The Office (after Coronavirus)

WorkFromHomeC19

When the UK government took the decision to impose working restrictions in March 2020, the nature of office work changed dramatically overnight.

Not all the changes had a negative impact, people who could work from home found that they could be just as productive without the commute to the office.

We look at the lessons learnt and how they can be implemented to make the new normal a better place to work.

Working from home

It’s been a revelation just how convenient working from home is, both for the employer and the employee. No travel time meaning more productive hours and less pollution from driving, and, if your job allows it, more flexible working hours giving you more quality time with your family, fewer distractions (in some cases) and no arguments over who used the your milk.

Going forward, it’s easy to see that employees could use this to their advantage, downsizing their office as it only has to accommodate a fraction of the workforce while the remainder work from home or ‘hot desk’ in shifts.

First, lets look at how working from home could be a long term change, and at what a work from home office might need.

Home Workstation & Hardware

Home Office GDPR
Working From Home

It’s more than likely that your work from home employees will need a computer, chances are they already have a computer of some sort at home, but with the ubiquitousness of tablets and smartphones, it may well be that their home computer is somewhat outdated.

There are a number of options available here depending on the person and their position in the company.

The least expensive method would be to use a remote desktop session (even running it from a ‘live CD or USB rather than from their computers operating system) This requires little processing and memory power from the remote end as all the heavy work is done at the server end (typically cloud based or a server at your office)

You could provide a laptop for work use, giving you control over the spec and budget of the machines your staff are using, or you could give them a budget to buy their own devices for work use.

Unless particular processing power is needed on the remote devices, say for graphics work, then using a laptop is absolutely the best option. There’s a choice of touch screen, stylus input, tablet/laptop or standard laptops again depending on your employees needs.

Additional screens can be setup, especially if your staff are used to using them in the office, wide screens and rotatable screens are ideal for managing large spreadsheets or word processing.

Having a decent camera, microphone and speakers are also very useful especially when you’re running video conferencing calls or your remote workers are contacting clients. If the built in offerings are a bit low quality, it’s easy to buy and use external devices.

If the remote workers home space allows it, have a separate screen that can be dedicated to video calls and conferencing, leaving this logged into an office Microsoft Team meeting (or zoom, Skype or any other conferencing app) all day long so all your remote workers can see and speak to each other without having to start up a specific session. This helps give the office/team feeling to working and means that your staff can keep in contact as they would do normally, such as chitchat over a coffee in the office, or asking for help from colleges while their working.

If the remote workspace is not a dedicated area, such as a home office, then having hardware that can be setup and then packs away quickly and tidily is essential. If your remote workers are working on the dining room table, having two 20 inch monitors in place all the time would really get in the way!

Your remote workers might also need access to a printer or scanner. Depending on what quality they need and how often they need it, there are several options. From providing a multi-function printer/scanner at home for every day print jobs, to setting up the office printer to allow remote print access, and using the camera on the users smartphone as a scanner.

Home Broadband

Broadband
Home Broadband

In most cases, a lightning fast broadband connection at the remote end is not required, the amount of data sent to and from a remote worker can be kept quite light or buffered and cached when the broadband is less busy.

If there are other people sharing the broadband, hogging all the bandwidth when your remote user downloads a set of files is soon going to be picked up on, so using technology you can cache these files on the remote workstation over night, or access them via remote desktop software.

Carrying out a survey of your remote workers homes could help identify better broadband deals, and help your remote workers position their workstations and WiFi access points/routers in the best locations for connectivity and speed.

Compliance

It’s essential that your remote workers remain compliant with various legislation while working from home, Health and Safety and GDPR are the two that immediately spring to mind, but there may be others that you need to take into account.

GDPR General Data Protection Regulation
GDPR (DPA2018)

GDPR, the Data Protection Ace 2018, policies you have in place will need assessing and updating to cover the new situation, but this should not be a barrier to moving to this new working environment.

