Filed under: Knowledge, Software | Tags: business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, business impact analysis, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Phoenix software, sharepoint
Here is an easy way to work with Lists using Calendar Views so that you can be notified when something / anything is due for your attention. The item can be a weekly report or a hardware replacement or a safety policy review or a disaster recovery plan test.
In the following example we will take into consideration that Hardware needs to be reviewed and replaced on a regular and repeating basis. We will use the Hardware List within the Phoenix for SharePoint Data Lists Site as an example. The Hardware List is used to track, well, computer hardware related to the disaster recovery and business continuity process.
In the following Feature of the Week what we are going to do is…..
- Add a Due Date column to the Hardware List
- Create a Calendar View of the Hardware List that will allow us to see each week that something is due for our attention.
- Make this Calendar View the Default View when we look at the Hardware List
The concept of using a Calendar View over a Data List is a very creative way of sorting the information in a list so that you only see what is important to you.
First, let’s go the Phoenix for SharePoint site and locate the Hardware List.
As you can see we have one entry in the Hardware List for an HP server model 3600 series. If you look through the column fields across the top row you will see that there is no column field associated with when this particular piece of hardware needs to be reviewed. The first thing we need to do is add a new List column that allows us to track when an item in the Hardware list is due for attention.
We can add new columns to the default Hardware list supplied by Phoenix for SharePoint by clicking on the List Tab in the main screen of the Hardware List. Then click on the Create Column menu item.
This next screen will allow you to create a new column for the Hardware list that we will then be able to leverage by creating a Calendar view of the Hardware List items based on the date the item is to be reviewed.
In the next screen shot we are creating a new column for the Hardware list that is called DueDate. It is a Date Field column type.
Click OK to complete the creation of the new Column type field.
Back at the Hardware list you will notice that the new Column Field is now present in the default view but it has no Due Date to be addressed.
Let’s now add a due date to this hardware item. With your mouse cursor hover over the HP (in blue) hyperlinked Hardware List item and click on the drop down menu. Then select Edit Item.
Within the List Item Edit dialog box you can now add a Due Date then this item needs to be paid attention to. In this example it will be January 28th.
Now that the Hardware list has a Due Date Column we can now create a Calendar View that leverages the information in this column such as that the calendar will show us what hardware items need to be paid attention to this week.
Click on Create View and we will then create an additional view for this list based on a Calendar way of seeing the list as opposed to a default tabular view.
Select Calendar View.
We can now specify the criteria upon which the Calendar View of the underlying Hardware list is based.
The results are in…..
When you click on the hyperlink within the Calendar View item you open the item within the Hardware list that needs attention. You will notice as well, like all Lists in SharePoint, that users can subscribe to Alerts when the state of items in question change.
Given that this is a list you could also add a Status Column such that the person responsible for the Hardware items is able to change the status of ongoing attention to item in question. Managers can also subscribe to List Items in order to ensure that they are seeing that staff are paying attention to what maintenance needs to be done.
Conclusion:
Adding new Columns to a list and using custom Views is a great way to present information within Phoenix for SharePoint that is useful to your community of users.
About KingsBridge
KingsBridge offers private businesses and government organizations a unique combination of industry knowledge and cost-effective disaster recovery / business continuity solutions. KingsBridge products and seminars provide the tools to assess possible threats and create tailored plans which mitigate risks and minimize losses in the event of a disruption to business. KingsBridge is headquartered in Ogdensburg, New York, with an office in Ottawa, Canada. For more information visit us at www.DisasterRecovery.com.
Filed under: Knowledge | Tags: 2007, 2010, business, business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, business impact analysis, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Phoenix software, sharepoint
There are a number of great things about the Phoenix SharePoint environment. At its heart is the ability to leverage all of the enterprise level features and functions that SharePoint provides. Phoenix SharePoint combines the long history of our great DR and BC plan creation functions with the enterprise level expertise of SharePoint. Resulting in an amazingly powerful solution that allows you to be confident in your plan and the resulting response for your company.
