Tag Archives: Efficiency

Is it time to switch?

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Is it time to switch

If your IT support company just wasn’t good enough last year, then is it time to switch? IT is too important to have a weak supplier. Our new guide explains why we partner with our clients and don’t just work with them.

Download The Top 5 Questions guide to help you make the best decision.

Why is it time to switch to LIS?

Investing in a good IT support company is essential if you want to generate sales growth, streamline your processes, and reach your goals. Are you wasting too much time trying to sort out your companies’ IT system yourself? Is your current IT provider working with you and do they understand your goals? If you answer no to any of these questions, then ask yourself is it time to switch?

As your IT support company, LIS will take the time to find out your exact needs of your company. Our Technical Support Staff use their expertise to deliver bespoke technology solutions that are fully aligned to your business plans. We are an extension of your business and will be a crucial part of your team.

Unlike other IT support companies, our focus is on being proactive. This means that the majority of our time is invested in potential causes of IT disruptions, before your company encounters any issues. Typically, our IT Help Desk spend time monitoring services and are proactive when there are issues.

The PC doctor will see you now

Prevention is better than cure: we do not wait for problems to occur. Our aim is to make sure your company is secure and has the latest updates. We try our best to do all we can to reduce the chance of anything going wrong in the first place.

By fixing the problem at its source, we can stop the symptom from returning. This enables us to provide you with consistently high levels of service. This ensures, low levels of risk and ultimately, enhance the productivity of your IT systems and staff. Is it time to switch to an IT provider that will assist you and your team with any IT problems? This in turn will allow you to concentrate on building your business or enjoy some of your favourite pastimes.

We have a belief at LIS: “If it has already happened, it’s too late. Why should it go wrong at all?”

Flick the switch – it’s time to switch

As a busy business owner or manager, we understand your time is precious. There is nothing more annoying than your IT systems running slow or being down. Fed up with staff moaning at you that their emails are down? Or the ultimate nightmare that your company has a virus, or your server is down.

Never fear. LIS can offer you a FREE IT AUDIT. Contact the LIS Help Desk and speak to our experienced and friendly support team. It is never too late to switch. We will talk to you about your current system. Advise on upgrades to improve performance. Review your security and back-up solutions. IT should not be painful. Let us take away your headaches. It is never too late to switch, we are only a phone call or email away.

LIS – SECURING YOUR DIGITAL WORLD

#FreeGuide #ITPartner #ITSupport #DownloadYourCopyNow

Microsoft Planner

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Reach for big goals this year with Microsoft Planner. Microsoft 365 has some amazing productivity and collaborative tools already built in. Did you know that within Teams there’s a useful project planning tool?

Watch our short video for the lowdown

How Microsoft Planner works

Microsoft Planner is a great lightweight planning tool that’s included in most Office 365 packages. Its basic purpose is to provide easy, visual task management for a group of users. This includes when, how and by whom these tasks are assigned as well as their current status.

Planner is also based upon Office 365 Groups. This means creating a new Planner plan will also create a group behind the scenes. This makes it easy to govern membership and add additional workloads onto the group in question.

Will it make a difference?

Creating tasks and assigning it to team members is a continuous process inside all organisations and businesses. How many of you are doing it in a systematic and organized manner? You can change this anytime with Microsoft Planner. The biggest difference Microsoft Planner brings to an organisation when compared to other to-do apps is that it is team focused. This different approach helps you to achieve more productivity and control on your team, especially when you are processing a complex task with a specialised team. How to use Microsoft Planner effectively? The easiest and effective way to use Planner now is from Microsoft Teams. You do not need to switch applications to manage your tasks in Planner now. Let us see what you can do with Planner in Microsoft Teams.

What are the things you can do with Microsoft Planner?

To start creating tasks, assigning it to your team members, and keep checking progress from Microsoft Teams, you need to create a team first. You can also go with an already existing team if you wish. After creating the team, you need to add members to it and add the Planner app as a tab to the team.

What are the benefits?

Microsoft PlannerThrough Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Teams, team leaders will easily be able to review the current workload of employees, assign new tasks, and follow up on tasks that are important or may be falling behind. Employees can understand their workload better and follow through independently, without having to take additional steps to figure out which tasks they should best be prioritising. 

One of the major advantages to Microsoft Teams is its ability to integrate with software solutions such as the Microsoft Team Planner. If your team hasn’t switched to Microsoft Teams yet, it may be time. Contact the LIS Help Desk if you need to migrate to Microsoft Teams.

