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CHANNEL PARTNER PROGRAM

Partners Profit with Managed Solution

We Take the Ball and Run with it!

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MANAGED SOLUTION'S CHANNEL PARTNER PROGRAM

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The Managed Solution Channel Partner Program provides your business the opportunity to drive profitability and growth, while differentiating from competitors. The program helps partners deliver more innovative technology solutions and services to provide for their customers' business needs.

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Since its inception in 2002, Managed Solution has been committed to providing clients with a full spectrum of managed services to reduce the burden of day-to-day IT management. Gain access to high-level cost effective expertise and place resource-intensive operations under the management of experienced specialists from Managed Solution. Optimize your existing resources and put more focus on strategic IT projects while we provide quality support through our Award winning US-based Help Desk located in Southern California.
Our Managed Services Portfolio includes service offerings that cover a wide range of technologies - choose from one of our packaged offerings or pick and choose the specific services and applications that fit your unique business needs.

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PARTNER BENEFITS

Create higher value for your customers by providing resources through our strategic partnership.

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Competitive Compensation

Take advantage of enhanced margins and project pricing support.
Expert Staff - Expand and validate your Managed and Cloud Services expertise. Our expert engineers are available for your customers 24/7/365.

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Empowering Tools & Resources

Simplify your sales with cohesive tools, dedicated training and powerful marketing.

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Expert Staff

Expand and validate your Managed and Cloud Services expertise. Our expert engineers are available for your customers 24/7/365.

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Industry Leading Partner

Capitalize on Managed Solution's market leadership, Partner Network, and Microsoft Gold Partner status.

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MARKETING SUPPORT

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Marketing Materials

We provide a variety of sales and marketing tools, such as presentations, competitive information, datasheets, white papers, customer stories, and customizable advertising templates.

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Joint Marketing

Resellers may qualify for the CO-OP Marketing Program whereby Managed Solution will fund up to 50 percent of the total cost of the program.

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Lead Generation

Managed Solution generates leads through targeted events and direct mail campaigns. Pre-qualified leads are distributed to qualified Resellers.

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PRODUCT INFORMATION

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Monthly Newsletter

Receive the latest information on products, promotions, news, industry trends and more in an easy-to-access electronic format.

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Technical Webinars

Join Managed Solution personnel on a regular basis to learn about product updates and sales tips.

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On-Site Training

Receive on-site sales and product training.(this could be our CIE) Discover firsthand the key features and benefits of working with Managed Solution.

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SALES SUPPORT

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Free Customer Evals

Sign up qualified prospects for a free network assessment.

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Joint Account Calls

For those extra critical account calls, Managed Solution sales representatives are available to make joint account calls with you.

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Product Promotions

Take advantage of any Managed Solution product or pricing promotions.

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Wanted: Senior Network Engineer

Overview:
Live on the bleeding edge of technology? Eager to design and deliver custom technology solutions? Looking for a company that invests in its people, its clients, and its community?
Redefine your reality at Managed Solution!
Managed Solution is actively seeking a network guru! We’ve got an all-star team with a kick-butt company culture, and we’re excited about what’s ahead. For over a decade, we’ve worked with companies large and small, supporting any and all of their IT needs. We invest in our clients and our staff to bring out the best in both. We’ve been named to the Business Journal’s 100 fastest growing companies for the past five years and stand in the top 1% of Microsoft Cloud partners worldwide. We value high standards, honesty and integrity, proactivity, adaptability and passion. Managed Solution is poised for unparalleled growth and expansion – this is an opportunity you won’t wanna miss!

