So here’s the deal.
I’m a software dev who enjoys tech. So I know enough about OSes to be dangerous, but not much more.
My sister owns a vet clinic a couple of hours drive from me, but soon to be cross country. The current IT “guy” is slowly retiring and is becoming less and less helpful. My sister is looking for my advice.
Right now we’re dealing with a printer error of some kind. The printer driver coudlnt’ be found by windows and now can’t be seen at all. I’m probably going to drive up a little later to take a look.
If she’s going to ask for support, I’m looking for advice on tools to make things possible.
I know of SmartDelploy thanks to LTT, and thinking of using that to manage computer images and drivers like this all at once.
I also want to look into a cheap active directory of some kind to be able to manage users and such. They already use O365 for email, I’m thinking of trying to push for a business plan to get everyone using a login that’s controllable.
Any thoughts or other recommendations?
I think the first question you need to ask yourself is… Do you want to be their IT “guy”? And are you able to drop what you’re doing as a software dev to help them if they go down? As family, I’m sure you feel an obligation help but I’d make sure the services you can provide will meet their business needs.
That’s a conversation I’m lookign to have as well.
I think a proper IT guy is going to be out of their price range for the moment, and seems a little extra.
Their primary bread and butter system is Cornerstoe’s AviMark. It’s cloud hosted and they have a support line.
The only IT work they need is help managing devices. I think even their POS is connected to AviMark. So I think a proper IT guy is a lot for what they actually need.
We use SmartDeploy! It’s only really helpful if you find yourself imaging often. More of a convenience than anything else - saves time from manually clicking through the prompts.
Easy setup will probably be AzureAD as a cloud directory service, and integration with O365 to handle email/software licensing.
They submit a ticket, and you define a sla of x hours. You can then have that deplete from a monthly allotment to keep them from bringing every single issue to you. But your ticketing/ psa system would track your hours worked and track this for you
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