IT departments often neglect documentation. However, Purple Lattice Solutions Ltd believes that, without documentation, your business will incur greater costs and more network downtime. Let us show you why.

TIME & COST SAVINGS

Change control
What happens if someone makes a change to a server that causes everyone to stop receiving e-mail? Unless the administrator remembers exactly what they did, putting it right could take a long time. If the changes that IT administrators often make to servers and workstations were documented, you would have a complete list of changes and the dates they were made. Anyone looking at the change-control log would see the configuration history. This would help future troubleshooting by making it quicker to find solutions.

Asset management
Do you have a list of all your company’s IT equipment? Does that list contain the serial number, hard-drive capacity, MAC address, and manufacturer of each machine? Put these details into a spreadsheet and you will save a lot of time when calling a technical support line. It will also help for insurance purposes, if your equipment is stolen.

Configuration information
If you have configured your server and workstation a particular way, then note down all configuration information and keep it safe. In the event of failure, you will at least have documentation showing a working configuration - saving your business time. This will also help if you need to install the same piece of software on more then one machine. Your documentation will help you configure each machine identically, making troubleshooting easier.

IT operations manual
Creating an IT operations manual covering everything related to IT in your company will save your business money. It should contain a list of suppliers, an e-mail and Internet policy, asset-management documentation, change-control logs, configuration information, workstation setup procedures, standards, user troubleshooting tips, and printers and their cartridges. In fact, anything IT-related should be in this manual. If you have an IT-related problem, you look here first. This is quick and efficient, and will save you time and money.

 

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