"Mobile" offices and the support headaches they cause 2

[Dollie]

I work for a firm that has multiple people working in various states and also an office in a city about 200 miles away. I'm finding that I'm getting more headaches than usual as admin and support for these people. Because they are not hired for their technical capabilities, I can't always tell them to cycle the power on the phone system/modem/print server, or have them check cables for me, or help me diagnose a problem. I can remote in, but if it's a physical and not a software problem, without my actually being at the location there is almost no way for me to fix the issue. I've done things such as creating a support ticket system that is loaded with help docs, purchased web cams so it can be pointed at the offending machine for me to look at, and physically driven to the location to perform 5 minutes of work.

Does anyone have any super-sekrit recommendations other than hiring a contract tech to help remotely? I'm beginning to think that may be my only option, but I may be so buried in my work that I'm completely missing something obvious.

Thanks in advance!

 

[mrdenny]

Other than training the remote staff, pretty much the other option is a remote contract to be the eyes on person.

Driving 200 miles for 5 minutes work. That's nothing. I flew from Los Angeles to Sacramento to plug a keyboard in one day. The local Systems Admin couldn't figure out why it wouldn't boot up. And this was a Windows Admin who had been with the company for years.

Denny
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--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)

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[lgarner]

Sure.

Remote PDU's from APC or Western Telematic.
Remote serial & kvm servers. Western Telematic's terminal server works great.
Remote access cards in the servers. Dell "RAC" and HP "ILO" work great.
Something like RemotelyAnywhere on the OS's.

These are server-oriented, but the idea is to allow you to take over the power and consoles of important equipment. Won't help a lot for PCs if the OS won't boot, but might take care of the things that you mentioned.

Some aren't cheap, but spending a day's time + mileage to perform routine maintenance isn't, either.

 

[lionelhill]

For the price of 200miles there and back, you can offer quite a bonus to whoever is most reliable there, to learn how to operate as your distance-hands.

Distance-operation is a very special skill; both of you need a quiet and uninterrupted time to do the work, because you are going to have to have a very, very clear picture in your head of what they're doing ("there should be a red wire and a white wire leading from the big bulky packages to the alarm clock... whatever you do, don't cut the white wire"). They absolutely need a hands-free telephone. Both of you need considerable trust and patience with the other person.
Good luck!

 

[SQLSister]

AS a suggestion, you could have each sales rep take photos of their PC set up (front and back of each piece of equipment) and send them to you. YOu could mark each phot with the names of the critical parts, save the file where you have access, and then send a printout of the marked up version back (or get them to print it if you they they can be trusted to do so). Then require that they keep these photos in a folder by the computer.

Then when you are talking to them, you can both refernce the photos and when you need them to plug or unplug something or turn a switch on or off, you have the photo markups to give you the exact phrase to use (call it power switch if thats what the phot says or on/off switch if that is what it says) and give them an idea as to where to look for what you told them to do. They will need to send you new photos whenever they get new equipment.

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[Bandenjamin]

I would say your best bet is to go to each office and label every single piece of equipment clearly on the front and/or back. Use colored labels just in case you wind up with someone who can't read so well. While you're there labling the equipment give the existing staff a mini training class with some kind of refresher handout to help them better identify what you are asking them to do. Usually if you explain to them that by learning these basic things it will help you enable them to get their issues resolved they shouldn't complain too much.



Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body. But, rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming ~ WOO HOO what a ride!

 

[AndrewTait]

Standardise on equipment. For instance, if you have 10 remote staff, buy 11 or 12 machines all the same. Buy 11 or 12 printers all the same. You will always have a spare to swap out on an overnight courier, should the worst happen. (Cheeper than a round trip to replace a failed hard disk.)

Create a standard build, so that you can give the end user a bootable CD to restore the OS and apps to a pre-configured default. script it so they dont have to do anything other than switch on the machine with the disk in the drive.

Partition the hard disk, so that the data is seperate from the operating system and apps.

Script any OS/AV/applications updates you put onto cd's, so all they have to do is insert the CD and autorun does the rest.

This also means that you can become more confident when dealing with problems, as all the hardware is the same, all the software is the same, etc. and you are 100% familiar with it. You are not having to find on line manuals to find out what the key combinations are to increase the brightness on one particular brand of laptop is.

If you come across a problem once, there is a good chance you will come across it again on the other machines, be proactive in fixing it.

Get to know the people you are dealing with. You phone them to make sure that everything is ok. Let them know what you are doing to make things simpler for them, (even if it is really for your benefit.) When they phone you, chat to them if you can, rather than just going straight into techie mode. If they see you as a friend, they are more likely help you to solve problems rather than just phone up and bitch about the problems they are having.

Beleive me, it works. I introduced this for 150 field engineers spread all across the UK.

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You may think if it isn't broke, don't fix it. Engineers think that if it isn't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet!
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[xmsre]

Back when I worked for MS as a ROSS engineer, I flew from the east coast to Califorina for 5 minutes of work.


On the other side of the coin, I've been a remote employee for various companies (current is NetApp) for about 10 years now. I've had hard drive failures, laptop failures, etc. The best I've seen is standard images and overnighting a new hard drive.

From the productivity side, the laptop with a standard image, regular backups of user data to an external usb drive, and a cell modem have really made the process work well. If a new hard drive image doesn't work, fedex a new laptop the next day. The max I'm out is two days during which I still have all the data and can access them via a desktop if necessary. That's about as good as it ets when you live 2500 miles from the office.

Travel gets old, but there's a lot to be said for the home office as well; until you lose it. I lost mine on Father's day along with about half the house; a bit of a natural disaster. They just restored power to parts of the house today and started cleanup. The insurance company is estimating 3 months before it's habitable again (storm, really big trees, roof collapse, electrical fire, and a great big hole with water everywhere). I'm still working though; a laptop and cell modem (and a car charger for the laptop), a cell phone and a conference bridge - your in business anywhere.

 

[Stevehewitt]

Keeping it all the same is the key. If you having something server based like RIS/WDS or Ghost with an image on at each local site then the staff can call you up, you can issue a temporary password or something and all they need to do is press F11 at boot and enter in their credentials. An hour later and they have a fresh build.

If it's hardware then ensure that you have your machines purchased with support contracts from HP/Dell (whoever does your desktops). Within 5 hours or so an engineer with all the parts comes and repairs it.

Ta da!

That's the desktop done! The suggestions at the start of the thread regarding IP KVM's and BMC cards are also very good ideas for the server rooms. (The offices we had used this. In fact, the IP KVM had normal ethernet for access on the network via the leased line, and a RJ11-in for dial up access. Shove a V.90 modem on the end and even if your leased line or main ADSL connection goes down you can still remote in!)



Steve.

"They have the internet on computers now!" - Homer Simpson