 

Perks & Benefits!
•Enjoy work-life integration with flexible work arrangements!
•Earn up to 17 paid days off in your first year!
•Work with passionate tech experts in a dynamic environment
•Grow your skills with our professional development program:
◦Take certification tests on company time!
◦Managed Solution prepays your exam fees!
•Enroll in health, dental, and vision insurance offerings
•Prepare for retirement with 401K (employer match after 6 months!)
•Make a difference for your clients!
Responsibilities:
As a senior member of our Professional Services team, you’ll design, implement, and support network infrastructure solutions for Managed Solution clients. You will work directly with clients to uncover their unique needs and design custom network strategies, that’s right – we’re looking for you to architect client solutions. You’ll be responsible for network design and administration (routing, switching, firewalls, WAPs, VPNs, load balancers, troubleshooting) in medium to large LAN/WAN environments, including Cloud environments in Azure and Amazon AWS. In this role, you’ll interface with clients, project managers, and other engineers to ensure the success of your projects and high network availability. Possibly most important since we are a Microsoft Partner, we need someone who is either pro-Microsoft technologies or at least agnostic about OSs. Basically, we are looking for a network engineering rock star who can do it all and is looking for an opportunity to correct failing networks and replace them with architectural standards that you yourself get to develop.

 

Qualifications:
•CCNP or higher strongly preferred
•Superior knowledge of networking topology and static/dynamic routing protocols, including TCP/IP, EIGRP, OSPF, IS-IS, and EGP/BGP
•Superior troubleshooting skills, including latency identification
•Proficiency in networking administration, including the configuration and maintenance of managed routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers, wireless access points, CSU/DSUs, and controllers
•Proven success in designing and maintaining highly stable LAN/WAN environments, especially as an external consultant
•Proficiency in virtualized networking (VPN, VLAN) and broad exposure to virtualization in general (Azure, AWS, VMware)
•Knowledge of network security architectures and measures, penetration testing, and vulnerability scanning
•Proficiency in emergency mitigation and remediation: viruses, denial of service
•Service-oriented attitude as you deliver an outstanding client experience: developing a strong rapport, mapping their particular needs to solutions and communicating strategy plans
•Ability to work in a Cisco+Linux environment one day and a Dell+Fortinet+Windows 10 environment the next
•High levels of project ownership and individual accountability in a results-oriented environment
•Demonstrated commitment to continuous learning and innovation
•Demonstrated commitment to strong documentation and repeatable standards
•Ability to work a flexible schedule for occasional overnight maintenances, upgrades, etc.
•Valid CA Drivers’ License and willingness to travel to client sites within the San Diego region
Bonus Knowledge/Skills:
•Wireless Access Point monitoring and tuning experience
•Significant Systems Administration experience, esp. in a Windows environment:
◦Windows Server 2008/2012/2012R2
◦Microsoft Exchange/Active Directory administration
◦Managing backups and disaster recovery
•Voice, video, and data services experience, including configuration and administration of VOIP and Skype for Business
Physical Demands:
The essential functions of this job require: the ability to frequently sit and stand for long periods of time; to climb and balance; to stoop, kneel, crouch, crawl, or bend; to manipulate objects with fine and gross motor skills; to frequently lift and maneuver 10 pound objects and occasionally lift and maneuver 50 pound objects; to communicate in written and spoken English; to hear; to utilize close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and ability to adjust focus. Managed Solution is an equal opportunity employer and will consider qualified applicants who can perform the essential functions of the job, with or without reasonable accommodation.
E-Verify Participation:
Federal law requires all employers to verify the identity and employment eligibility of all persons hired to work in the United States. Managed Solution participates in the federal E-Verify program to validate the authenticity of work eligibility documents. As part of this program, Managed Solution will provide the Social Security Administration (SSA) and, if necessary, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with information from each new employee’s Form I-9 to confirm work authorization. For more information, see www.uscis.gov/e-verify

 

 

See all of our available positions here

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Professional learning community groups in Office 365 Education

