Operations Projects this Summer

This summer has been and will continue to focus on adding more infrastructure for capacity and redundancy purposes. Earlier in July the focus was on rebuild and upgrade for Local Cloud. Due to the success of the platform, we need to make some changes to allow for the deployment multi-site support on the storage hosting/replication side of the software. The changes allowed us to get some new hard ware in place as well.  This upgrade has improved the platform’s stability and growth potential. Once the changes to Local Cloud hardware upgrades were completed, our development team also made numerous changes to the software side of the platform that our VP of Development discusses here.

The second application to receive an upgrade was LiveArchive. One of the nodes for LiveArchive used for new clients needed a storage redesign to improve stability of the environment. The bottom line of LiveArchive is that uptime takes massive priority over the mail storage. We sell this as business continuity and the rebuild focused around that, should we ever encounter a storage issue event, we now have the ability to pretty quickly restore availability of the service, which was not the case previously.

Once that was completed, we worked meticulously with one of more important applications, we moved on to Compliance Archive. We understand the value of this offering and the redundancy requirement for folks to make sure this data is not lost. We spent a good part of the summer adding additional replication live replication procedures. This means that should the live database ever be affected we can immediately fail over to the live replicated copy.

The next month will be dedicated to improving the capacity and performance of our email scanning infrastructure. We will be adding 40% more processing power to our Los Angeles site. This will resolve an issue have been experiencing during extreme peak situations with processing speed. This type of build out is something that will come with no downtime expected.

What I do as the Partner Communications Manager at ExchangeDefender

Day-to-Day

My primary role as the Partner Communication Manager is to work with our partners on a day-to-day basis.  It is my job to ensure that all of our partners are up to date on everything that we do and to be available for any sales or billing related issues. As the Partner Communications Manager I am your number one source on anything not related to support or development. If you need to have a conversation about any of our products, need marketing collateral, have a billing question, or just need general information, I’m the person to contact. You can even talk to me in person at the shows! J

Working with us

If you are in need of marketing collateral, have questions about your account or need to talk about a prospect you can contact me directly at: anastaisa@ownwebnow.com or 877-546-0316 x 739.

Help us help you

When it comes to marketing collateral the typical turnaround time is 48 hours, but can be 72 hours if we are receiving a high volume of requests. Once I receive your request I will email you letting you know I have received it and request any additional information I may need.

Sales Inquiries:

When speaking to our partners I’m often asked to provide a quote for a prospective client. Often times the only bit of information I get is the price quote. This is great and it’s a start but I need more.  Not only does having all the info help me, but it helps you. It allows me to be more effective in giving you a comparable quote. From speaking to our Partners I know the end user is very price conscious, but they typically do not fully understand what they are getting with an uber cheap mailbox. Then when something breaks and your client *thinks* they are paying for a backup you’re the one cleaning up the mess and end up losing money on something you didn’t even sell to them. Point being, details are key!

We are here for you

Here at ExchangeDefender we want to make sure we meet all of your needs. If you’re not utilizing us to the full extent, then you’re overpaying us. I’m here to help with anything business related, including marketing collateral and billing questions, so utilize your resources!

What the Chief of Operations does at ExchangeDefender

The responsibilities of my position are fluid. They fluctuate between managing the personnel and technology needs of the company. My responsibilities can include at least the following:

• Feature Request Reviews – Analyzing feasibility and ROI.
• Staffing Decisions – Anything from time off requests, to hiring, to terminations and everything in between.
• Disaster Management – When something really bad happens, I get to make the tough decisions.
• Infrastructure Management
• Trade Show Roster Management
• And when my engineers are unable to solve an issue, I become the defacto Linux and network administrator.

If you need to escalate an issue, always reach out to Frankie Guiliano first since hes my support manager. Generally that means he has a faster pulse to current issue and may be able to resolve your issues faster. If you’re unable to reach a resolution you can email me. Now I only make one request, link me to your ticket that includes diagnostic information. This will allow me to trace the issue technically or if it’s a situation involving one of my employees.

Once I get an email, the first thing I do is go through the ticket since it allows me to review the details of the actual problem myself. I think we can all agree that once we’re frustrated with a situation our judgment becomes cloudy and we get short sighted, it’s human. So I like try to gain a non-angry perspective from the facts available, which I like to assume are part of the ticket. From there, I have to decide how to remedy the situation, which may include: making platform changes, employee reprimands, saying something close to “no” in as few situations as possible.

If you’re running into a situation with our platform that you’re finding falling short, please let me know. Some changes take more time than others, but I can assure you that I will look into the changes and if they’re workable, I’m willing to make them. One of the things that I offer as a differentiation point when I speak with folks, we will always to fit what your needs are for your clients.

If you have any questions, please reach out to me at carlos@ownwebnow.com.

What support does at ExchangeDefender

Day-to-Day

The primary objective for the support staff at ExchangeDefender is to be cordial to partners while resolving support tickets within our SLA. Other duties include escalating issues to higher tier support members and notifying our engineers of any alerts that may be going off.

Support Issues

We make our support staff available on the phones 24/7. The phone may sometimes be the best way to describe a problem, however, the first step is to open a ticket.  The most efficient way to get your issue resolved is through a ticket in our support portal. The support portal allows you to provide a more detailed description of the problem, including the ability to attach screen shots and provide verbose logging. It is more manageable to review a NDR as an attachment than have someone read you the headers over the phone! The portal also  protects you and your clients from social engineering, as it requires a password to access.

A support ticket sounds great but I have an urgent issue and I need to call someone immediately to get it resolved!