If home PC’s, tablets, smartphones or other devices are being used to process personal information, they should be assessed and managed according to your GDPR policy.

Business information and household information should be strictly segregated, and management put in place to protect the business data.

Assessing the working conditions for your remote users will quickly identify areas that need to be covered under your GDPR policy, this may include things like; screen privacy, data storage, printing and destroying printed material, transporting data between the office and remote office and data encryption.

Meeting Room & Reception

With your office staff working from home, it means the office doesn’t need to be so big. In lots of situations, a meeting room, reception area and one or two offices would suffice.

This means the meeting room can be large enough to accommodate clients and observe the social distancing rules, and and office workers in the building could work from one of the offices meaning they are isolated from other people while they’re in.

Your reception could be fitted with a client-facing monitor, and any ‘walk in’ clients could still speak with any member of staff via video conferencing.

A networked scanner and printer could also be made available to share documents.

Hot desking would need a slight revamp, with maybe just a docking station and screen left behind when a users leaves, and a wipe down of all surfaces before they are used again.

Keeping it all together

Making sure your company data is available to your remote workers in a reliable and secure way is essential. There are a number of options for you to look at.

Firstly there are cloud only solutions, services like Microsoft and Google. They are the big boys but that is a benefit; their platforms are reliable and robust and have a range of options and prices that give you access to different amounts of storage space and different tools.

Then there are hybrid solutions, part cloud based and part office-server based. These setups allow you to make use of all the transport facilities of cloud based connectivity, but with the security and peace of mind of an office-based server.

Then there is the pure office-only solution, letting you manage and configure every aspect of the system with an in-house server.

Each option has it’s pros and cons and are suitable to different types of work, in some situations you might combine different elements of all three setups to offer the right connectivity and security for your remote workers.

Having control over your data is essential. Being able to audit it’s use, monitor for breaches in your security, and remotely destroy data from a compromised device are all tools you should have at your disposal.

Making sure your data is backed up is critical. Also, making sure the data on your backup targets is up-to-date and includes any data that might be sitting on a remote device should be built into your backup plans.

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We can carry out a review of your remote workers home office and advise you of any changes we think are needed to make it a long term working arrangement. We can check internet connection, WiFi location, device security, working environment and identify areas needed to be included in your GDPR policy

We can also sort out your office based needs, with terminals, servers, internet connections, security and everything else you need to allow your remote workers to be as efficient as possible.

Contact us today to prepare your workplace for the new normal.

Has broadband slowed down during lockdown?

Broadband

With furloughed workers and people working from home, the UK residential broadband networks have been put under continued strain for the past 5 weeks and users are starting to feel like their broadband speeds are slowing down.

Why so slow?

Most residential broadband connections are sharing bandwidth between several homes, it’s difficult to find accurate contention ratio data, but a few years back it was typical that residential connections had a contention of 50:1, what that means is that 50 homes could share a single connection to the internet.

Businesses often had 20:1 contention ratios, meaning that each business on the connection could share the bandwidth with up to 19 other businesses.

During normal use, this is not an issue. Through the day the bulk of internet traffic is on the businesses networks, and from 5pm onward the trend swinging to mostly residential connections.

During the lockdown, this trend has obviously changed. Many many more users are vying for bandwidth over the residential connections during the day.

Getting the most out of your internet.

There’s not much you can do in the short term to address the speed of your broadband. Longer term you could look at changing provider or moving to a less contented connection, or one with guaranteed minimum speeds.

But here are some tips to making the most of the speed you’ve got.

Go Lite

Us lite modes on your device or browser or apps that support it.

Some mobile phones and tablets have a Data Saver mode to reduce the amount of data apps can access in the background, Windows 10 has a similar feature under Data Mode.

Set your browser to a lite mode, Chrome, Opera, Firefox and Edge all have data saving modes, designed to reduce and compress the amount of data needed to load a webpage.