One of the really cool features in SharePoint is the ability to email relevant DRP and BCP files directly to a Phoenix for SharePoint Document Library. This include Word or PDF documents, images, diagrams, and even email messages. This great feature is accomplished through the Document Library Settings.
In the example below we have selected the Current_Status Document Library within our Phoenix for SharePoint Enterprise Edition solution. We then clicked on the Library Tab of the Library Tools menu and then selected Library Settings.
The next screen will allow us to select the “Incoming E-Mail Settings” configuration menu.
Select “Incoming E-Mail Settings” under the Communications area. We will not configure how emails are received by the Current_Status Document Library.
There are three options to configure how documents are received by a Phoenix for SharePoint Document Library under the Group Attachments in Folders:
- Save all attachments in the root folder
- Save all attachments in the folders grouped by e-mail subject
- Save all attachments in the folders grouped by e-mail sender
For the first example demonstration we are using the following options:
- Save all attachments in the root folder
- Do Not Save the original e-mail
Once these settings are saved as per the above configuration we will go into my local email client, which is Microsoft Outlook, and send an email to the Phoenix for SharePoint Document Library.
The email address we need to send to is current_status@ad.disasterrecovery.com
Once the email is sent we can return to the Phoenix for SharePoint Document Library we e-mailed. Here is the Current_Status Document Library once it has received the e-mail with attachment.
In the following screen shots I will click on the Report (our Phoenix for SharePoint 2010 Installation Guide – a little shameless self- promotion !-)
The PDF document when clicked on.
In this next screen shot we will look at the contents of the actual email that was sent to the Document Library. Here is the e-mail deposited into the Document Library.
When we click on the e-mail it will open the core of the message into a Web Browser. You can contrast the following screen back to the original e-mail that was sent in to the Phoenix for SharePoint Document Library .
Now, let’s change it up a little bit. In this next example we will change the way a Phoenix for SharePoint Document Library receives e-mails with attachments. Back at the Current_Status Document Library we will change the way electronic files are saved to the Document Library. In this example we will store the inbound email and attachment as within a Folder that has the same name as the Subject line of the original e-mail.
You have seen how we send an email to a Phoenix for SharePoint Document Library so we will spare you a repeat of the process and scree shots. Ok, be better show it anyway!
Here is what the new results look like as of the change to the Document Library inbound e-mail settings to save the e-mail and the attachment within a Folder bearing the e-mail subject title as its name.
Root Folder of the Document Library
Within the Febrar 2012 Reports folder. Notice I made a spelling mistake in the subject of the e-mail when I sent it. The SharePoint Document Library will reflect such Human Effects!
If you click on the Word document it will open in Word.
If you click on the e-mail it will open in the Web Browser or ask you to save it and open it in your e-mail (*.eml) compatible client application.
Now we will send a new e-mail to the same Current_Status Document Library. This time I will indeed spare you the client e-mail picture. Consider the e-mail with attachment to have been sent. And look, a new folder was ceated in the Current_Status Document Library with the name of the user that send the email to the Document Library.
Given the current configuration the above folder that is based on the user`s e-mail address will contain both the e-mail and the attachment. Let`s have a look inside the newly created folder.
And there it is, both the email and the attachment sent from the user.
Well, that concludes our new Feature of the Week. I think I will e-mail this one to a Phoenix for SharePoint Document Library for archiving so that I can use it in the future!
About KingsBridge
KingsBridge offers private businesses and government organizations a unique combination of industry knowledge and cost-effective disaster recovery / business continuity solutions. KingsBridge products and seminars provide the tools to assess possible threats and create tailored plans which mitigate risks and minimize losses in the event of a disruption to business. KingsBridge is headquartered in Ogdensburg, New York, with an office in Ottawa, Canada. For more information visit us at www.DisasterRecovery.com.
