Trailblazer Community - Flows Workshop (Session 2)
FOCUS Newsletter by AIR Technology Services
1. What is Recovery is vital. Learn how to delay See what our
Business Backup without the Outlook emails and customers say about
Continuity? ability to recover is avoid the common the work we do for
of little use. “whoops”! them!
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focus Volume 2 YEAR: 2009
What is Business Continuity?
LinkedIn.com?
The purpose of the site is to allow
registered users to maintain a list business if we were to lose it? The definition of
Business continuity – keeping the doors open,
of contact details of people they business-critical information varies greatly from
no matter what – is a goal that nearly every
know and trust in business. The business to business.
business owner has, regardless of the type of
people in the list are called
business. Managing operations effectively, • Which documents and databases (or files)
Connections. Users can invite
maintaining profitability, and making sure that are vital to your organization? These
anyone to become a connection.
customers and employees are satisfied are vital documents and files should be imaged
This list of connections can then
elements for business continuity, but alone they electronically first, and then backed up and
be used in a number of ways:
do not provide a guarantee against closure. stored in an off-site location. Which data files
* A contact network is built up are purely archival and are not required for day-
Far more common than natural or manmade
c ons is ting of their direc t to-day operations? Those may be a second
disasters, employee turnover, data corruption or
connections, the connections of priority in your back-up strategy.
even a virus can result in the loss
each of their connections. This
• What equipment—including
of significant corporate knowledge
can be used to gain an
software applications and the
as well as inconsistent work
introduction to someone you wish
hardware needed to run them—is
to know through a mutual, trusted quality. Without a well-conceived
required in order to ensure that
contact. plan, a business can suffer
you can access your data so that
* It can then be used to find greatly, and in a worst-case
your processes continue to run
jobs, people and business scenario, it can collapse.
smoothly? Which steps, if any,
opportunities recommended by
can you afford to postpone or
someone in one's contact Although the answers to the
network. Don’t be the victim of data-loss! delay?
following questions might seem
Create a Business Continuity
obvious to management from a Plan today — include your data! • Do the employees who carry
The quot;gated-access
birds-eye viewpoint, the persons out the mission-critical parts of
approachquot; (where contact with any
responsible for Business your business use laptops? If
professional requires either a
Continuity Planning (BCP) need to find and not, will they be able to continue mission-critical
preexisting relationship, or the
record detailed answers: work in the event that circumstances prevent
intervention of a contact of theirs)
• Who are our customers? Where does this them from coming into the office? If so, are
is intended to build trust among
they required to take their laptops home with
the service's users. information reside? What documents and data
them so that they are able to keep time-
about our customers are critical in order for us
sensitive projects moving? Is there a site that
to continue serving our customers in the event
could become an alternative office on very short
of unforeseen circumstances that would prevent
notice in the event that this is necessary?
access to our normal working environment?
Could it quickly and easily be equipped with
• Are there companies that provide products everything that you would need?
and/or services to our company, without which
we would be unable to deliver our company’s On a more basic level, what WOULD you
“We take care of your computer
own products and services
networks so you can focus need? Analyzing business continuity needs a
on your business!” • Which information would be crippling to our top-down approach that involves everyone.
2. 2 Recovery is vital to business!
TIPS FOR
EXCEL Recovery is vital. Backup without the ability to recover is of little use. Today's technology
USE means that companies can now go beyond the limitations of tape archiving to achieve quot;any
point in timequot; recovery.
Get The Right Answer in Excel
Ensure security and continuity of business data regardless of location. The combination of
When writing formulas, make
sure the results will be calculated continuous data protection, offsite data backup, virtualization of backed up servers and bare
as you intended. Excel adheres
metal recovery (the ability to recover an entire system from scratch, including data, the OS,
to the standard order of
precedence for calculations and
applications, and all settings and configurations) affords the greatest protection and forms the
calculates percentages,
exponents, multiplication, and foundation of a workable disaster plan.
division in this order before
calculating addition and
The AIR MAX Backup and Recovery Solution is a rapid server recovery solution designed for
subtraction. For example, =7+5*3
results in an answer of 22, not
small and mid-sized businesses that
36. To force a calculation to be
completed before other is both cost-effective and easy to
calculations, place it inside
use. When IT disaster strikes,
parentheses: =(7+5)*3 will result
in 36. If you're unsure how Excel
businesses can quickly restore failed
is evaluating a formula, click on
the cell and choose Tools | systems in minutes to a specified
Formula Auditing | Evaluate
point in time without taking hours or
Formula. Click on Evaluate to
watch as each part of the formula
days to manually rebuild and restore
is successively calculated.
systems. Our solution even breaks
the barrier of having to recover
Save All and Close All
systems to the identical hardware platform where recovery points were created and eliminates
the high costs of having to maintain duplicate hardware solely for the purposes of system
recovery in the event of an emergency. Businesses with older hardware environments that fail
can restore their systems to newer and more updated hardware. Restoration to new hardware
(Hidden Menu Options) can be accomplished without having to reinstall and reconfigure operating systems, device
drivers, applications, and system settings — making it quick and easy.
