Supporting services off-site

[localzuk]

What do you all do about supporting staff remote access to services in their homes?

 

For example, we have Office 365 for email (provided by the local LEA), operate RDS Web Access for SIMS access, host our website internally etc...

 

All the services work fine, and are in use all day every day, but when someone has trouble accessing them from home how do you support it?

 

I have a member of staff who cannot use Office 365 or our RDS Web Access system from home at all. This is across their devices - so it doesn't work on iPad or on their laptop. The obvious answer is that they have an issue with their home internet connection. I'm not really sure what more I can do to remedy the issue, so I thought I'd find out how you guys and gals handle these sort of issues.

[FN-GM]

Our support is provided on a best endeavours. We will try and get them going as usually its something simple. But if it turns out to be a big job they will be on their own im afraid. But there is no hard and fast rule as to where the cut off point is, each case is unique.

[Bev]

I have been known to go to the Head's house to fix his internet.... But we went during school time, so I figured if that was how he wanted me to spend his time, then that was up to him.

 

The most common reason people can't access the internet that I find, is because they have the school proxy set on their laptops. I do have a little app installed on the laptops which should help them switch it on / off but it's too hard for some.

[MatthewL]

From doing this in the past with staff it was on a best endevours. If there were issues they would always need to be looked at in business hours and not of of. If staff could go home we would speak to them on the phone and remote in using a tool and go from there.

 

WfH for us was not something they had to have just a nicety so if there were major issues with the local setup it basically wasn't our issue as they would work in the office.

[bossman]

We just ask the user to bring in their unit or whatever device they are using from home and we will sort out at a premium after school, I feel it is in their best interest if they want to work from home but they should not expect an out of school service unless SLT are prepared to pay for it (Which I doubt they would).

 

I have a car but would not expect the local garage which services it to provide out of hours maintenance when I cannot use it, I would have to pay a premium for a home service call out wouldn't I?

 

Same goes for IT!

[localzuk]

I have been known to go to the Head's house to fix his internet.... But we went during school time, so I figured if that was how he wanted me to spend his time, then that was up to him.

 

The most common reason people can't access the internet that I find, is because they have the school proxy set on their laptops. I do have a little app installed on the laptops which should help them switch it on / off but it's too hard for some.

 

We no longer manually set proxies - we use a wpad.dat file distributed via DHCP option/DNS record internally. So when you're off-site, you don't get the file.

[localzuk]

This isn't supporting home devices btw. It is supporting access to school services from school devices, but off-site in their homes, out of hours.

[pete]

^ what @FN-GM said.

 

If they can describe the problem coherently and provide screenshots of what they're seeing, we do what we can. If the problem is their ISP/home setup that's on them to fix.

Edited November 20, 2015 by pete

[Oaktech]

I've also been to the head's house to fix a problem...

 

If I can get onto a service from home, then there isn't a problem with the service.

 

In the first instance I will give email support, asking for screenshots and pointing people to internet fixes.

 

If that doesn't work I usually get them to bring the home device in, I'll give it the once over and if it looks OK and not riddled with malware and virii then I will go across to the site manager's house, stick the device on his wifi and try the services and if it works there I tell the staff to speak to their ISP.

 

If it doesn't work, then I will spent a school agreed 1 hour fixing the machine and if I can't fix it in the time then I will offer them options, I can take the device away from school and fix it and we have private arrangement for them to pay me at a preferential rate, or I give them the number of our local independent laptop fixer.

 

Most often the issues that I see are either the inability to remember the email password, or the process to create an RDP session. Ocasionally I see nasty malware, I had one the other day that prevented the use of HTTPS sites by using a proxy and redirected browsing to fraudulent sites. Fortunately this particular user isn't clued up enough to be using internet banking and I just advised her to change her ebay/paypal and amazon passwords.