Welcome Aboard from Your IT Department!

A Quick Summary of All The Stuff Below

• BOOKMARK THE SUPPORT PORTAL -> File new tickets through our web portal. Login with your work Google or Office365 account.
• DO THIS -> Restart your computer every Monday. Make it a habit. 40% of IT support issues are addressed through this step.
• ALSO DO THIS -> Leave your computer plugged into power and turned on, connected to the internet, with the lid open (laptops), from 5pm Tuesday until 8am Wednesday.
• DON'T DO THIS -> If you see an unfamiliar application, don't tamper with it.  It may be one of our tools, so just ask us!

Why Do I Need An IT Department?

Whereas the IT departments of yester-year were tasked with fixing computers, networks, and printers, today's IT departments are principally tasked with securing the data that moves within and outside an organization.  We do this by managing your computers' update process, ensuring your cloud services and servers are secure, encrypting your communication tunnels, and observing your business processes and organizational culture for security gaps.

Preventive Maintenance - At the Core of Our Processes

Our IT support philosophy emphasizes preventive maintenance rather than reactive fire drills.  We have installed several applications on your machine that monitor, maintain, and update your system around the clock.  While most of what we do will be invisible to you (these applications run in the background), you may need to occasionally restart the machine when prompted.

Your Responsibilities - Daily and Nightly Actions

It is therefore important to adopt the following routine:

• During the workday, save your work regularly.
• At the end of your workday, quit all open applications.
• From 5pm every Tuesday until 8am every Wednesday, leave your computer plugged into power, turned on, and connected to the internet (this is our maintenance window).
• If yours is a laptop, keep it plugged into power with the lid open.
• Restart your computer every Monday morning before the start of work.

One more thing: Certain software cannot be updated by Smart Sourced IT, and you will need to perform the upgrades yourself.  Examples include:

• Adobe Creative Cloud Apps (which you update from the Adobe CC icon in your system tray or menu bar)
• Anything you've downloaded from the Mac or Windows app stores using your own AppleID or Microsoft ID.
• Any applications you've downloaded directly from a software vendor.

Our Responsibilities

Smart Sourced IT is your organization’s IT department.  Some examples of what we do are:

• Respond to “help”, “how-to”, and “please do this” requests from end-users.
• Proactively check the health of computers and alert users to impending issues.
• Push operating system and common software updates to machines that need them.
• Scan systems for virus/malware infections and security breaches.
• Install and configure new computers, peripherals, and mobile devices.
• Decommission old equipment and advise on its disposal.
• Maintain servers, cloud-based applications, and users’ authentication to these systems.
• Onboard / Offboard users.
• Hold quarterly IT status updates with your leadership team.

Most of our work is done remotely, with minimum involvement from end users.  When an issue (filed by you or discovered by us) arises that requires your involvement, we will call or email you to resolve it, and then use screensharing tools to see what you are seeing and implement a fix.

Tools We Use: FileWave (Mac + Windows)

Although most updates we install do not require a machine restart, and will occur silently while you work, there are a few that will require you to reboot your machine.  Such alerts will come from FileWave.  It is very important that your machine be left plugged in, turned on, lid open (for laptops) and connected to the internet each night -overnight- so these tasks can occur when you are not working instead of at the start of your next working day when you first turn on the computer.

Tools We Use: Sophos Endpoint Security and Encryption (Mac + Windows)

This tool runs periodic virus and malware scans, filters offending web traffic, and alerts you –and us- if your machine has been infected, or if it has visited an unauthorized site. It also ensures your computer meets the device encryption policies set by your organization.  Do not remove, replace, or supplement this application with any other antivirus tools.

Other Tools We Use

Besides the above, we also use screensharing tools (Splashtop), remote backup tools (BackBlaze), system health check tools (SSI Beacon), and network discovery tools (Meraki Systems Manager).

Note: As of June 30, 2022, we will have completed our transition away from Bomgar to Splashtop for screensharing.

How to Reach Your IT Support Desk

Our support staff are available during regular business hours of 9am - 5pm Monday through Friday, excluding US federal holidays.

Our response times are as follows:

The simplest way to reach us is by clicking the SSI Beacon from your Menu Bar (Mac), System Tray (PC), or Chrome Bookmarks (ChromeOS) and choosing the "Online Portal" option.  This choice allows you to see all your ticket history and the live status of any active tickets. Alternately (though less preferred) you can click the email or phone links.  We respond to requests on the basis of severity and time since reported.  Please report any issue, big or small, so we can begin addressing it before it mutates into a critical matter.

This short video provides a demo of the SSI Beacon:

A Note About Passwords

When your machine is first set up, we provide a series of temporary passwords for you to use to log into your computer and cloud service accounts.  We ask that you change these passwords to ones only you know, and that they be complex passwords with a minimum of 12 characters, a mix of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and one or two special symbols.  Realizing that it is impossible to remember every password for every service, we encourage you to use 1Password, rather than writing these passwords on piece(s) of paper.  Your organization may have already issued you a 1Password account.

A Quick Summary of All The Stuff Above

• BOOKMARK THE SUPPORT PORTAL -> File new tickets through our web portal. Login with your work Google or Office365 account.
• DO THIS -> Restart your computer every Monday. Make it a habit. 40% of IT support issues are addressed through this step.
• ALSO DO THIS -> Leave your computer plugged into power and turned on, connected to the internet, with the lid open (laptops), from 5pm Tuesday until 8am Wednesday.
• DON'T DO THIS -> If you see an unfamiliar application, don't tamper with it.  It may be one of our tools, so just ask us!

We look forward to working with you in the months and years to come.  Welcome aboard!