Filed under: Knowledge | Tags: business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, business impact analysis, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Phoenix software, sharepoint
Welcome to another “Feature of the Week” update. Keeping up to date (pardon the pun) on the most current DRP/BCP plans for your organization is critically important. As we all know, keeping DRP/BCP plans current and accurate is an ongoing challenge. Ensuring that everyone involved in acting upon those updated plans when disaster strikes however is probably even more important, if not more challenging. Having a DRP/BCP Team Member working with out-dated recovery plans can do more damage than the disaster itself. Therefore keeping Team Members current on plan changes and providing them with access to the active plan it very important.
Phoenix for SharePoint leverages Microsoft SharePoint’s ability to send email notifications to Team Members whenever DRP/BCP plan documents are created, changed, or deleted.
How It Works
First, we have configured Phoenix for SharePoint to leverage the SharePoint Server’s Outgoing E-Mail Settings configuration. SharePoint uses the Internet Information Service’s Simple Mail Transfer Protocol feature, which needs to be configured first. Once the email SMTP service is configured on the SharePoint server then we configure SharePoint to support outgoing email in the Central Administration tool. This configuration is done by the SharePoint Farm Administrator.
Once this is configured we are ready to proceed from an Team Manager or Team Member perspective to receive immediate email notification whenever changes are made to active DRP/BCP plans. That’s right, a Team Manager can assign a Team Member to receive notification to plan updates.
In Phoenix for SharePoint the Plan Editor is used to edit and modify DRP/BCP plans. These plans are then published to a Published Plans Document Library. Team Members can subscribe to email notifications for a Document Library. The desire to receive plan update notifications is configured within any SharePoint Document Library or List and can be done by a Site Owner or Site Member.
The Team Member can decide what kind of Notifications they want to receive, the level of change detail the notices are based upon, the frequency in which the notifications are sent, and when they are sent. A Team Manager can also decide which Team Members should receive the notifications.
When an email is sent this is what the Team Member receives.
Notice that within the email is a direct link to “View” the new or updated document. In the image above the Team Member would simply click on the “View Team_Response.pdf” URL link to open the updated document. There are also other active URL links that will take the Team Member directly to the Phoenix for SharePoint solution site.
But wait a second….. not without security you don’t. That’s right. Just because a Team Member received an email notifying them to a new or updated DRP/BCP plan doesn’t give them direct access to the plan without proper security credentials. When the Team Member clicks on the email active URL they will be prompted for their secure login credentials.
Once the Team Member logs in securely they will then have access to the new or updated DRP/BCP plan.
With the DRP/BCP plan now open at the local client workstation it can of course be saved locally so that the Team Member has access to the most recent plan in the event that disaster does actually strike the next day.
Of course Phoenix for SharePoint supports other custom features that can be implemented such as Workflows that forward full copies of updated plans to off-site locations in order to ensure that Team Members always have access to current DRP/BCP plan documentation. Please feel free to ask us about additional customization that can be implemented to accomplish your specific requirements.
Phoenix for SharePoint Team
About KingsBridge
KingsBridge offers private businesses and government organizations a unique combination of industry knowledge and cost-effective disaster recovery / business continuity solutions. KingsBridge products and seminars provide the tools to assess possible threats and create tailored plans which mitigate risks and minimize losses in the event of a disruption to business. KingsBridge is headquartered in Ogdensburg, New York, with an office in Ottawa, Canada. For more information visit us at www.DisasterRecovery.com.
Filed under: Knowledge | Tags: business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, business impact analysis, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Phoenix software
The Project Management Dashboard component of the Phoenix for SharePoint Standard and Enterprise editions.
DRP/BCP Plan Development Coordinators have a very challenging position in that they have to coordinate the activities of many people in the organization within across different departments and at many different levels of the organization. And many of the people you need to help you develop the organization’s recovery plans are already working at maximum output. Requiring them to assist you in this very important endeavour is often an uphill challenge. Having access to an integrated documentation planning tool is key to your success.