LIS – SECURING YOUR DIGITAL WORLD

#WatchItNow #MicrosoftPlannerVideo #HowTo

Your 2021 Productivity Super Guide

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2021 productivity super guideReady to make this a wildly successful year for your business? Our 2021 productivity super guide will help shake off the memories of 2020. As well as enabling you to focus on increasing sales and profitability. Excellent. A great place to start is helping you and your team to get more done in less time. We’ve pulled together a productivity super guide, looking at setting goals, collaboration, and communication. And of course, it lists our most highly recommended productivity tools.

Download our 2021 productivity super guide.

What a year we’ve left behind

Although, with many of the negatives we had no control over, came some positive changes to the way we all do things. So many businesses now have people working from home on a permanent or semi-permanent basis. As much as no-one asked for this, it’s been great to see how many businesses that we work closely with have adapted. And in the process, they have become more flexible.

This flexibility often results in a more motivated, engaged workforce. Who really appreciate the ability to work different hours and work from home (WFH). This is a huge benefit. Especially if you’re looking to hire new people. Because what’s the greatest competitive advantage in your business? It’s your people, of course.

We believe that offering flexible working and the choice between WFH and going into the office, will help you attract the very best people in your field. This year is going to be a “buyer’s market” for employers. A great opportunity to take on truly excellent new people. But, of course, along with this comes a responsibility to give everyone the tools and accessibility they need to be able to excel at their roles from wherever they choose to work.

That means you, as the business owner or manager, need to be on top of issuing the right devices, keeping security tight, and network access open but safe. After the 2020 lockdowns, hopefully you’ve already got the fundamentals in place. But going forward, it’s as important to offer your team as much IT support in their homes, as they get in the office.

We can help you with our 2021 productivity super guide

So, here’s a question to ask – what else could you do to help them achieve more?

If they were given the right tools:

  • Help your team make the most of their time
  • The right tools will complement what they do
  • Tools will simplify processes

… could they get more done in a day?

Probably. And fortunately, we live in an age where there is an app to help you do pretty much anything.

Why wouldn’t you take advantage of that?

The thing is, it’s too easy to get stuck in our ways. Yes, even when it comes to business. We log into the same software each morning, have the same grumbles about how we wish it did things differently; then carry on with our day.

“Sometimes what we need is a new set of eyes. Someone who can stand back and see the simple solutions that we simply can’t”

Because when something is a habit, it can be difficult to imagine a different way of doing it. Even if that new way is easier and brings about more benefits – like a more productive team, and better customer satisfaction.

Could we be that new set of eyes for you? We’d like to offer your business a productivity audit.

During this audit, our experts will take a detailed look at your business, what you do and the tools you currently use to do it. We’ll talk to you about how your processes would work in an ideal world and help you to identify the apps or software that can help that to happen.

Let’s set up an IT Audit

Three BIG questions for you:

  1. Do you currently have an IT support company?
  2. How happy were you with them last year?
  3. If the answer isn’t “utterly delighted”, let’s jump on a Zoom or book a phone call.

Everything that happened in 2020 taught businesses round here just how important proactive, responsive IT support is. Contact the LIS Help Desk to discuss your business, and to answer any questions you may have.

LIS – SECURING YOUR DIGITAL WORLD

 #NewYearGoals #ProductivityGuide #Make2021YourYear

Pointless emails

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They’re not just irritating; they have a massive carbon footprint. Above all, more than 64 million pointless emails are sent in Britain every day. Along with clogging up our inboxes they are also damaging the environment.

Stop! Don’t send that pointless email

Don’t offer thanks or send a jokey message. If you do, you will add to your carbon footprint. Be rude, say nothing – and save the planet. An article published by David Molloy, BBC Technology Reporter, explores the effects of pointless emails on the environment.

A new study commissioned by energy company OVO reckons Brits send more than 64m unnecessary emails every day, and that if every adult in the UK sent one fewer “thank you” email a day we would save more than 16,433 tonnes of carbon a year – equivalent to 81,152 flights to Madrid or taking 3,334 diesel cars off the road.

These are the sorts of stats beloved of green energy companies trying to get a bit of free publicity. But it’s all true, according to Mike Berners-Lee, a professor in the environment centre at Lancaster University, author of How Bad are Bananas: The Carbon Footprint of Everything, and brother of Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the web. True in very general terms anyway: he probably won’t vouch for all those flights.

Pointless emails

Do you really need to send the next email? Inside Facebook’s Lulea data centre in Sweden.
Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

Think before you click send

How can one little pointless email destroy the planet, I ask Mike Berners-Lee, who advised OVO on the research. “When you are typing, your computer is using electricity,” he says. “When you press send it goes through the network, and it takes electricity to run the network. And it’s going to end up being stored on the cloud somewhere, and those data centres use a lot of electricity. We don’t think about it because we can’t see the smoke coming out of our computers, but the carbon footprint of IT is huge and growing.”