A professional learning community, or PLC, is a group of educators who meet regularly to share expertise and work collaboratively to improve teaching skills and the academic performance of students. Teachers around the world have started using Office 365 Groups to make collaboration within a PLC a lot simpler and more streamlined. PLC groups are typically formed around interest areas (e.g., 9th grade math), grade levels (e.g., 10th grade teachers) or across subjects (e.g., science teachers).
Here are some barriers to engagement with PLCs today that Office 365 Groups is addressing:
•Teachers can be isolated, time is severely limited and collaboration is difficult.
•Professional collaboration tools are disconnected and don’t always support meaningful, sustained collaboration.
•A challenge for many PLCs is extending the work and relationships in the times and spaces between physically coming together.
•It can be difficult for new teachers to ramp up.
•Information is often stored in personal spaces as opposed to one common place that can benefit others.
•New members need to better understand the journey, story, exploration and history of a PLC, its activities and areas of inquiry.
As part of our April announcement, we mentioned how we are going to further improve our experience for PLCs. Today, we are excited to announce the PLC Groups Preview—tailored to meet the needs of teachers and overcome the above mentioned barriers to engagement today.
The new Office 365 PLC groups include one place to collaborate effectively in a community of practice. Each group comes with a:
•Inbox for group email communication, including Connector for connecting your group to Twitter and following topics or Twitter handles that interest your PLC group.
•Calendar for scheduling group events.
•Document library for storing and working on group files and folders.
•OneNote notebook for taking project and meeting notes.
•Planner for organizing and assigning tasks and getting updates on project progress.
PLC groups are also available on all your mobile devices—both Outlook Groups and OneNote have mobile apps. This helps you keep track of your PLC conversations and PLC notebooks, making it easy to share relevant resources with your groups on the go.
A look at how one district implemented PLC groups
For an in-depth look at how Omaha Public Schools is using Office 365 Groups for their PLCs to streamline collaboration, read their full case study on the Customer Stories page and then watch this video:

Administrators at Omaha Public Schools developed some guidance for their staff on how to do PLCs in their district:

Here’s what Omaha Public Schools staff members have to say about their experience with PLC groups:
“Looking at what Omaha Public Schools’ needs are around professional learning, it was important to build around a platform that was consistent with what our teachers and staff use on a daily basis.”
—Rob Dickson, executive director of Information Management Services for Omaha Public Schools
I love the fact that I can create sections, that I can create pages within the sections, and I can upload anything I want, or do a quick snip from a page and throw it in there. Everyone knows the format, so we’re not trying to figure out somebody else’s way of thinking.”
—Laura Wray, 4th grade teacher at Wakonda Elementary School
“Using our PLC groups, everything is templated out, so you just add to them and it pops up in their Office 365 account and they’re rolling the next day…There’s so much asked of teachers. They can go home at night and say, OK, here’s an activity we did today and it really helped with that comprehension strand, and I want to make sure my teammates get that.”
—Rebecca Chambers, instructional technology coach
Office 365 Groups—integrated to support PLCs
Here is an example of how Office 365 Groups for PLCs integrates Outlook, OneNote and a SharePoint library:

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In Outlook on the web, a faculty member chooses the PLC template to create a PLC group.

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The PLC group collaborates, shares lesson plans and stores student data all in a shared group OneNote notebook.

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The PLC group can store PLC reference material in the group’s document library.

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For more information about upcoming improvements to Office 365 Groups for Education, please visit the Office 365 Education Roadmap.

 

Managed Solution is a full-service technology firm that empowers business by delivering, maintaining and forecasting the technologies they’ll need to stay competitive in their market place. Founded in 2002, the company quickly grew into a market leader and is recognized as one of the fastest growing IT Companies in Southern California.

We specialize in providing full Microsoft solutions to businesses of every size, industry, and need.

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Surface + Xbox One Bundle for Students
Starting at $878
Save up to $499
The Student Surface + Xbox One Bundle for Students1 includes:
Your choice of Surface Book or Surface Pro 4
Xbox One console2, plus extra Xbox One controller
Free select game of choice
$50 Microsoft Store gift code

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Your portal to productivity
Engineered to be the ultimate classroom companion, you can easily take notes with Surface Pen, or record a lecture with the integrated front-facing and rear-facing 1080p cameras. It'll even convert your handwritten notes to text. Unwind after an intense study session and watch your favorite movie, play your iTunes library, or edit photos of your roommate from vacation on the stunning PixelSense display.

surface xbox promo 2

Classroom to the dorm room
Unwind after a late-night cram session and stream Xbox One games to your Surface anywhere on campus. Xbox has the best games, TV, movies, music, and sports all in one place, so it's easy to access your favorite apps including Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, and more4. And with Xbox Live built into Windows 10, you get access to the greatest gaming community in the world.