If you hold down the Shift key
while selecting the File menu
in Word (or in Outlook when Remote system recovery can be achieved with our access via Log Me In. Remotely we can
composing a message), the
conduct bare-metal restorations simply by connecting via the backup server. For example, if a
menu options change. You
get handy options to Save All new patch or application causes system corruption, we can perform a bare metal restore
and Close All open files. In
without being physically at the server. The system can easily be rolled back to a previous
Excel, you get a Close All—
but not a Save All—option. recovery point.
There are many things that can bring a server down — complete hardware failure is a common
Office 14—Already slated for
culprit. Small and mid-sized businesses are never 100% immune to the possibility of a server
late 2009, early 2010!
crash, and when it happens it seems like there is never enough time or staff resources to deal
with the problem the AIR MAX Backup and Recovery Solution will help keep your business
running, even if the server fails, without skipping a beat.
3. 3
Delay Sending of Emails TIPS FOR
OUTLOOK
Have you ever written an email, hit send and then wished you could stop it from going out? I
USAGE
know I have a few times. I either realized too late that it was addressed to the wrong person,
was written poorly, had incorrect information or was too emotionally charged. If you are the
average email user you rapidly began formulating damage control or sent a recall notice,
pretty useless by the way, or sent a follow-up email explaining the first one. What if you
could actually delay the sending so your Outbox waits a minute or so before the email gets
sent?
I recently changed my Outlook settings to do just that! It is called Delayed Send and is a rule
that you can create right in your Outlook. In most cases, you will not notice the Delay in the
Send a message to multiple
send at all. The minimum delay you can set is one minute. If you need something to delay people without revealing
other recipients' identities
longer or go out faster you can do that to an individual email. I love it and find that it gives me
To send a message to
that extra second just in case I hit send too fast. someone without other
recipients of the message
knowing, use the Bcc line in
Here are the steps to take to setup Delayed Send in Outlook: GO to Tools->Rules and the message. Bcc stands for
blind carbon copy. If you add
Alerts. Click “New Rule”. Select “Check Messages After Sending. Click “Next” and then
someone's name to the Bcc
“Next” again. When Outlook confirms that you want this rule to apply to every message, click line, a copy of the message is
sent to that person, but his or
“Yes”. Check the box next to “Defer delivery by a number of minutes”. Click on “a number of
her name is not visible to
minutes” and choose how many minutes you want to delay the sending of your email after other recipients.
you hit “Send”. Click “Finish” and you are all set!
Find related messages To
find related messages, right-
click the message, and then
on the shortcut menu, point to
Find All and then click
Save & Go Green with Related Messages. The
Off-Lease Computer Advanced Find dialog box
appears with a list of related
Equipment! messages.
Jog your memory with a
When you are looking to purchase new computer equipment for general office needs, inquire about
follow-up flag Create a
the availability of off-lease desktops, laptops, servers, printers and more. Not only can we source
follow-up flag as a reminder
new equipment for you, but many of our customers prefer to purchase equipment that is coming off to follow up on a message.
On the Actions menu, click
another business’ lease. Off-lease equipment is generally in better condition than most
Follow Up and click the flag
“refurbished” equipment. Roughly most desktops (3.2Ghz, 1GB RAM, 40GB Hard Drive with XP color of your choice.
Professional) are in the range of $325, and Laptops or Tablets with similar specs except processor
of 2.0Ghz are in the range of $450-$550 depending on brand (IBM Thinkpad, Dell Latitude, Fujitsu
Lifebook) and their individual components. Some systems still have a warranty. When you drive a
car off the dealers lot, you lose most of the value — why not purchase a computer system with the
majority of it’s cost depreciated. Buy off-lease and save big!
Inquire with us for more information!
“We take care of your computer networks, so you can focus on your business!”
262-782-2727 WWW.GETAIR.US.
4. Helping You Meet Your Technology Goals
CONTACT US TODAY
TO SET UP A TECHNOLOGY
REVIEW and SEE HOW WE
See what our customers say about us…
CAN HELP YOU FOCUS
MORE ON YOUR BUSINESS!
STAFF ELECTRIC WISCRAFT
“We’ve worked with AIR Technology Services “I wouldn’t know what to do without AIR
262 782 2727
for over a year. They improved the tools Technology Services, I can always count on
866 321 8324 fax
available to our employees and network them to be there for me and keep our network
www.GETAIR.us uptime. We are now able to focus on our up and running. They have supported our
business and enjoy the piece of mind that they network for the last 8 years and we have had
provide for us. Additionally, they helped us incredible service from the engineers and
save more than $14,000 on the selection of a staff. They are always on top of the latest
new phone system, $400 each month on our technologies and know our systems inside
telephone bills and tremendously improved and out. I would highly recommend them for
“We take care of your computer our internet speeds. I really do appreciate the your company.”
networks so you can focus
attention we get and the ‘friendliness’ of their - Kelly Draves, Administrator
on your business!”
consultants.”
- Heather Wrasman, Controller
Our best clients come from referrals. We would like to reward you for sending us more clients. Send us a
qualified business referral and when they become a client, you will get a gift card valued up to $100.
“We take care of your computer
networks so you can focus
on your business!”
730 Larry Court, Suite C
Waukesha, WI 53186