What is your experience only being the IT in company fully remote
Posted by helicrenz@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 18 comments
Hello,
I would like to know your experience being the only IT in company and fully remote. How do you handle on-site concerns etc. Most system that is getting used if cloud based.
Regards,
Romeo
ProfessionalEven296@reddit
If you’re the only IT person, you’re a massive risk (look up “bus factor”). How are you going to find time to be ill, have vacations, etc?
HalOphamer@reddit
Oh I can answer that, you don't take vacation vacations and if you attempt it you have a good mobile connection and some battery banks. If you're sick sick same idea, you bring your laptop with you to the bathroom if you are gonna be there for a while.
I have remoted in to work from a canoe before. It's shit like this or I have to work for other people. Good tools are a must. Good policy prevents most problems and a lot of the others you can mitigate by investing in training your people.
Climbsforfun@reddit
Agree with this.. even stressful taking time off (when I could)
HDClown@reddit
A company who only wants to have a single IT person with no other option is making a risk-based decision to do so and that's on them. Yes, they will be more unrealistic than not about their stance on a solo IT person taking time off.
There needs to be an agreement between solo IT person and employer about how time off is handled. Don't let an employee walk all over you on this. If they are not willing to do something that is agreeable with the employee, don't take that job, or start looking for the next job while you deal with your shit sandwich. If you absolutely need to take a job now and a shit sandwich is all you can get, take it and keep looking for better opportunites.
OtherwiseFlight2702@reddit
Sorry if I am hijacking the post. Since I am always on site. I do get that most of the time, I could be remote as well. How do you handle situations when you need to be near the user or equipment?
For example:
How do you handle issues with laptop freezing, not charging, not showing on 2nd display etc etc?
How do you handle issue with the printer?
I wish I was EVEN partially remote. Fully remote is a dream.
beneschk@reddit
If you have intune you can wipe the device and start fresh deploying the company standard operating environment with autopilot. No need to be near the device. If freezing persists across reboots get the manufacturer to service it under warranty. If its out of warranty purchase a new device from a vendor that will upload your device to autopilot prior to shipment.
AxeellYoung@reddit
If it’s being sent for repair, who actually collects the user device and ships it? Is this the user doing it with instructions?
Thinking of my users here and they are entirely hopeless when it comes to anything to do with tech. Would it just be a case of them adapting to the available or unavailable support?
ihaxr@reddit
On site support. They can come to the business or the users home
covex_d@reddit
we use lenovo laptops and warranty. tech comes to a users house and replacement parts are shipped there too
bjc1960@reddit
I started out this way - we now have more people. Make sure you have space to store computers wherever you live. We got a ticketing system a year into it- I would have done that earlier.
We started out as Business Premium, but are now E5 due to needs for DLP, phones and PowerBI. We use Autopilot and run lots of stuff through Intune, so everything is good.
cookerz30@reddit
Getting intune or similar software to help with deployment should be a top priority. Also, automating account creation/removing access to make it as seamless as possible.
helicrenz@reddit (OP)
this is the way we on google workplace enviroment as main idp trying to push intune on it for zero touch deployment in windows. We do have something setup on mdm for macos for zero touch deployment. Yes, i do have some partner msp to do some local on-site.
helicrenz@reddit (OP)
Do you have some backup solution inplace for laptop?
bjc1960@reddit
We use afi.ai - very easy to use. It backs up M365, or Google if you use that. It backs up only OneDrive/Mail/M365, not c:\someRandomFolder. I recommend it, but there are also competitors. I have used it for 4 years, no issues, no drama
HDClown@reddit
If you IT is fully remote but there are in-office users, I suggest getting designated in-office user(s) to act as IT remote hands for situations where physical interaction is required.
If the company is not interested in doing this, you are going to be looking at something like Field Nation or some MSP you can contract with solely for remote hands assistance. Those will generally not yield same day on-site though, so someone in the office willing to be remote hands is still going to be needed at some point.
Put things like routers, firewalls and switches on UPS/PDU/power strips where you can remotely cycle a power port. Something like Digital Loggers and Snap One WattBox also offer an auto reboot on designated ports based on a ping and a timeout, which is useful for your internet edge devices to help avoid needing local hands to power cycle them if service is down and you need to run through basic troubleshooting.
CollegeFootballGood@reddit
It’s pretty great lol I hope I never have to work in an office again
progenrule@reddit
being the only IT in a fully remote shop gets lonely fast, ticket volume drops but scope creeps
achristian103@reddit
If you're a fully remote company, you shouldn't have any physical servers to touch at all. Your infrastructure is in the cloud and virtualized.
Now as for the troubleshooting component, it's not much different from troubleshooting issues in person with the obvious exception being that any sort of physical hardware issues like a mobo failure will have to either be handled by vendor on site support so if you're a Dell shop, for example, make sure you invest in their concierge support services for situations like that. The other option is that you'll have to prep a loaner or replacement and overnight it to the user. They'll be down during that time, but nothing you can do about that.
The main caveat with working with fully remote users is that you're ability to troubleshoot is somewhat beholden to the user's home internet connection.
Knowing when it's a "them" issue and not an issue with your environment is key.