Thursday 14 May 2015

Feeling Grounded, with our Work in the Cloud


CSM are embracing a new way of working, our systems have gone to a hybrid Cloud computing environment.  Being an organisation with multiple locations, many considerations had to be taken to make this project successful.

We have been working with a fantastic company, Tek Net, and together we have taken time to consider our users’ needs and carefully plan and redesign the architecture of our electronic system.

Change is always daunting, but is often for the better, as our move to the Cloud is proving.  During part of the planning process a document for our staff was put together to answer some questions and to provide information to make the process less intimidating, as the saying goes “forewarned is forearmed!” and we hope that we have alleviated some potential concerns.

Its relatively early days for our new system, but the benefits are already noticeable.  Document sharing between branches is now straight forward, and long explanatory internal emails have greatly reduced as information is easily accessible to all who need it.  So time has been saved and our work process is smoother.

The only regrettable side to this new working environment is that every terminal is set up in the same way so that it works at the fastest possible speed, after all the very nature of Cloud computing is that you are accessing files over the internet, so it imperative that users profiles are as streamlined as they can possibly be.  So as a result it is no longer possible to customise the desktop with a photo of a loved one or an escapist image of a faraway land.  But maybe this is an opportunity for staff to add something to their desk to make their workspace theirs, given this option I wonder what they would do?