The electricity I grasp; the cloud is a bit beyond me. “It’s made up of enormous data centres all over the world,” Berners-Lee explains. “They are burning through huge amounts of electricity.” Super-efficient communication and storage is killing us. Every silver lining has a cloud.

In addition, Berners-Lee admits the numbers are “crude estimates”, but says they are a useful way of making a general point. “When we take a small action to cut carbon,” he says, “it’s a message to yourself that you care about the climate emergency.”

Does he blame his brother for all this? He laughs. “Many good things have come out of the web,” … but only if we use it selectively.

Top 10 most pointless emails sent

  1. Thank you
  2. Thanks
  3. Have a good weekend
  4. Received
  5. Appreciated
  6. Have a good evening
  7. Did you get/see this?
  8. Cheers
  9. You too
  10. LOL

How LIS help with email support?

Email support is one of the main channels of customer support for most companies today. The majority of customers say that email support is a preferred way to communicate with clients and suppliers.

Do you have a new member of staff? Has a team member left? We support our clients by setting up new email addresses and removing old email accounts. Fed up with receiving junk mail? Our clients benefit from our anti-spam service. Control who you wish to block and make sure junk mail is a thing of the past. Are you secure? We provide anti-virus solutions that help stop outside attacks.

In conclusion, make sure your email systems are set up efficiently and are kept secure. Contact the LIS Help Desk to discuss your options or to book an IT audit.

LIS – SECURING YOUR DIGITAL WORLD

#Emails #ITSupport #AntiSpam #AntiVirus

Microsoft Teams

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Microsoft Teams is perfect for video calls. Have you been using Zoom for your video calls? Microsoft Teams is a better business solution and keeps all your activity with your staff in one place. Here’s our round-up of the latest video call features added to Teams.

Joel Khalili from TechRader asks what is Microsoft Teams? How it works, latest features and top alternatives.

8 reasons your business should be using Microsoft Teams

It enables effective communication

One of the key features of Microsoft Teams is its threaded conversations. Microsoft Teams allows group and private messaging with threaded and persistent conversations.

Users are able to create different channels to organise their communications by topic. This real-time chat function allows you to store brainstorming sessions, conference calls, and other meetings into one, easy-to-find place.

  • You can also integrate audio and video chats
  • You can @mention individuals to bring important messages to their attention
  • Group conversations are visible to the whole team to view, like, share and add to
  • Newly added members can easily get up to speed as everything is archived

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams can be used anywhere, anytime, on any device

As a Cloud-based platform, Microsoft Teams is accessed anywhere via the desktop or mobile application and is supported on Windows, Mac, as well as iOS and Android. All you need is a connection to the internet.

Your productivity is increased

If you use traditional email to work on a project, you can often lose crucial information in ever-multiplying email threads. With Microsoft Teams everyone receives the same message at the same time. As a result, people can collaborate and keep the discussion flowing, helping you reach solutions faster. If a new team member joins, they can access prior conversations with instant access to all project-related files.

It’s fully integrated to Microsoft Office 365

Microsoft Teams is fully integrated to Microsoft Office 365. This includes Word, Excel, Skype for Business, SharePoint and PowerPoint as well as newer tools such as OneNote, Planner, Power BI, Yammer, and Sway.

Your meetings are synced

Microsoft Teams syncs with your calendar and pulls in all your existing appointments. It suggests times when all the other attendees are free. It gives you the option to choose if the meeting is private or open (particularly useful if you are hosting voluntary training or brainstorming sessions). Once created, attendees can post about the meeting in a separate chat thread, set agendas and upload relevant documents. You can also schedule and join meetings using Skype for Business with HD video, VOIP and additional dial-in audio options.

Work better together

With Microsoft Teams everyone can work on the same document at the same time. You can all view the same Word document; edit the same Excel spreadsheet; collaborate on the same PowerPoint presentation while logging persistent chat around that content. It combines chat, meetings, notes, and attachments allowing teams to seamlessly interact with each other wherever they are. Calendars, files and emails can also be shared. The scalability means it is easy to add new users as your business grows.

Customise your workspace with Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams allows you to integrate third-party tools as well as your favourite Microsoft apps. If Twitter updates are just as important to your marketing team as a message from the Director, you can customise your workspace to reflect this.

Faster processes

Microsoft Teams lets you speed through common tasks faster and share files easier with a helpful set of slash commands.

Want to get Microsoft Teams for your business?

Lodge Information Services is an accredited Microsoft Partner and can advise you on Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscriptions. We will find the best solution for your business needs, licence it and install it. Our friendly support technicians are always happy to help. Contact the LIS Help Desk.

LIS – SECURING YOUR DIGITAL YOUR WORLD

#MicrosoftTeams #NewFeatures #MoreProductiveMeetings