Communication above all

the team of Geletron has many years of experience in construction, maintenance and the management of IT systems. For us, each solution is not just a sequence of technical steps, but a carefully selected mix of services, which will provide the needs of the specific client in the future and in the future.

From our everyday and very diverse work, we choose to present to you a series of iconic cases, so that you can better imagine what it is "IT decisions'. If you recognize yourself by the lines, then it is time for a positive change. We are at your disposal let's do it together.

Client's business card

The client for whom we implemented this solution is a manufacturer of power supply systems from renewable sources. The company has 30 years of international experience, operating in the Bulgarian market as well. It is the winner of a number of awards for innovation, the latest one being Forbes' 2020. It has implemented projects on almost all continents, mostly in places where electricity is expensive or absent - the Middle East, Asia, Africa.

IT the problem

The problem the company faced was communication in its broadest sense. The specific needs arose from the nature of work of one of the main departments in the company - Business Development and Commercial Activity.

Its employees constantly communicate through various channels with counterparties and clients from different countries, organize trips and coordinate joint activities. A large part of their partners used Skype for Business for business communication. It enables online meetings with synchronization of schedules and actions between participants. However, if one of the parties does not use the application, as in the specific case with our client, in practice, coordination and teamwork, especially at the international level, are difficult to achieve.

Another feature that required a timely IT solution was the email system. Until now, the company used shared hosting provided by the company involved in the hosting of the company website. In such cases, a common data storage space is shared. This is a good and cheap solution, but it is also accompanied by some disadvantages, for example, the total shared space between all mailboxes is limited; has a relatively low level of security; it is impossible to combine with other online services that modern business requires.

The solution

We had to offer an operational, objective and reasoned solution with the right balance between continuity and innovation.

We audited the current services the company uses. We analyzed the needs, taking into account the development plans. The starting point was the need for more reliable communication from the point of view of IT - both for the commented sales department, and for employees from other departments such as Administration and Accounting, and also for management.

As the company was already using on a subscription basis Microsoft Apps for Business, we suggested combining the existing licenses for the office applications with the online services of Microsoft 365. We recommended the Microsoft Business Standart package, which offers a better ratio between quality and price for the specific case. Thus, the company gained the opportunity to introduce additional applications such as the one for email administration - Exchange Online, as well as Teams, Sharepoint, One Drive, etc.

In order to put the new package into operation, it was a mandatory condition during the migration to keep all the old data - the email communication of each mailbox, the contact lists and the existing archives.

The process went through several phases - we planned the accounts to the new package by making a list of all participants, purchased the licenses to the higher Microsoft package to have the additional services available, created the new mailboxes on the provider's server and smoothly started the ongoing migration . We have integrated the new mailboxes with the existing ones to keep them in sync. We "equipped" them with all the content accumulated so far. We did, of course, ongoing checks as well as individual settings for each individual employee. We literally inspected each of the computers to perform all the additional adjustments. This is how we reached the last stage – final check and tests of all functionalities. We did this last step on a non-working day to eliminate any potential communication barriers for the company.

Practically, there was no difference for users in terms of content, but the differences in terms of reliability and more space for data were in their favor. The other acquisition was Teams and Skype for Business services through individual accounts. So everyone could now synchronize their virtual meetings with their personal work schedule. Exchange Online offers the possibility of a personalized as well as a shared appointment calendar, shared and individual address books.

From a security point of view, we have enabled multi-step verification on every account. Thus, when logging in to the account or using email, verification is required through a code received on the phone. We have set up filters for spam and malicious messages. The new package generates statistics on the activity of each user - number of received and sent emails on a daily, monthly and yearly basis.

Email and office suite are managed from the same place, which brings benefits from an administrative point of view.

After carrying out this migration, over time we have had various attempts to break into the system – hacker attacks, fishing emails with the aim of compromising the company's security, but all of them were intercepted in a timely manner. For 2 years now, Microsoft servers guarantee almost 100% reliability of services - without interruptions, with a high level of security and mailbox space.