Phoenix for SharePoint offers a complete Project Management Dashboard that is tailored specifically to the DRP/BCP Plan Development Coordinator role. It will help you ensure that documentation planning tasks are assigned and followed up on and that people are accountable for the aspects of this important effort that they have been made responsible for.
The following screen shot is the Project Status landing page for the Phoenix Dashboard. It provides access to a high level view of how the project is progressing. It uses a combination of Task Assignments and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) within a Business Intelligence (BI) portal to provide Management with a very clear status view of the planning process.
There are three default Projects within Phoenix that allow you to get started quickly on your planning and recovery processes. But of course you can always create more projects! The methodology used for the DRP/BCP plan development process is architected as follows:
Project
- Milestones
- Tasks
The Project
For the Project you can define Start and End dates as well as budget expectations. As the Tasks are completed the project Complete status roll up to the associated Milestones, which in turn roll up to the associated Project itself.
Within each Project, Milestones are defined and associated back to the Project.
Finally, Tasks are created and associated with a Milestone, that is in turn associated with a Project.
The DRP/BCP Plan Coordinator can begin to assign Tasks to individual staff. During the process of doing so they identify the Task components:
Assigned To
Start Date
End Date
Cost ($)
Cost in Days
The assigned staff member will receive an email with a link back to the Task so that they can begin to work with it and perform the planning process. Along the way, as they complete the Task they have been assigned they can update their progress and the status of the Task completion.
As staff complete their assigned Task(s) within each Milestone, the Project Status Dashboard will immediately be updated and the progress of the project will reflect their activity. You and Management can keep live track of how the DRP/BCP planning process is proceeding.
Well, there you have another Phoenix Feature of the Week. Plan development and ongoing management of the plan development process is critical to the successful implementation of your DRP/BCP documentation. Phoenix for SharePoint Standard and Enterprise editions enable the Plan Coordinator to stay on top of the process and ensure success.
About KingsBridge
KingsBridge offers private businesses and government organizations a unique combination of industry knowledge and cost-effective disaster recovery / business continuity solutions. KingsBridge products and seminars provide the tools to assess possible threats and create tailored plans which mitigate risks and minimize losses in the event of a disruption to business. KingsBridge is headquartered in Ogdensburg, New York, with an office in Ottawa, Canada. For more information visit us at www.DisasterRecovery.com.
Filed under: Knowledge | Tags: business continuity, business continuity software, COOP, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery
This is the third instalment of Phoenix for SharePoint integration features that allow our clients to leverage Phoenix within a SharePoint platform to better prepare themselves to restart their business after a disaster.
The KingsBridge Systems’ DRP-BCP planning solution runs on the SharePoint platform. This Phoenix Feature update shows how two products, Microsoft® Office and Microsoft SharePoint®, contribute to the powerful architectural design of the Microsoft Business Productivity Infrastructure (BPI) with a specific focus on business continuity and disaster recovery requirements. The BPI stack approach suggests that only by thinking at a capability level (for example, “What do users want to do?‖), and then adding the right aspects of capability in each place (client, server, and services), can we create desktop applications that also deliver rich server and services capabilities to information workers.
The attached Feature/Function Whitepaper describes how the 2010, 2007, and 2003 versions of Office work together with the 2010, 2007, and 2003 versions of SharePoint technologies. Although we provide an overview of Office and SharePoint features working together in past versions, this paper focuses on the integration features of the Microsoft Office 2010 experience with Microsoft SharePoint 2010.
The scenarios outlined in this paper show examples of how the power of SharePoint 2010 and related servers can be combined with capabilities of one or more Microsoft Office 2010 applications to deliver rich, intuitive, and easy-to-use capabilities directly into the hands of desktop users. The scenarios cover the following value areas:
- Collaboration Without Compromise
- Bring Ideas to Life
- Anywhere Access
- The Practical IT Platform
The paper concludes that to realize the best user experience with Office and SharePoint integration features, organizations should upgrade client programs to Office Professional Plus 2010 and server technologies to SharePoint 2010.
