As the serious nature of the Coronavirus has grown, Limetree Labs is working with our customers to ensure work-from-home capability. Thankfully, our IT philosophy is cloud-based and remote-work friendly, so most of our customers are already prepared.
With the sudden growth in individuals working from home, there has been a proliferation of advice on remote-working. Many of these articles and bits of information center around how to communicate with colleagues remotely or whether you should shower and dress as if you were going into the office. That’s great, but what are your technical options for working from home? I interviewed our top Director of IT, Chadd Mazac, to find out.
Option 1 – Remote Desktop
If you have a desktop computer at your office, a remote desktop can be a great work from home option. This setup allows you to connect from a home Windows or Mac computer, directly to your work computer. You will have access to all the applications and files just like you were sitting in front of your work computer. You can even print from the remote connection to your home printers. Caveat: Remote desktop is not very secure by default, so your IT department should set it up in a secure manner before you use it.
Option 2 – VPN Connection
If you work from a laptop and take it home with you, a VPN connection is what you need to connect to office files and programs. With a VPN connection, your work laptop can be used on your corporate network from anywhere you have a good internet connection. VPN connections always require some set up by your IT department and may come with some security constraints.
Option 3 – Cloud Accessible Work Environment
These days a lot of organizations are moving to a cloud-first approach for IT. If your company is set up in this way, you may not need to do anything extra at all to work from home. At Limetree Labs, all of our programs and files are completely accessible from any computer that has internet access. Even our phone system is cloud accessible; we can answer and call from our office phones right from our smartphone. This type of setup does sometimes require major changes in the IT systems of a company and does not happen overnight.
Remote Work Ready
Where does your business or organization stand? Are your staff prepared to work-from-home? If you are scrambling to make adjustments in the light of this coronavirus pandemic, give us a call. We are ready to assist you in moving your office to a remote-ready set-up. Give us a call at 208-901-3350 or send an email to hello@limetreelabs.com.