 

 

 

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Buy once, play anywhere
When you buy an Xbox Play Anywhere title, it's yours to play on both Xbox One and Windows 10 PC at no additional cost.

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Greatest games in Xbox history
Experience the greatest games lineup in Xbox history with exclusives like Halo 5: Guardians, Forza Motorsport 6, and Quantum Break, and the biggest blockbusters like Fallout 4, FIFA 16, and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege. Play your digital and disc-based Xbox 360 games, and all new EA games before they launch, exclusively with EA Access.

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Excel and big data

One of the great things about being on the Excel team is the opportunity to meet with a broad set of customers. In talking with Excel users, it’s obvious that significant confusion exists about what exactly is “big data.” Many customers are left on their own to make sense of a cacophony of acronyms, technologies, architectures, business models and vertical scenarios.
It is therefore unsurprising that some folks have come up with wildly different ways to define what “big data” means. We’ve heard from some folks who thought big data was working two thousand rows of data. And we’ve heard from vendors who claim to have been doing big data for decades and don’t see it as something new. The wide range of interpretations sometimes reminds us of the old parable of the blind men and an elephant, where a group of men touch an elephant to learn what it is. Each man feels a different part, but only one part, such as the tail or the tusk. They then compare notes and learn that they are in complete disagreement.
Defining big data
On the Excel team, we’ve taken pointers from analysts to define big data as data that includes any of the following:
•High volume—Both in terms of data items and dimensionality.
•High velocity—Arriving at a very high rate, with usually an assumption of low latency between data arrival and deriving value.
•High variety—Embraces the ability for data shape and meaning to evolve over time.
And which requires:
•Cost-effective processing—As we mentioned, many of the vendors claim they’ve been doing big data for decades. Technically this is accurate, however, many of these solutions rely on expensive scale-up machines with custom hardware and SAN storages underneath to get enough horsepower. The most promising aspect of big data is the innovation that allows a choice to trade off some aspects of a solution to gain unprecedented lower cost of building and deploying solutions.
•Innovative types of analysis—Doing the same old analysis on more data is generally a good sign you’re doing scale-up and not big data.
•Novel business value—Between this principle and the previous one, if a data set doesn’t really change how you do analysis or what you do with your analytic result, then it’s likely not big data.
At the same time, savvy technologists also realize sometimes their needs are best met with tried and trusted technologies. When they need to build a mission critical system that requires ACID transactions, a robust query language and enterprise-grade security, relational databases usually fit the bill quite well, especially as relational vendors advance their offerings to bring some of the benefits of new technologies to their existing customers. This calls for a more mature understanding of the needs and technologies to create the best fit.
Excel’s role in big data
There are a variety of different technology demands for dealing with big data: storage and infrastructure, capture and processing of data, ad-hoc and exploratory analysis, pre-built vertical solutions, and operational analytics baked into custom applications.
The sweet spot for Excel in the big data scenario categories is exploratory/ad hoc analysis. Here, business analysts want to use their favorite analysis tool against new data stores to get unprecedented richness of insight. They expect the tools to go beyond embracing the “volume, velocity and variety” aspects of big data by also allowing them to ask new types of questions they weren’t able to ask earlier: including more predictive and prescriptive experiences and the ability to include more unstructured data (like social feeds) as first-class input into their analytic workflow.
Broadly speaking, there are three patterns of using Excel with external data, each with its own set of dependencies and use cases. These can be combined together in a single workbook to meet appropriate needs.
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When working with big data, there are a number of technologies and techniques that can be applied to make these three patterns successful.
Import data into Excel
Many customers use a connection to bring external data into Excel as a refreshable snapshot. The advantage here is that it creates a self-contained document that can be used for working offline, but refreshed with new data when online. Since the data is contained in Excel, customers can also transform it to reflect their own personal context or analytics needs.
When importing big data into Excel, there are a few key challenges that need to be accounted for:
•Querying big data—Data sources designed for big data, such as SaaS, HDFS and large relational sources, can sometimes require specialized tools. Thankfully, Excel has a solution: Power Query, which is built into Excel 2016 and available separately as a download for earlier versions. Power Query provides several modern sets of connectors for Excel customers, including connectors for relational, HDFS, SaaS (Dynamics CRM, SalesForce), etc. We’re constantly adding to this list and welcome your feedback on new connectors we should provide out of the box at our UserVoice.
•Transforming data—Big data, like all data, is rarely perfectly clean. Power Query provides the ability to create a coherent, repeatable and auditable set of data transformation steps. By combining simple actions into a series of applied steps, you can create a reliably clean and transformed set of data to work with.

