stories.  My favourite was the laptop that was left in the boot of a car.  Nothing out of the ordinary there, except that that the owner subsequently took the car drifting.  There wasn’t enough superglue in the world to put what came into us back together.

Can you fix my… insert random electronic device here?

This sort if question is quite common on our helpdesk.  BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) means we are forever getting whole range of weird and wonderful equipment into our offices, but people assume that because a device is powered by electricity, it should be fixable by the IT bods.  I personally hold the record for the strangest request; someone asked me to stop their air conditioning from leaking.  Their rationale – it’s got a remote control so it must have a computer inside it.

The printer fails

A properly maintained printer generally doesn’t go wrong, it usually takes a little “user intervention” to cause problems.  Putting a windowed-envelope through a laser printer is a sure-fire way to wreak havoc on the internal mechanics.  Cheap toners also seem to have a natural propensity to explode everywhere, and toner is an absolute pain to clean.

My phone just turned Korean on me…

Confession time – this is actually a problem internal to us.  We’ve invested in a lovely, brand-spanking new Samsung phone system, complete with auto-attendant, voicemail to email and a whole raft of other features.  The pièce de résistance are the lovely Samsung IP handsets that, with the right button press, go completely nationalistic and revert to Korean.  Completely Korean.  We wouldn’t mind so much if it were a case of going into the menu settings, picking the language etc. but no, Samsung in their infinite wisdom put the “Korean” button right at the top next to all the regular function buttons.  Does pushing the same button put the phone back to English?  No, of course not, why would it?  That would be sensible!

That’s it for this Monday!  Still no Z10 to play with, so I’m taking suggestions for next week’s Musing.  Let me know if there’s anything IT-wise on your mind!

The post Monday Musings: A Day on the Helpdesk appeared first on Agile IT Your Local Cloud Partner.

Laptop

Hmm, the Dell Latitude D800 vs. the Dell Vostro V131.  At a third of the weight and five times as fast, I know which one I prefer!

Laptop Power Supply

This might not be surprising, but the power supply for the old D800 actually weighs about the same as the new Vostro laptop…

Portable Storage

The Cibox has a staggering 2GB storage and cost a pretty penny a few years ago.  The SanDisk has 32GB and cost about a quarter of the price.

Backup Device

Ah yes, the old DLT drives.  Still reliable (as long as you remember to run a cleaning tape through them regularly), but sloooooow to backup.  The new RDX drives are blisteringly fast in comparison and work out cheaper per GB in the long run.

Thin Client

I still really like these old Wyse devices, but the latest generation of thin clients have miniscule power draws and can output to multiple screens, have Wi-Fi built in and allow access to RDP, VMware, ICA et al.

Phone

My pride and joy, the old BlackBerry.  This was my faithful companion right up until the point the iPhone came out.

I also tried to find my old Acer tablet to compare it with the iPad, but alas, it appears to have gone to the big recycling bin in the sky.  Still, this was a nice little jaunt down memory lane, see you all next week!

The post Monday Musings: Progress in Pictures appeared first on Agile IT Your Local Cloud Partner.

Update then disable Java

Java is a wonderful software tool that allows applications to be written for multiple-platforms.  In lay terms, a Java developer can write his program once, without have to worry too much about the end-user’s computer.  It’s a fantastic tool in the right hands, but unfortunately, the wrong hands have got hold of it.  So many exploits have been found in the software that Apple have blacklisted Java in its entirety, and many experts are recommending that it should be uninstalled completely.  Indeed, all the drive-by downloads we’ve seen recently have been via these Java exploits, but we prefer to disable rather than uninstall Java, just in case you use a legitimate site that is powered by Java (as it is easy to re-enable).  To that end, go to Control Panel and look for the Java icon.  Double-click the icon and look for the “Update” tab – you should then see the option to “Update Now”.  Run this and update if prompted, but watch out – Java often slip the Ask Toolbar into their updates, so make sure you click slowly through the prompts so you don’t download a toolbar you don’t need.  Once Java is up-to-date, open your web browser(s) and disable Java from the plugins/add-ins menu.