You can skip Tier I support by opening an urgent ticket in our portal. An urgent ticket goes to the top of the support queue and our Tier II/III support staff is directly alerted of the issue. Please keep in mind that because our staff is alerted to be sure the issue warrants the priority as you may incur an hourly fee or opening an urgent ticket for a non-urgent issue.

Help us Help you

The more precise details you can provide us the quicker we’ll be able to resolve  issues. This includes, but not limited to, screen shots, verbose logging, how to replicate the issue you are having, and the troubleshooting steps you have already taking. Once a support request is opened you will be promptly greeted by our friendly support staff.  Based on the material provided we will do our finest to resolve your issue in a timely fashion.

Putting it all together

We are here to help you. Everything our support staff does is to make our partnership with you stronger. We strive to provide outstanding support so you can count on us for all of your email needs. For any feedback or concerns about support please let us know at Support Feedback

Why should a business owner use our XD mobile platform.

In today’s business world mobility is dominating every industry vertical.  This boom in market share puts your customer’s ability to contact your company at unprecedented levels. However, if your company is not equipped to meet those demands you’re likely to leave your customer with unmet expectations.

This is where the ExchangeDefender Business Communicator comes into play. On the surface it appears to just allow your team the ability to manage their SPAM quarantine, but once you look beyond the black and white feature set there’s so much more. Now your team has a tool that, alongside with their Hosted Exchange Active Sync, has full access to the all the business tools they would need for conducting business on the go.

One of the major cost saving trends in the SMB community and even to some customer facing enterprises is the home office.  Our mobile platform allows those business tools that generally run on your desktop to now be accessible wherever you need them to be.  Email security software has been in existence for two reasons.  To keep your networks safe and to maximize productivity by avoiding sifting through SPAM all day long. However, no system is 100 percent accurate at flagging SPAM correctly. This is why quarantines exist as every now and then you may need to look for a message or two in your quarantine.  Some methods require you to log on to a portal or review an email report. These methods are not designed for mobility. Their short comings are based on rendering size, requiring credentials, and navigation limitations. When you’re on the move, you need a mobile app that gives you the ability to:

• Release a message or trust a sender with a single swipe
• Preview messages within your mobile device before releasing

Beyond the basic operations of SPAM management there are two major components you want available to you employees: data leakage protection and business continuity. If a message contains private information your compliance department will be happy to know that your team doesn’t need to be logged into Outlook on their desktop to encrypt a message. But most importantly you need the peace of mind that comes with knowing that if your mail server (or provider) ever goes offline that your team will have working internet email only one tap away!

Our mobile platforms unrivaled ability to deliver increased productivity, security, data leakage protection, and business continuity is the solution your company can’t be without.

They why’s of Installing the ExchangeDefender app

Installing the ExchangeDefender app is easy and free. Our new app combines the features of ExchangeDefender with the convenience of your smart phone. If you haven’t already installed it, do it right away. You’ll want to install the ExchangeDefender app so you have access to all of our key features, making your job easier and employees more efficient.

The new ExchangeDefender app gives you:

Email at the tip of your fingers: First and foremost the ExchangeDefender app is an easy and quick way to check your email. No longer do you have the have to go through the pain of opening the web page and zooming in and out to pull up your email. The ExchangeDefender app scales everything to fit on the page. This allows you to keep your inbox clean and minimal of junk, allowing you to be more productive. Along with checking your email, the ExchangeDefender app also allows you to check your daily SPAM reports. You can trust and release messages just like you would with the Outlook add in.

Continued Workflow: One of the most important features of the ExchangeDefender app is the access to LiveArchive. LiveArchive allows your clients access to their email, even when their Exchange server is down. LiveArchive is also scaled to fit the page, so just like with your email you don’t have to worry about trying to work on a 4 inch screen.

Encryption: Encryption is a top priority in many companies. Within the ExchangeDefender app, the encryption function opens your selected mail application and populates the messages with the encryption tags as well as giving your clients the ability send encrypted emails.

If you haven’t already, go download the app from the app store. For any questions, please feel free to contact me at: Anastasia@ownwebnow.com. 877-546-0316 x 739.

ExchangeDefender Mobile Apps… Does it even work?

We are constantly publishing updates to our mobile applications and with every update there is the possibility for the introduction of new bugs. If you or your client happens to encounter an issue the first thing you should do is make sure they are running the latest version of the app.

This can be achieved one of two ways depending on the mobile platform that is being used.

IOS – Visit the “App Store” and see if there are any updates available.

Android – Visit the “Play Store” and check if any updates are available.

After confirming that you’re running the latest version of the mobile application we can begin to document the issue. The best resource that you can provide is a screenshot of the error or information about the process to recreate the bug.

Taking Screenshots

IOS – Simply press the “Home” and “Sleep” buttons at the same time. If done correctly the screen will flash and you’ll hear a sound as if you were taking a photo with the camera. Your photo will now be located inside of your camera roll.

Android – This can vary from version to version, however if you are running  Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) and above this can be achieved by pressing and holding the volume down and power buttons synchronously. After a few seconds your phone will take a screenshot. Your photo will now be located in your gallery or photo directory on your phone.

After you have compiled this information and screenshots head on over to our support portal located at: https://support.ownwebnow.com. Here you can open a ticket with the information collected and attach any screenshots that you have acquired. Please be as descriptive as possible and explain the steps involved to reproduce the glitch. After one of our technicians has reviewed your ticket and confirmed that the issue you are experiencing is actually a bug they will submit a bug report for your case.

You will then be provided with a link to view status updates and track the current progress of your issue via our live bug tracker. Please understand that development issues may take several weeks before they are even examined depending on the issue and current development queue.