Small Business Help. 6-10 employees

[epcjay]

Hi There,

My friend's dad's company recently lost their IT guy, and she asked me to help them out. They have about 5 FT employees at head office. There are three stores with 2 full time employees , and about 3 part time employees. The store do not have a link to head office as they just share files via email.

From the initial overview at head office, there are 8 PCs, 5 constanly being used, 2 as hotelling stations and 1 linux server at head office All use Windows XP. One XP machine is used as a "file server" and uses a Linux server as their windows domain controller

2 pcs at each store with internet access, nothing special.

Their email is hosted by their webhosting company, and they have 4 hosting services for 4 web domains. So far, I've conslidated their 4 hosting contracts to 1 location. It just makes billing and orginization easier. Transfered email hosting to gmail, so retail employees can use web-based version. I've installed a 500GB NAS using raid 1. Got rid of their linux domain controller, and hosted a printer on their old file server. Created a 5 day mirror back up on the this server for files from the NAS so this keeps the last 5 days of files in case they mistakenly delete or overwrite a copy of their work.

I created a script on each computer to copy their My Documents and Desktop folder to their own folder in the NAS server. 1 share drive for everyone to share files.

Their store employees don't do much on the computer, their store employees use regullar business apps like word, excel, quickbooks.


Anything I can do differently or make this better?

 

[tipstir]

Do you have a new budget? You can get everyone upgraded to new POS (point of sale), electronic cash drawn, card reader. You didn't say what type of store so I didn't mention hand or stand base scanners.

Replace those XP boxes with 7 boxes, flat panel reduce over head save on electric. Replace older network gear.

Are you having other issues that you feel the need to upgrade?

 

[epcjay]

Do you have a new budget? You can get everyone upgraded to new POS (point of sale), electronic cash drawn, card reader. You didn't say what type of store so I didn't mention hand or stand base scanners.

Replace those XP boxes with 7 boxes, flat panel reduce over head save on electric. Replace older network gear.

Are you having other issues that you feel the need to upgrade?

It's a few optical store. So far, the needs have been pretty light at home office.

As for the stores, they want something to keep track of clients, and inventory if thats possible. Right now, its just an excel sheet.

Is there an implementable solutions?

Budget wise, I haven't spoken to the director (her dad) yet, but I will have to a build a business case to justify replacing computers and such.

 

[tipstir]

It's a few optical store. So far, the needs have been pretty light at home office.

As for the stores, they want something to keep track of clients, and inventory if thats possible. Right now, its just an excel sheet.

Is there an implementable solutions?

Budget wise, I haven't spoken to the director (her dad) yet, but I will have to a build a business case to justify replacing computers and such.

They can use Access instead of the Excel spread sheet to keep track of the clients and inventory. They should get real client and inventory tracking software to do that job. Get one of the vendors to come for free and give them a review on what he or she is selling. They usually will setup the software and install the hardware for you at a price deal.

This way you don't have to worry about support as the vendor will do that depending on the lease agreement for the hardware they install for this company. Again you need to talk to the owner about doing such a venture.

There is a the cheap way or the right way to go about this. But most small business don't want to spend more so you might be stuck with the spreadsheet way.

As for the current network, well most don't want to touch what's working now. But they need to come to a new way of thinking it out. If something goes wrong what are their options.

Go and talk to the owner and see where his head is at with all of this. If I was like you play it cool for now. Don't make matters worst than it is. Give them time to come to you and say "WE NEED YOUR HELP!" Then and only then do you make the new choices present to them.

Good luck!

 

[Thatguy]

Got rid of their linux domain controller

What'd you replace it with? SBS or Standard?

Created a 5 day mirror back up on the this server for files from the NAS so this keeps the last 5 days of files in case they mistakenly delete or overwrite a copy of their work.

You should be using off site storage in the event of a disaster at the main location. Tape backups are always recommended. Backups aren't just for file deletes but what if the place caught fire? You must always plan for that.


I created a script on each computer to copy their My Documents and Desktop folder to their own folder in the NAS server.

I would ask for what purpose? I hope you didn't redirect the my documents folder as that's awful practice that a lot of people use.

Just map a network drive to a share on the NAS. This day in age if they can't navigate to a network drive then they should be fired for incompetence.

Anything I can do differently or make this better?

off site backup solution (remote copy/shadow (SW would have to accommodate) or tape)

Windows Domain - simple and easy to implement with any issue you've run into already in the Internet or on Technet.

When taking over a small business it's always impossible to know what the issue are. You have to ask the people that use them. What doesn't work, what works slow, what do they want to be better then go from there.

Always do a inventory of hardware and software including revisions and releases to make sure you keep everything up to date.

Security would be another issue of course but not as complicated as a lot of people make it seem to be.