Here below are some clear examples of how Phoenix leverages some of the mobile capabilities that SharePoint brings to the solution as implemented.
For each and every Document Library there is the ability to connect it to a locally installed Microsoft Outlook email / communication installation.
In this example we have connected the SharePoint Published Plans Document Library to a locally installed on a laptop Microsoft Outlook configuration.
When we integrate the SharePoint Farm Server implementation to our locally installed Microsoft Office installation of the Outlook email / communication program we are asked to validate this request.
Click Yes
If not already authenticated to the site the user will be prompted to login.
Phoenix for SharePoint will now download from the Published Plans DocLib to the Outlook software running on the persons Laptop. When they unplug from the network they take all of the Published Plans with them in Outlook.
From here on in whenever anyone else updates the Published Plans Doc Lib, the next time the user connects to corporate network those updated plans will automatically sync down to the laptop.
The same SharePoint <> Outlook integration is true for Calendars and Discussions.
If there is a Department level Calendar on SharePoint, synchronization between it and Outlook on the laptop can also take place. Simply go to the Calendar in SharePoint and select the Library Tab, then select Connect to Outlook. Here I am in the Compliance Site and I clicked on the Compliance Events Quick Launch Menu. Click on the Calendar Tools Tab (a Calendar is a Library List with a different view).
Select Connect to Outlook.
Then click on Allow.
Then Click Yes to connect this SharePoint Calendar to Outlook.
If the user is already Authenticated they will not be prompted to log in again.
The user will now see their own Calendar in Outlook as well as the SharePoint site Calendar.
The same level of integration is true with default Task Lists and Discussion lists on a site.
About KingsBridge
KingsBridge offers private businesses and government organizations a unique combination of industry knowledge and cost-effective disaster recovery / business continuity solutions. KingsBridge products and seminars provide the tools to assess possible threats and create tailored plans which mitigate risks and minimize losses in the event of a disruption to business. KingsBridge is headquartered in Ogdensburg, New York, with an office in Ottawa, Canada. For more information visit us at www.DisasterRecovery.com.
Filed under: Knowledge | Tags: business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, business impact analysis, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Phoenix software
In this second of the Phoenix for SharePoint Feature of the Week series we are excited to share with you just how easy it is to work through a Business Impact Analysis process. This process will allow you to quickly define how vulnerable your organization is to threats through a Threat Risk Assessment exercise that will document the recovery of your most important business processes.
Phoenix for SharePoint provides a singular BIA facility that will guide you through the process and while doing so allow you to document both the conclusions and the recovery processes that will help ensure that your organization is back in business quickly and efficiently.
The BIA landing page says it all. Through this section of the Phoenix for SharePoint solution you will perform the TRA and BIA assessments of your organization’s readiness to recover from a disaster. There are six steps in the process.
Step 1: The Threat Risk Assessment
Identifying potential threats specific to an organization is the first step to creating a recovery plan. The Threat Risk Analysis helps identify what threats are relevant to your organization, and what risk it is to your people, your buildings, and the continuity of your business. These threats have been grouped into the following categories:
Natural Threats – caused by the environment
Human Threats – caused by individuals actions
Technical Threats – caused by equipment or technology failure
Step 2: Business Unit Teams
The most effective way to an orderly and timely recovery is to establish teams based on the organizations Business Unit structure. It is important that the teams be established, and tasks identified to be done before, during and after a disaster. During an emergency each team member contributes the skills that they use in their everyday work to the overall response. Each team identified in this section will be required to complete a Business Impact Analysis Survey to identify the business processes that are most crucial to the operations of the organization.
Step 3: Team Business Processes
In this section you will identify all of the business processes that will require recovery and assign them to a Business Unit Team. The Business Unit Team will be responsible for defining how the business process assigned to them will function during an IT outage and the procedures required to restore the systems required to support it.
