Home Office (Part 4) – Teams alternate uses for communication

In the article I wrote named: Microsoft Teams – Overview on Communication I discussed some of the basic communication functions in the Teams Application. So if the communications is opened up for external connections then so much more becomes available to you than just communicating within your organization.

I also use Teams to communicate with some of my clients and key vendors. It allows me the same kinds of communication functions that I have with my company contacts and when you add the component of video to the conversation makes that session so much more personal.  

One of the features that really help out in a selling or training situation is to be able to share a desktop with the person you are chatting with in Teams. It is so easy to do so. The best part is that you are in complete control of what you are going to share, whether it is a window, a monitor screen or multiple screens you have all of these capabilities. I do this a lot with our techs in house to show them how to do something or where to go to look for something or just to get their opinion on something (in case I need their tech support). All of these things are possible with anyone that you are working with.

You can also use Teams to create an online webinar with people both inside and outside of your organization. There are no other purchases you need to make to make this happen. You can join a Teams meeting anytime, from any device, whether or not you have a Teams account.

If you don't have an account, follow these steps to join as a guest.

1. Go to the meeting invite and select Join Microsoft Teams Meeting.
2. A hyperlink with text reading "Join Microsoft Teams Meeting"
3. That'll open a web page, where you'll see two choices: Download the Windows app and Join on the web instead. If you join on the web, you can use either Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome. Your browser may ask if it's okay for Teams to use your mic and camera. Be sure to allow it so you'll be seen and heard in your meeting.
4. Enter your name and choose your audio and video settings. If the meeting room (or another device that's connected to the meeting) is nearby, choose Audio off to avoid disrupting. Select Phone audio if you want to listen to the meeting on your mobile phone.
5. When you're ready, hit Join now.
6. This will bring you into the meeting lobby. We'll notify the meeting organizer that you're there, and someone in the meeting can then admit you.

One of the things I like about Teams Video Chatting is the sense of connection. We have had several people in the past month that have been operating solely from their home office and the only time we get to see them is if we do so with a video chat session. We have one company employee that has been operating from his home in St. Louis area since he move there and is still fully operational with us in the office as well as with the clients he supports. Internally we work with him in Teams almost completely because of the sense of being able to reach and see the other person. This is important in a long term remote condition like this.

This is the end of my little series here on Office. I will be going back to talking more about other things that you can do with Teams to help you share information and become more productive.

I’ll be back soon!

Home Office (Part 3) – Remote Access

In Part 3 I am going to discuss the different ways to connect back to your office and provide the pro’s and con’s of each option. The essential piece of each one is that you need to be able to connect with a secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection. This type of connection provides an encrypted connection between you and your network firewall and secures this connection from unwanted snooping or tampering. If you don’t have this capability it is not a total loss but we do suggest that you have one.

1. Log-Me-In – If you have our PAconnect Security Suite package then you have this tool. You will need a machine to be available for you to log in to at the office. Once the connections are setup and the service is turned on for you, you will be able to easily connect to a workstation in your office from your home machine. The steps are as follows:
   1. Login to your company portal for our Suite
   2. Enter your Two Factor Authentication (TFA) code
   3. Log into the machine on your network at the office through it’s authentication pro
   4. Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) – Pre-requisites for this are as follows: a workstation in the office for you to log into or Remote Access Server that has been setup and a RDP License if you are logging into the server. You service provider needs to setup your VPN access, open access on the computer you will be remoting on to or setting ups a session that you will be accessing on the Remote Access Server. The process you will then go through to get connected is easy.
      1. Start up your VPN Connection
      2. Start up your preprogrammed RDP Application
      3. You are on!
      4. Direct Connection to your Server through VPN Access – This process works for simple connections to document access but if you are running any kind of database this is the worst method for accessing this kind of data. So if you need this for accessing your accounting program or any kind of client management system these are examples of when not to use this method. Once your VPN access is established all you need to do is connect your VPN and then log into your server and then you will have access to the drives and data on your server. This is a great process for anyone that needs simple document access but other than that do one of the other methods as described above.

If you have any questions about what the best method for you is please don’t hesitate contacting us at sales@paconnect.com or support@paconnect.com.  

Home Office (Part 2) – Hosted Phone Systems

What is a Hosted Phone System? A Hosted Phone System, or Virtual Phone System, enables you to have a fully functional telephone service without needing to purchase system hardware, other than handsets . ... The options in hosted phone systems include both traditional PBX and Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which uses the Internet to transmit calls.