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Handling large data sources—Power Query is designed to only pull down the “head” of the data set to give you a live preview of the data that is fast and fluid, without requiring the entire set to be loaded into memory. Then you can work with the queries, filter down to just the subset of data you wish to work with, and import that.
•Handling semi-structured data—A frequent need we see, especially in big data cases, is reading data that’s not as cleanly structured as traditional relational database data. It may be spread out across several files in a folder or very hierarchical in nature. Power Query provides elegant ways of treating both of these cases. All files in a folder can be processed as a unit in Power Query so you can write powerful transforms that work on groups (even filtered groups!) of files in a folder. In addition, several data stores as well as SaaS offerings embrace the JSON data format as a way of dealing with complex, nested and hierarchical data. Power Query has a built-in support for extracting structure out of JSON-formatted data, making it much easier to take advantage of this complex data within Excel.
•Handling large volumes of data in Excel—Since Excel 2013, the “Data Model” feature in Excel has provided support for larger volumes of data than the 1M row limit per worksheet. Data Model also embraces the Tables, Columns, Relationships representation as first-class objects, as well as delivering pre-built commonly used business scenarios like year-over-year growth or working with organizational hierarchies. For several customers, the headroom Data Model is sufficient for dealing with their own large data volumes. In addition to the product documentation, several of our MVPs have provided great content on Power Pivot and the Data Model. Here are a couple of articles from Rob Collie and Chandoo.
Live query of an external source
Sometimes, either the sheer volume of data or the pattern of the analysis mean that importing all of the source data into Excel is either prohibitive or problematic (e.g., by creating data disclosure concerns).
Customers using OLAP PivotTables are already intimately familiar with the power of combining lightweight client side experiences in PivotTables and PivotCharts with scalable external engines. Interactively querying external sources with a business-friendly metadata layer in PivotTables allows users to explore and find useful aggregations and slices of data easily and rapidly.
One very simple way to create such an interactive query table external source with a large volume of data is to “upsize” a data model into a standalone SQL Server Analysis Services database. Once a user has created a data model, the process of turning it into a SQL Server Analysis Services cube is relatively straightforward for a BI professional, which in turn enables a centrally managed and controlled asset that can provide sophisticated security and data partitioning support.
As new technologies become available, look for more connectors that provide this level of interactivity with those external sources.
Export from an application to Excel
Due to the user familiarity of Excel, “Export to Excel” is a commonly requested feature in various applications. This typically creates a static export of a subset of data in the source application, typically exported for reporting purposes, free from the underlying business rules. As more applications are hosted in the browser, we’re adding new APIs that extend integration options with Excel Online.
Summary
We hope we were able to give you a set of patterns to help make discussions on big data more productive within your own teams. We’re constantly looking for better ways to help our customers make sense of the technology landscape and welcome your feedback!

Microsoft Planner ready for showtime

Today marks the general availability of Microsoft Planner. Over the next several weeks, Planner will roll out to all eligible Office 365 customers worldwide. This includes Office 365 Enterprise E1–E5, Business Essentials, Premium and Education subscription plans.
All users with eligible subscription plans will automatically see the Planner tile appear in the Office 365 app launcher when it is available for them to use. No specific action by Office 365 admins is needed.
The addition of Planner to the Office 365 lineup introduces a new and improved way for businesses, schools and organizations to structure teamwork easily and get more done. With Planner, teams can create new plans; organize, assign and collaborate on tasks; set due dates; update statuses and share files, while visual dashboards and email notifications keep everyone informed on progress.

Charts in Microsoft Planner.

Charts in Microsoft Planner.

 

Board in Microsoft Planner.

