Remote support has perhaps never been more relevant than it is right now. 

Customers are working with skeleton staffs in-house. They’re often leery to allow in a visitor ( aka service technician), but still need to be operational.

Remote support tools, already in place at Datamax before COVID-19, give Datamax a relevant advantage amid the COVID-19 pandemic. How relevant are they right now?

“We’d be blind without them,” says VP of Operations Stephen Hampton. “These, tools like FM Audit and Imageware Remote, allow us to look at a machine to see whats going on, and prevents us from having to be on site in a lot of instances.”

Scenario: A customer calls in with a problem. We can go in with remote tools, see what is going on and then assess the issue. Maybe it’s a warning for a drum that needs to be replaced. Datamax can ask if they want us to come back.

“Or, if we see there’s an issue, we can say, hey is your IT department there? We can work with them on that (over the phone)” Director of Service Steve Kennemer said.

A brief look at our Proactive Remote Tools:

• FM Audit: an embedded tool that allows Datamax to remotely look at supply levels and meter readings, but also gives us information on IP addresses, host names and host records.
• Imageware Remote: delivers immediate and accurate notification of errors, jams, and alerts by e-mail to your Datamax service team, expediting the dispatch and service resolution process.
• Canon SnapShot: Working in tandem with Imageware Remote, technicians can pull up key device information from their mobile device.

In the case of East Texas, with hundreds of machines being installed over the last two months at a local hospital, these tools have been a considerable help the last few weeks.

“In the case of the hospital, our guys are able to see whether or not a machine is up or down. We’ve been able to reach out to certain users (remotely) and have them restart the machine and get them up and running again,” Stephen said.

And, in the case that a technician does have to go on site?

“In that instance, these tools are still a huge advantage because our technicians will have the right parts when they arrive. Ultimately, it limits the number of times they have to go in and out of the office. They get it done the first time,” Stephen said.

On the IT Side of the building, in one way, it’s business as usual.

Vice President of Strategic Technology Justin Huffaker says that 95 percent of Datamax IT Support is done remotely. Virtualized technology has become so prevalent that typically, the only need for onsite support entails delivery of equipment and when the team can’t connect to a client remotely.

But in another way, with the advent of COVID-19, it’s anything but business as usual.

“The ticket load has doubled or tripled. That’s the biggest thing right now,” Justin said. “Let’s say Datamax has 150 Managed Service clients. 150 clients are thrust into work from home at the same time. You get, not high tide, but a tidal wave.”

Our Managed Network Services Program provides 24/7/365 network monitoring to ensure that our clients' network infrastructure is operating properly. This continuous monitoring identifies any issues BEFORE they begin impacting user productivity. 

Datamax remote network monitoring pro-active alert capabilities:

• Create user defined monitoring and alerts
• Automated event log monitoring
• Alert on hardware and software changes
• Know if disk space is running low
• Monitor computer online/offline status
• Know if a server goes down

Proactively identifying core technology issues and addressing them before they become major problems is the best path to provide end users with the best technology experience and business owners with the highest level of productivity from their employees.