In the past, you would purchase and install a PBX unit or phone switch on your premise and run wiring from this unit to where your handsets would be located. You had the cost of the switch, maintaining and upgrading the software that ran on the switch and purchasing the telco lines or virtual phone lines to connect to the world. In a hosted system you are tying into a virtual switch (usually runs on a server located on the Internet,) that is maintained by a service organization. You are normally paying for this service but most of your headaches are now gone. The benefits of this type of system are many.

These systems are primarily software managed systems which makes it easy to roll in new functions as you need them or add increased though put as necessary. It normally only takes seconds to do so. If you need new lines, more channels, new branch offices it is easy to add them and tie them all together. Because the systems are IP based, if you have an internet connection, you have access to the service.

Since this article is part of my series on the Home Office, let us look at how easy it is to extend your office phone system to an employee’s home office. You have several options to do this depending on the capabilities of your hosted system. Since this is a focus on our systems, I will be discussing its capabilities which may or may not be something available on yours if you have one in place. The three primary methods of connecting to your hosted system are as follows:

1. An IP Phone Handset. The handset needs to be programmed to the switch but once it is, as long as you have Internet Service your handset will become part of your Office Phone System with all of the capabilities that you have inside your office. Your phone will be an extension of the Office Phone System. All the programming and capabilities are downloaded from the hosted system to the phone and when updates are needed they are easily applied.
2. Virtual or Softphone application on your computer. I like having everything in front of me when I am working including my phone screen. I use a DECT Wireless Headset that connects me to my desktop computer at home, so I have the ability to stand up, walk around and still be talking on the phone. The other benefit with this is that if you are running any other type of voice-based application on your computer, that same headset can be used for those as well. So on my system at home, I am connected to our Office Phone Network, Microsoft Teams, Zoom Communication Sessions, WebEx Training/Meetings, a Voice to Text Recognition Application (Dragon Naturally Speaking), my mobile phone and my notebook computer. The Headset I choose will connect to the computer through a USB connection to two Bluetooth devices and my phone handset all at the same time.
3. The third method is to make your cell phone a part of the Office System as an extension. Some of our techs do this so that they can easily connect back to our office or our remote workers through our phone system. This can be done with an application that you can load onto the phone for either an IOS or Android phone. The phone system can also be programmed to forward a call that is sent to an extension directly to your cell when it is transferred to your extension.

 Conference Calls

Conference calls are easy to set up and can include large groups of people without incurring any extra expense. It is all a part of the primary system. You provide the dial in number for your conference system with the conference code and designate the time you want everyone to convene and it is that easy. Whether you are calling from your office system, a home phone, or a cell phone it doesn’t matter, the central system is handling all of the connections for you at once. In fact, if all you want is the conference capability you can add that to your current phone system for a very reasonable price.

So, there are a lot of choices that can be made to make your home office a part of the Office Phone System. If you would like to see this system in action, give us a call and we would be happy to provide you with a demonstration.

1.     An IP Phone Handset. The handset needs to be programmed to the switch but once it is, as long as you have Internet Service your handset will become part of your Office Phone System with all of the capabilities that you have inside your office. Your phone will be an extension of the Office Phone System. All the programming and capabilities are downloaded from the hosted system to the phone and when updates are needed they are easily applied.

2.     Virtual or Softphone application on your computer. I like having everything in front of me when I am working including my phone screen. I use a DECT Wireless Headset that connects me to my desktop computer at home, so I have the ability to stand up, walk around and still be talking on the phone. The other benefit with this is that if you are running any other type of voice-based application on your computer, that same headset can be used for those as well. So on my system at home, I am connected to our Office Phone Network, Microsoft Teams, Zoom Communication Sessions, WebEx Training/Meetings, a Voice to Text Recognition Application (Dragon Naturally Speaking), my mobile phone and my notebook computer. The Headset I choose will connect to the computer through a USB connection to two Bluetooth devices and my phone handset all at the same time.

3.     The third method is to make your cell phone a part of the Office System as an extension. Some of our techs do this so that they can easily connect back to our office or our remote workers through our phone system. This can be done with an application that you can load onto the phone for either an IOS or Android phone. The phone system can also be programmed to forward a call that is sent to an extension directly to your cell when it is transferred to your extension.

Home Office (Part 1) – The art of remote access and communication

Last week I ended with an article about Teams Communication which I plan on expanding upon, but I thought that maybe I should step back a little and talk about what we have been experiencing since the beginning of the year and some of the things that have lead to my insights on how we can effectively work from any location given the proper preparation and infrastructure for that to happen.