Board in Microsoft Planner.

 

Since we rolled out the Planner Preview, we have been working closely with a variety of Office 365 customers from around the world. Many of them have already experienced quantifiable benefits from increased collaboration and expedited time to value.
Câmara Municipal de Cascais has governed the town of Cascais, Portugal, for 650 years. This long history of service just got a boost after it transitioned to Office 365. More than 1,000 employees have quickly adopted Planner to better organize their teamwork and expedite the completion times for various government initiatives.

“With Planner, we improved collaboration by about 20 percent. We’re completing group initiatives approximately seven percent faster, and everyone stays aligned easily due to the added level of transparency.”
—Miguel Pinto Luz, deputy mayor of Câmara Municipal de Cascais

Read the Câmara Municipal de Cascais customer story to learn more about their innovative use of Office 365.
Hancock Askew & Co. is a public accounting firm that serves national and international clients. The firm recently adopted Planner to help team members in multiple offices manage client engagements in a more organized and collaborative manner resulting in reduced need for status meetings, greater visibility into progress of assigned tasks and more accurate client communication.

“We have consistently received the Sloan Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility, and Office 365 has been a great resource for us in maintaining that award even through rapid growth. By using Planner, we add to that flexibility, giving team members transparency into what’s getting done, no matter where or what time of the day it is.”
—Greg B. Ameden, director of IT Assurance Services at Hancock Askew & Co.

Let us know what you think!
We are committed to reading every piece of feedback we receive and turning that into action, so that we can continue to improve Planner. Some of the new features we plan to introduce over the next few months include the ability to assign a task to multiple users, external user access, plan templates, customizable boards and apps for iOS, Android and Windows.
Drop us a line on our Planner UserVoice to let us know what you think of Planner and what improvements you would like to see.

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Habitat For Humanity: Smart tech allows flexibility and growth

As written on microsoft.com
Habitat for Humanity of Omaha builds about 45 homes a year for families living in substandard housing, and it’s growing steadily in donations, volunteers, output and programming. Yet its old patchwork of overstuffed shared directories, reliance on spendy outside vendors and trouble managing three locations limited growth and monopolized the budget.
Something had to change—and quickly—to keep up with the organization’s expansion. Through the cloud-based application suite, the community-building nonprofit can now
  • co-edit files without any hiccups,
  • work from anywhere,
  • save time and trouble with powerful cloud-based tools,
  • accomplish more,
  • streamline tedious tasks, and
  • save money on tech support.

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More homes for families thanks to in-house technology

Taking control for less money

Office 365 grants Lynn easy control over administrator features, such as creating and deleting mailboxes and delineating access to certain files and programs—steps that used to require going through a vendor, paying to put in tickets and waiting hours for a call back.
These changes make work easier for employees, but more importantly, they create a wider ripple effect, he says. “Habitat for Humanity of Omaha is making a huge difference in our community, and one or two additional families are able to purchase interest-free new homes each year because of the partnership with Microsoft.

Organizing effortlessly in the cloud

Before they started using Office 365 Nonprofit, employees accessed a shared directory on a server. “It was chaos,” Lynn says: Only one staffer could open a file at a time, annotating changes took special steps and documents would disappear—requiring employees to manually poke around for MIA folders.
Today, the team collaborates with SharePoint and OneDrive, which make it simple for multiple users to edit at once. And those phantom documents? They’re a thing of the past. “I have much better control now,” he says.

Staying productive out of the office

Habitat for Humanity of Omaha is just one of more than 1,400 affiliates nationwide, so employees often travel to conferences. But setbacks from business trips are especially problematic when they delay settling a family in a new home. With mobile applications and cloud storage, though, Habitat for Humanity travelers can work just as efficiently as if they were at their desks.
“When I work remotely, I’m on the same files and programs as if I were here in the office,” Lynn says. “It beats coming back to hundreds of unread emails!”

Saving time with smart spreadsheets

The nonprofit has always been Excel-driven, with employees using spreadsheets to track their daily work, monitor budgets and add links or shortcuts to speed up entering data. The problem? Files were moved or altered, links were broken and multiple versions of the same document made work confusing.
“With OneDrive and SharePoint, we’re able to avoid duplicate copies, and I can lock down who can see them in view-only and who has total rights,” Lynn says. “The efficiencies gained from better collaboration and process improvement saves us thousands.”