Check your anti-virus is up-to-date

With new viruses being released to the wild on an hourly basis, your anti-virus is next to useless if it isn’t regularly updated.  Most anti-virus products put an icon in the System Tray (next to the clock) and if you mouse-over that icon, they’ll usually tell if they are up to date or not.  Right-clicking on that same icon usually brings up an update command or similar.  Not running any anti-virus?  Tsk tsk, the chances of your computer not being infected are little to none.    Check out Microsoft Security Essentials, free for up to 10 PCs.

Run Windows Update

One of the easiest ways to protect yourself online is to run Windows/Microsoft Update.  Microsoft regularly releases security and performance fixes, and every month they update a malicious software detection tool that will run a quick scan for the most common spyware/malware.  You’ll find a link to Windows/Microsoft Update on your Start Menu and in the Control Panel too.  The updater is enabled by default, but it’s always worth checking manually once in a while.

That’s it for now.  Hopefully I’ll have some hands-on time with the new BlackBerry Z10 in time for the next blog, till then, stay safe!

The post Monday Musings: Quick Online Security Tips appeared first on Agile IT Your Local Cloud Partner.

Unfortunately, this happens all too often.  We are forever chasing down usernames and passwords when we take on new customers, and the problem is doubly bad in organisations that have a high turnover of staff, so as we take over services for a customer, we go through a strict process of credentials management to take one layer of stress away from the end-user.

Getting back to the topic, what can we do?  Have a look online for password managers.  These come in all shapes and size; some are software packages you run on your PC, some are apps for your smartphone, some live on key-coded USB sticks and some are web-based.  A good password manager does four important things though:

1. Stores your usernames and passwords safely behind a master password
2. Encrypts the database that holds your usernames and passwords
3. Can auto-type details into websites, reducing exposure to keylogging malware
4. Includes secure backups on/off site

Once you’ve found a good password manager, make a list of all the important services you use on a regular basis (things like banking, email, utilities, etc.) and check you can access them.  Once you’ve verified the credentials, get them saved in the manager.  It may take a little time and effort to get the details together, but you’ll be safe in the knowledge you’ll never be locked out of a site again!

That’s it for this Monday.  Need password management?  Get in touch and we’ll have you breathing easily again!

The post Monday Musings: Getting Your Credentials In Order appeared first on Agile IT Your Local Cloud Partner.

Today I’m actually more concerned about data, or more specifically information.  Data in itself is useless; without any form of context, data is meaningless and can be interpreted a thousand different ways.  As a business, you don’t want lots of data – what you want is precise, structured information.  When I was studying my trade, the difference between data and information was our mantra: that which removes uncertainty.  There wasn’t a single meeting with my tutor that he didn’t use that phrase and of everything I took away from my time at university, that phrase has to be the most applicable to business.

You may not know this, but in addition to our fantastic Cloud and Remote Access solutions, we can offer customized CRM solutions.  Our CRM of choice is Microsoft Dynamics CRM, primarily because it is so adaptable.  Often when we go in to look at customizing CRM for a customer though, they are too focussed on the data they want to capture, rather than what they want to do with the data they get at the other end of the process.  The problem with thinking too much about the input side of the process is threefold:

1. You capture data you have no use for
2. You run the risk of repeating data
3. You can bog-down the staff who will be putting the data into the system

Falling foul of number one #1 gives you a couple of issues.  Firstly, you are wasting hard drive space with useless data, and secondly there’s the ethical issue in that you should only capture data pertinent to your business.  For example, if you deal primarily business-to-business then you don’t really have a legitimate need to be storing the maiden names of each of your customers’ employees.

Number #2 is one of the cardinal sins of any CRM and means that you won’t have any TITS – that’s Trust In The System.  If you can store the same data in three places in your CRM then not only are you again wasting hard drive space, but what happens if the data is different in each place?  Which one do you trust?

Finally #3 is key.  If you are getting your staff to capture data from your customers, it’s helpful for them to know why you require that data.  Not only will they be able to field any questions your customers may have about why you are capturing the data you are, they will be more inclined to accurately populate your CRM.  The mantra here is crap in = crap out.

We often find that a better way to go about things is to find out what the business as a whole wants to achieve from their CRM.   Only once we’ve established what the business wants to know about its customers do we start figuring out how best to get that data into their CRM.

That’s it for today – watch yourselves on the roads if you are commuting, it’s better to be the tortoise rather than the hare.

The post Monday Musings: Data vs. Information appeared first on Agile IT Your Local Cloud Partner.