While you’re at it, using plugins like The Great Suspender will put tabs that you’re not using into a sleep mode to prevent them automatically refreshing and downloading data in the background.

More and more smartphone and tablet apps now have features to reduce the amount of data needed to work by reducing the quality of graphics, video or sound, or suspending some features while working in a lite mode, check your apps settings for details.

Some apps, like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, can be removed or disabled, and you can use the web based version of the app instead. Most (if not all) of the features you use are available via the web version, all without the background updates.

IoT

Smart home devices like lights, switches, TV’s Security Cameras and personal assistants are everywhere, and most of them will be connected to your WiFi and may be sending and receiving data in the background.

Disconnect them from the WiFi if there is a setting to do that, or turn the power off to them while you’re working to stop them using up you valuable internet speed. Once you’ve finished work, you can turn them back on or reconnect them.

Same goes for any tablets or smartphones you’re not using, set them to airplane mode to disconnect them from the WiFi while you’re working.

Go 4G (or 5G)

If you’ve got a massive or unlimited mobile data allowance, and a reasonable enough signal, use that instead of your home WiFi.

Look for the Mobile Hotspot or WiFi or the Tethering settings in your phone to turn it into a WiFi point you can connect to.

Drop the bitrate

If you’re streaming video, use the streaming apps settings to reduce the bitrate or resolution, it’s easier to watch a smooth playing though slightly less HD movie than it is to watch a 4K movie that stutters and buffers every few minutes.

If you’re in a video conference call, opt to go audio only, if you’re still having issues, see if there’s an option to dial in on the telephone.

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If you need help making your broadband speeds better, or getting your workforce running securely from home, give us a call toady.

Using Skype during Covid-19 (coronavirus) lockdown

Skype 2019

Using Skype to keep in touch with relatives and other loved ones while being socially isolated is going to require some planning. It’s great to be able to use the phone and text messages to keep in contact, but it’s a lot more reassuring and rewarding to be able to see your family and friends, and Skype is the way to do it.

Skype

There are a number of video calling platforms available, we review some of them here, but none are as universally well known, and supported, as Microsoft’s Skype.

Unlike Apple’s FaceTime, Skype can be used on any phone, Android or Apple, it can be used on tablets, laptops, computers, games consoles, direct from the web and even on smart TV’s

It’s a reliable platform to use, it’s free and it allows you to video call upto 50 users at once.

Getting Started

https://go.skype.com/get.skype.page

If you’ve not already got a skype account, you’ll need to create one. The easiest way to do this is through the app, so follow the links below to find the app that works best for you. Skype can be installed on several devices at the same time, so you don’t need to pick just one.

Windows 10

If you’ve got a Windows 10 online account (you can log in with an email address – go to On the website

https://www.skype.com/

https://web.skype.com/

Skype on the website works for anyone using Microsoft Edge, Edge Chromium or Google Chrome browsers.

Windows 10 App

Skype

Install from the Microsoft App Store

This is the easiest way to get Skype on Windows 10 machines.

The app installes from the app store and runs as a native Windows 10 WUA app (a bit like apps on your phone)

You can get to all the features of Skype from this app, including managing your account, but some links will open up in your web browser so may require you to sign in again.

Windows, Linux or Mac desktop/laptop computers

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Running the Skype for desktop app is pretty much the standard way of getting Skype on non Windows 10 computers, although you can still install the program on Windows 10, the app version above is a much better alternative.

Mobile Phones (Android & iPhone)

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Getting the Skype app on your mobile is going to be one of the most useful ways of using Skype

Keep in touch with your friends and family even when you’re out making an essential trip. Found a shop with toilet roll in it? get in touch with your grandma to see if she wants any dropping off at her house. Wanting to talk to your friends from the garden? the mobile is the easiest device to take out with you.

Tablets (Android, iPad and Kindle)

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Like the Skype for Mobile, Skype for tablets gives you that bit more freedom to move around your home and into the garden, but with a larger screen to be able to see your loved ones.