Onboarding new employees—fast

Entering data in the cloud also made it easier to bring new employees up to speed, says Oscar Duran, Habitat for Humanity of Omaha’s program director. Before, new staff accessed spreadsheets on personal desktops or in emails, and they didn’t have a uniform system for coding projects. Discrepancies added extra work for Duran because he had to sift through mountains of data to find what he needed.
Now, the team uses SharePoint’s Lists feature to enter and codify information. “It works as a centralized database,” he says. “It also gave us the opportunity to institutionalize the terminology we use, so that as new staff comes in and out, they’re accessing databases and changing statuses in the same way.”

Accessing files in a flash

OneNote’s powerful search function has solved an age-old problem for the nonprofit: “People say, ‘I remember working on that but I can’t remember which spreadsheet it was,’” Lynn says.
No longer. He puts every document he touches, including PDFs, into OneNote and relies on it every day (“It is my brain!” he jokes), knowing he can quickly find and access whatever he needs. Lynn says he’s watched his own productivity skyrocket, now that he doesn’t have to sink hours into painstakingly searching through servers.

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Running better meetings

OneNote has revolutionized meeting notes, Lynn says. A designated note-taker types minutes in a shared document so everyone can add their own thoughts later, freeing up everyone else to focus on contributing to the meeting.
Staff also use Lync’s desktop-sharing ability to stay connected without leaving the office. Employees can see a colleague’s computer screen during a virtual meeting, and the feature helps IT staff troubleshoot a glitchy program remotely. “It’s given me remote access, which is much more efficient,” Lynn says.

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TOP THREATS TO YOUR SERVER ROOM

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1. HEAT

If the temperature of your server room gets too high, your gear will likely shut down due to overheating, bringing your entire network DOWN.

2. SECURITY

Whether through accident or malicious intent, damage can just as easily be caused by employees and visitors wandering into your server room.

3. WATER

A slow water leak in the wrong place could short circuit several pieces of mission-critical gear, leading to network downtime and lost revenue.

4. POWER INTERRUPTIONS

Black outs can be devastating to your servers and your network performance. If you’re lucky, you’ll lose only time as you work to get your systems up and running again. If you’re not, you’ll have to replace equipment and deal with a possible loss of data.

5.  HUMIDITY

Persistently high humidity levels cause condensation inside hardware, leading to rust and short circuits. They can also cause build ups of minerals, dirt, and even fungus that corrode equipment and trap heat. Too-low humidity leaves your gear vulnerable to static electricity, which can cause performance glitches or permanent damage.

6. AIR FLOW DISRUPTIONS /TEMPERATURE

The ideal temperature for a server room environment is between 68 and 72 degrees. By properly managing air circulation in your server room, you can regulate the temperature and ensure there isn't a disruption to this flow. If one of your cooling units goes down, it won't be long before your servers execute thermal shutdowns.

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Schedule a Server Room Assessment with one of our Field Engineers

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One of our Field Engineers will visit your server room for FREE and tell you what you need to do to be safe, compliant and secure. (Normally $150 an hour, up to $300 in value)

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Asset Inventory

Automated inventory management
SNMP asset tracking
Software license compliance

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Alert Monitoring

Alerts when an issues arise
Automated customer support panel
Performance & capacity planning

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Integrated Support Services

Notification of business critical alerts
Help Desk Support 24/7/365 days
Remote/on-site remediation (T&M)

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Hardware

Monitor hardware performance
Device polling and daily systems check
Device reboot & recovery

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Patch Management and Updates

Schedule patching and updates
Automatic security patch deployment
Patch assessments and reporting

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Anti-Virus

Integrated anti-virus engine
Virus scans with advanced reporting
Virus update confirmation

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Managed Solution offers support services to organizations with dedicated IT consulting and managed services – helping improve productivity, setting predictable controlled costs and reducing the impact of infrastructure challenges on daily operations.

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