Session 4A: Working remotely

Richard CraigChief ExecutiveCharity Technology Trust

• How the Olympics challenged us to think about continuity of service

• How did we prepare? • The opportunity for long term benefit. • What was it like working from home for

two weeks? • What has been the legacy of the work?

Session 4A: Working remotely

London Riots August 2011

‘Some people will see the Games as an opportunity to work from home, in inverted commas.’

‘We all know that is basically sitting wondering whether to go down to the fridge to hack off that bit of cheese before checking your emails again.’

CTXchange technology donations. Telephone and e-mail processing eligibility

CTT Mail web based e-mail marketing platform. Email. Need to be able to answer e-mail and telephone queries.

CTPayments credit card, debit card and Direct Debit processing. Externally hosted solution, e-mail and telephone support plus sales

Continuity of Service

• How can we reduce risk exposure to system failure?

• How do we continue to operate if we have no access to the office?

• What it we lose permanent access to the office?

• How do we ensure all files and documentation (soft and hard) are backed up and secure

Continuity of Service

Current Best Practice

REPORT ON A SURVEY OF CHARITABLE ORGANISATIONS’ USE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGYWCIT / CTT / LASA / IT4C 2013

• Lets ensure we have a robust disaster recovery plan

• What failure points can be engineered out

• How much can be auto failover?

• Trial during the Olympics and close the office for just over 2 weeks

Continuity of Service

• Device agnostic working environment

• Normal operations from anywhere in the world

• Flexible access route – RDP, Apps, Web

• Accessible, secure and backed up data

• Promote home and flexible working

Goals & Objectives

• Planning - How will you get faxes and what about the post?• Testing and training – Accommodate the way people work• Processes must workwhen people can't see each other• People - Trust your staff but monitor productivity• Cost - Does not have to be expensive to work although increased flexibility can cost• Bandwidth – Good quality internet needed at home and work

May 2012

2011 Office Architecture

2011 Office Equipment

2011 Comms & Internet

Using shared office internet Line

2012 Office Architecture

2012 Office Equipment

2012 Telephony & Internet

10Mb Leased Line

2012 Services

Drupal for the ctt.org and ctxchange.org web sites. WYSIWYG content management anywhere

SalesForce used to manage inbound sales and support enquiries. Master database used for contract management and outbound campaigns ctxchange.org back end data managed using web based civiCRM

Microsoft 365 Exchange, SharePoint and Office Online. Replaced many server based apps

2013 Office Equipment

London during the Olympics

• The phone system worked exceptionally well

• We had the same access to documents and files from laptops mobile devices as we do from our PCs in the office

• We had one team member who lived nearby to walk to the office each day to pick up the mail, scan and email important documents

• Remote working means you can fit your work around your life, but if you’re used to a fairly regular routine, this can definitely go awry when you’re away from your desk for two weeks

The experience

• Just because our team was working from home, didn’t mean everyone else was. Where possible, we did use Skype for our meetings but we did find for things like brainstorming and discussing new ideas, that we missed actual human interaction

• We were all pleased to be back in the office post Olympics. Even those of us that commute a fair distance admitted how happy they were to have personal contact after a two week absence

• What we realised, however, is that we while we could be an ‘office free’ organistion, we don’t want to be

The experience

It did leave most of the team embracing the idea of flexible working, rather than complete office-free working, as the lack of human interaction during the working day for two weeks straight proved to be taxing.

Learning Points

Cost of Flexibility

• DropBox $9.99 per month x 3 users who needed more than 2Gb free per month

• Cisco IP Phones – Negligible hardware costs on the CTXchange programme. Monthly cost about £250 incl calls for 12 people. Twice previous fixed line costs.

• Microsoft 365 E1 plan £78 per month for 15 licenses

• Software upgrades negligible on the CTXchange programme

Cost of Flexibility

• Salesforce – First 10 licenses free for charities remaining heavily discounted. Implementation upwards of £12k

• civiCRM – Open source. Most implementation work done by TechSoup

• Drupal – Costs similar to other web development tools

Legacy

• Hybrid data storage – Server / Sharepoint / Dropbox. All data accessible and secure.

• Agnostic operating environment – Apple / Microsoft / Blackberry

• PC / Laptop / Tablet / Smartphone• Remote access to office over Remote

Desktop Connection• Telephony with fixed phone at home or

via Cisco Softphone in PC, mobile or tablet.

Beneifts - Continuity

• Flexibility to work when you want where you want

• Multiple routes to files and services through tablets and PC’s

• Operational files and systems cloud based and secure.

• Disaster recovery plan meaning we can be operational without an office

Beneifts – Home Working

• The ability to get quiet time for particular tasks away from the office without being completely disengaged

• Break from commuting• Increased working hours from some

employees when at home• Flexibility to be at home for personal

commitments• Reduced costs for some travelling in to

London

What is next?

• Increased Bandwidth fibre ADSL• More bring your device to work• 3G / 4G – Work anywhere little

compromise• Broaden experience – InTune, Google

Apps• Take all servers and telephony off site?• Chorus as a web based accounting

service?• No fixed network in the office?

Work from Greece for one week in August 2013?