Skype on Alexa

New Amazon Echo Show1

https://www.skype.com/en/alexa/

If you’ve got an Amazon Echo Show or spot, you can receive and make Skype video calls through them. If you’ve got any other Amazon Echo device, you can receive and make audio calls via Skype through them.

Just say “Alexa, Skype Ben

To setup Skype on your Alexa, you need the Alexa app on your smartphone, and you need to have already created a Skype account.

  • Open the app
  • Go to Settings > Communication > Skype
  • Link your accounts

XBox

Skype Xbox One1

https://www.justpushstart.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/skype-xbox-one.jpg

The Skype app is very well integrated into XBox, designed for gamers to be able to chat with their online gaming buddies, it also means you can catch up with your granny while sniping zombie soldiers or stealing a helicopter. Multitasking 21C style.

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Once you’ve got your app installed and your account setup, you can start using Skype to video call and voice call other Skype users.

there’s a great help page from Microsoft about managing Skype and using the different features, you can find that here.

If you or your loved ones need help getting Skype installed and setup, we can help. We can remotely assist to get your family talking virtually face to face.

Contact us today for more help in getting your family and friends connected during this time.

Video Messaging

Videocall

It’s an unprecedented time, with people all around the world becoming isolated in their homes, we look at some of the best video communication platforms to make your isolation or social distancing a little less solitary.

WhatsApp

https://www.whatsapp.com/

Whatsapp Group Call 15330137687621

WhatsApp is probably the most popular messaging app in use. Supporting voice and video calls, group chats and file sharing it protects your communications with end-to-end encryption and is available on all platforms and the web.

Accounts on WhatsApp are free and tied to your mobile number, so no need to sign up with an email account. But this does mean you need a smartphone before you can cign up for it.

Group chats can include up to 256 people, enough for even the largest family, but video calls are limited to 4 people

You can contact us on WhatsApp here tinsleyNET

Skype

https://www.skype.com/en/

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Probably one of the better known, and longest running video platforms, Skype is a goto app for many.

It’s a multi-platform service, meaning that no matter what type of phone, tablet or PC you have, you can get skype on it.

You can talk to upto 25 users at a time on the free version of Skype, ideal for setting up a family group, and you can use other features, such as remote screen sharing, messaging, Microsoft Teams (a business tool for managing meetings) and calling non-skype users via landline and mobile networks.

To access skype, the basic version is free but you’ll need a Microsoft account. If you’re on Windows 10 you can use the same account that you log into Windows with (assuming you’re not using a local only account)

Skype has been criticised in the past for it’s security, it’s been suggested that Microsoft have allowed government agencies access to ‘secure’ messages on skype. This might be something to be aware of if you’re using Skype for business, but for family communications, it’s really not an issue.

Contact us on skype: tinsleyNET

FaceTime

https://support.apple.com/

Macos Catalina Facetime Hero1

Apple’s facetime is one of the most used video messaging apps, which is great if all your family are embedded into the Apple ecosystem, but no use to anyone not investing into Apple.

The app is limited to only video and voice calling between other Apple facetime devices, and it’s limited to 32 users in a video conversation.

There’s no additional accounts or setup required to use Facetime, and other than needing an Apple account and Apple hardware, there’s no other fees or requirements.

Google Duo

https://duo.google.com/about/

Be Together1

Like FaceTime, Google’s Duo app is built around video calling only. But unlike Facetime, it’s not limited to just one platform.

Duo is accessible from Android, Apple, smart devices and from PC’s via the web, and allows conversations with upto 8 users at once.

Features like Knock Knock allow you to see the video of calling before you answer, video messenger allows you to send video clips or leave video clips if the call is not answered.

Security is achieved by end-to-end encryption. and extra features include AI overlays, meaning you can do funny things like draw a hat on your head that stays there as you move your head around, a bit like the well known overlays used on snapchat.

