Affordable Remote Access Solutions
May 2007 (More monthly articles)
A few years ago I attended one of those seminars presented by a technology futurist. He actually looked to the past to recall what previous visionaries had stated about the current generation. They looked ahead and called our time the “generation of leisure.” They apparently saw that future technologies would enable people to work out of a virtual office in that they could stay connected to their work from anywhere. These capabilities would thus unlock the chains that held them captive to their places of work. After a few chuckles, this futurist went on to ask how many people had laptops, cell phones, and PDA’s. After a showing of most of the hands, he asked further how many people were working fewer hours now that they had these devices. When no hands appeared he asked how many were working more hours after obtaining the technologies. Needless to say, nearly every hand shot up.
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Technology has indeed enabled us to work from virtually anywhere. Employees know it and are increasingly demanding the ability to stay connected to the office for after hours work or to work from home. If you are looking for ways to gain access to the electronic resources back in the office, this month’s article is for you. While I can’t help you work fewer hours, I can help you find the right technology to suit your needs.
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Before implementing a remote access strategy, you need to determine what resources need to be available, from where do they need to be accessed, how secure the connection should be, and how much you can afford to spend to make such resources available outside the office. One of the most common office resources people need is email. The good news for email is that most mail systems provide a web-based user interface for accessing electronic messages outside the office. Most non-profits seem to use Microsoft Exchange, which comes with a web interface called Outlook Web Access (OWA). If you use OWA, a good strategy is to configure each user’s installation of Outlook to deliver mail to the Exchange Mailbox rather than to a Personal Folder. With all your mail sitting in the Exchange Mailbox, OWA will provide access to both old and new messages. In contrast, a Personal Folder cannot easily be accessed through OWA, and most organizations don’t even allow this capability. Therefore, if you have Outlook configured to deliver new messages to a Personal Folder, the only messages viewable through OWA are very likely to be those messages that are in your Exchange Mailbox that haven’t yet been moved to the Personal Folder.
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Another plus to OWA is that you can get to your mailbox from any computer connected to the Internet. On the other hand, having to sit down in front of a computer to access your email is the downside to OWA. For real-time delivery, a wireless PDA, such as a Blackberry or Goodlink device offer instant and wireless access to electronic mail. Some of the newer models even offer the ability to read attachments.
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In addition to email, OWA can provide access to your calendar, contacts, and Public Folders. Public Folders can be configured to store email, calendars, and even contacts. For example you could create a Public Folder to store valuable contact information from your member or donor database and access this information via OWA after hours or anytime you’re out of the office. This capability can be a life saver if you need to get in touch with a constituent while out of the office.
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While having remote access to email, calendars, and contacts is a step in the right direction, people increasingly want greater access to resources on the office network. Imagine being able to sit in front of your office computer from thousands of miles away, having access to your network user folder, the membership / donor database, office printers, the accounting application, the fax server, and everything else you use in the office. Several products are available that will allow you to do just that. GoToMyPC (www.gotomypc.com) is a very popular service that allows you to take control of your office PC while away from the office. The service is quite simple and secure, costing as little as $13 per month per PC if you pay annually. A less secure, but free alternative is a product called LogMeIn (www.logmein.com). LogMeIn offers a paid service that mirrors GoToMyPC and costs just $4 per month per PC.
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Both of these products work on similar principles. You basically register your office computer with the service and install what’s called an ActiveX application that continually runs in the background on that computer. When out of the office, you connect to the office computer you previously registered by going to a website where you enter a user id and password. You are then given access to that computer over an encrypted connection as if you were sitting in front of it back in the office. If your primary computer is a laptop computer that you typically take with you when you leave the office, this option will not work well for you. A best practice approach to using this model is to replace the laptop with a desktop computer, then use the laptop to connect to the desktop computer when out of the office.
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Microsoft provides remote access tools for Windows XP and Windows Vista computers. These technologies are free but require technical expertise to configure. To use these tools effectively, you will also need a server back in the office where all your applications are installed, such as MS Word, Excel, Outlook, etc. Setting up the server and hiring out the resources to configure everything could get expensive.
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Another solution is to purchase a VPN appliance, such as SonicWall. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. The network is virtually private because even though the communication takes place over a public network, the data being transmitted is encrypted so that only the senders and the intended recipients can actually see the unscrambled data. The VPN appliance is basically a small box that sits in the office. A low-end SonicWall device with ten simultaneous VPN connections costs about $500. In addition, this product carries an annual licensing fee costing about $100 per year. Setting up the VPN will require technical expertise. To connect back to the office, users go to a website where they enter a username and password. Once authenticated, they will be given access to whatever resources have been authorized for remote access. In the long run, a VPN appliance could be less expensive than GoToMyPC and the paid version of LogMeIn.
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For the organization with 20 or more remote staff, a more expensive solution such as a high-end SSL VPN product, Terminal Services, or Citrix might be appropriate. If you fall into that category, you more than likely have full-time staff to explain these terms and recommend the best solutions.
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Whether you are large or small organization, having lots of money or no money at all, a solution can be found to fit your needs. Be encouraged, have confidence, and take that first step.
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