In January, we began a major change in our internal structure. We decided that we decided that we wanted I more conducive environment for team communication. Part of the transition was to reconfigure our showroom into office space and create a central area for huddle groups with lots of video enhancements to help us with daily processes. We wanted better communication and coordination for projects and support for our client’s needs. During that time, we had some disruption which caused the need for some of us to work from home as the construction was completed in our new office setup.

This caused us to look hard at how we could retain the workflow and communication between our employees and our customers from remote locations. We did accomplish this easily because we had the right software tools in place as well as the infrastructure being well suited access from anywhere, easily, and securely. With our current hosted phone system, it does not matter where we are, we can appear as part of phone network. Whether we use a handset, softphone on our computers or our cell phones as extensions we can operate as one connected phone network.

We are also invested in using the Microsoft Teams application which provided instant messaging, voice and video communication as well as adding group meeting capabilities all from one application. We can share our desktops, share files and work on projects/documents all at the same time. We easily incorporated all of this into our practice of working from home during this pandemic.

When the edict came out for our clients to achieve the same thing for themselves, we were able to easily roll them into the tools and teach them how to use them. We were able to transition 100’s of employees for our customers into accessing their networks for their home work locations both easily and securely. Helping them maintain the most productivity possible given the State’s mandated changes to our working environments.

The ability for us to be able to transition into this kind of work environment is going to be part of the ongoing changes that we will need to learn to work within. As time goes on, we will need to continue to build on our capabilities to work both in our workplaces and from remote locations as the need arises.

As I continue this series of articles, I will be discussing many of the tools that we use to make this work for us and our clients. I will look at each one more closely and talk about the many different things that could be valuable to you as it is for us. I look forward to hearing from you and any questions that you might have.

Microsoft Teams – Overview on Communication

I don’t want to reinvent the wheel here because Microsoft has an excellent tutorial series on YouTube to give you the basics of what Microsoft Teams is, how it can be used and tips and tricks on making it a more productive application for you and your company.

What I want to do in the next couple of weeks is to put together a series of articles and videos describing potential ideas on how to make Teams an integral part of your communication. There are many functions that I use to help me manage my daily chores and to work with my Teammates. We have become a company that has both locally based employees and employees that are living out of state. It is important for us to be able to easily communicate with each other in meetings and in one-on-one conversations. We do this now with Teams and our Phone System which also has integration back into the Microsoft 365 products.

The simplest component of Teams to learn and work with is Chat. The three basic functions in Chat are:

• ·         Instant Messaging
• ·         Voice Calling
• ·         Video Calling

All this communication can be done one-to-one or one-to-many. By turning on external organization communication you can extend this communication with people outside of your organization that are also on O365 or Skype. Here is an article from Microsoft allowing you to create a team to work with suppliers or partners and add them directly to the team as guests. To learn how to set up a team, see Bring teams and resources together.

Here is Microsoft tutorial on adding guest accounts that includes a video showing how to set up your Organization’s Office 365 to allow for external access to your Team Groups.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/MicrosoftTeams/guest-access-checklist

Look at this to prep your system for allowing this function.

Back to usage. I use the Instant Message function to either begin a string of conversation with someone or to ask a quick question. Let us say I have a call waiting on the phone and I need to find out if someone can take the call. My someone in my case is several states away and I am not sure what he is currently doing. So, I send him a quick message with the call information, and they will get a notification with the message on their screen. If they can take the call, they respond and let me know and I can move on. If they respond asking me to take a message, I can do that as well.

Voice Calling: I can click on the call button as well to do the same thing. This gives me the ability to discuss further what may need to be done more quickly than what you can type in text message.

Video Calling:  I love seeing the other person face to face. This gives me the ability to see their true response when talking to them. You obviously need to have cameras on both ends to be able to do this but if you are serious about Teams having the right equipment in place makes using this application so much easier. 

Equipment

There are so many ways to skin this cat. In a simple desktop environment, having a webcam in place and a headset with a good noise cancelling microphone will give you what you need. If you have a laptop with a built-in webcam you are all set. That will have the microphone built-in and of course you probably have speakers built-in as well.

I like the Jabra Headsets because they are not only good quality but add more function to what I can do. I use a more expensive set that hooks into our desk phone, computer, and Bluetooth devices all at once. It makes using that headset for multiple purposes very easy. So, whether I am talking on the desk phone, through my phone app on the computer or on Teams or on my cell phone the one headset is doing it all for me.Microsoft Teams – Overview

I hope this has given you a good starting place and some ideas on how to use the communication aspects of Microsoft Teams.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate reaching out to me at bob@bobstechtalk.com .