You can contact us on Duo here: https://duo.google.com/ or open your Duo app dial 07825650122

Due now supports up to 12 users in a call

“We are grateful that Duo is helping users see their loved ones all around the world. We recognize group calling is particularly critical right now. We have increased group calling from 8 participants to 12 effective today. More to come. #AllInThisTogether #COVID19”

Sanaz, Sr. Director of Product & Design at Google, March 2020
Tweet: https://twitter.com/sanazahari/status/1243397017868460033

Jitsi

https://jitsi.org/

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Not a well known service, but Jitsi is making itself known in areas where security is essential. The video and audio calling software is encrypted end-to-end and the same security can be used to encrypt messages on the platform.

There’s no limit on the number of participants in a group conversation, other than what your internet/hardware can cope with.

There’s no need to sign up for an account, simply head over to jitsi, start a conversation and then send the link out to others for them to join.

There are apps available for Windows and MacOS, but the focus appears to be around the web browser client, that means that accessing the service from a mobile device could be slightly tricky.

Zoom

https://zoom.us

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Zoom came from the minds behind Cisco, so as you’d expect it’s robust and reliable, and has security built into the platform from the start. Used extensively in business pre Microsoft Teams, it became the video conferencing platform of choice for celebs in 2019.

During the Covid-19 outbreak, Zoom has seen it’s user base increase significantly, not only for education and business, but also in a friends and family use.

The basic free account will allow you to chat to upto 100 users for 40 minutes, for more users or a longer chat, you’ll need a paid subscription (£11.99/month/user for the Pro)

You can contact us on Zoom, start a new meeting and click invite, then send the invite to it@tinsleynet.co.uk

Spike

https://www.spikenow.com/

Groups1

A less known client here, Spike is more business orientated. It brings together email, messaging, video calls and documents sharing.

Available on all platforms, the personal accounts are free as long as you’re using a recognised free email account (yahoo, gmail, hotmail etc). The limit on the free account is 10 group chats.

Facebook

https://www.messenger.com/

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Facebook offer two platforms here, Messenger and Portal (the one that’s being advertised on TV a lot)

The problem with Portal is that you need to invest entirely in the portal system, that is you and the people you’re talking to need the portal hardware. And Facebook don’t have a great reputation for seeing a project through, so there’s no guarantee that in a years time Portal is still around, then the hardware you bought will be redundant.

The ‘free’ alternative is Messenger, built into the Facebook platform and then spawned as a seperate app, it can be accessed via the web or via dedicated apps on Apple and Android.

You can have upto 50 users in a video call, but they all need to have Facebook profiles.

Facebook does not have the best reputation for data security, so that’s something to keep in mind.

Contact us on Facebook messenger: m.me/tinsleyNET

Google Hangouts

https://hangouts.google.com

Video Ipad Screen 2721

Hangouts has been around since the early days of video and messaging apps. It is a solid app built for mobile and website but lacked the advertising needed to push it forwards.

Google moved it towards a more business based app when Due and Allo were released, but it’s still available on a wide range of platforms, including Apple, Android, Chrome, Microsoft and Linux.

Hangouts supports video and voice calling, and text messaging. Group calling can include up to 10 users, and users can share their desktop screens so you can do remote support.

You can contact us on Hangouts, open your hangouts app and dial +447825650122

WeChat

https://www.wechat.com/

WeChat V5.0 For Android Launches 031

The Chinese based chat app is widely used in China and is making it’s way into other countries via the much younger generations.

Video message groups can support upto 9 users. It’s popularity is based around the added features, including AI add ons, games and other in-app purchases.

The security of messages on Wechat has been questioned several times, with no clear response from the developers.

Others

There are plenty of other messaging apps that can keep you and your family in contact, feel free to add your own suggestions below.

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If you need help on choosing a messaging app, you can contact us below or head over to our FREE IT SUPPORT facebook group to get advice from other users, click the link below.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/tinsleyNET/