Step 4: Surveys
One of the basic assumptions behind the BIA is that every component of the organization is reliant upon the continued functioning of every other component, but some are more critical than others. This BIA tool will be used to identify each department’s critical business processes, the maximum tolerable outages, and the resources required to complete each specific function.
For each Business Process identified and associated with a Business Unit Team a Business Process Survey is created. The Business Process Survey is emailed to Team Leader for auctioning and delegation to other team members.
When you click on the Business Process Survey item you are provided with two options. Respond to the survey or view the responses.
The Business Process Survey is designed to help you determine which business processes are the most important ones and also what is the process for performing it without access to the IT systems and the recovery process for the IT systems that the business processes depend upon. When you click on “Respond to this Survey” you are provided with an extensive questionnaire to identify the business process, its importance, and the required elements to recover it within the desired recovery window.
The following two screen images highlight the business process survey questionnaire. Please note that the survey questions can be edited and changed depending on your organization’s requirements for conducting a BIA/TRA process.
Step 5: Preview BIA Plan
Step 5 provides you with an opportunity to review the BIA/TRA results before you publish them. It shows you the BIA/TRA plan results from all of the Business Unit Teams and Business Processes survey results before they are actually published in final form. Simply click on Publish BIA Report button and you will produce a dynamically compiled version of the final BIA/TRA published plan.
Step 6: Published Reports
And this is what the final published plan looks like in PDF form.
But wait, there is more!
When a new BIA/TRA plan is published all of the participants to the BIA Published Plans folder can receive an update notification via email or SMS or our own Phoenix iPhone and BlackBerry Mobile Apps.
Within the Alert Me option the Phoenix for SharePoint plan contributor can select to receive plan update alerts by email or SMS text messages.
When any new BIA/TRA plans are published all of the people that are involved will automatically receive the plan update notification.
About KingsBridge
KingsBridge offers private businesses and government organizations a unique combination of industry knowledge and cost-effective disaster recovery / business continuity solutions. KingsBridge products and seminars provide the tools to assess possible threats and create tailored plans which mitigate risks and minimize losses in the event of a disruption to business. KingsBridge is headquartered in Ogdensburg, New York, with an office in Ottawa, Canada. For more information visit us at www.DisasterRecovery.com.
Filed under: Knowledge | Tags: business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, business impact analysis, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery
One of the really cool things about Phoenix for SharePoint is the integration it provides between the time and tested Phoenix DRP-BCP planning environment and all of the many features that SharePoint 2010 provides. There are two levels of benefits that customers receive by leveraging the KingsBridge Systems’ Phoenix environment within a SharePoint platform:
- WebPart solutions provided by Microsoft
- WebPart solutions provided by all of the Microsoft SharePoint Partners
One of those Microsoft SharePoint Partners is AMREIN Engineering at http://www.amrein.com
Using their unique SharePoint Google Maps WebParts we have integrated the ability to place your Phoenix DRP-BCP plan locations on a map so that you can access then quickly. Many of our enterprise clients have hundreds of locations and for each location they have a DRP-BCP plan site. The Google Map integration allows us to plot on a global map each location within the organization that has a recovery and continuity plan.
In the above Google Map the Plan Coordinator can simply click on the location and select the hyperlink presented and they will arrive at the DRP-BCP plan site for that location.
It’s just one more example of how our customers benefit from the integration of the time tested Phoenix DRP-BCP planning solution within the SharePoint environment.
About KingsBridge
KingsBridge offers private businesses and government organizations a unique combination of industry knowledge and cost-effective disaster recovery / business continuity solutions. KingsBridge products and seminars provide the tools to assess possible threats and create tailored plans which mitigate risks and minimize losses in the event of a disruption to business. KingsBridge is headquartered in Ogdensburg, New York, with an office in Ottawa, Canada. For more information visit us at www.DisasterRecovery.com.
Filed under: KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Knowledge | Tags: business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, iPad, iPhone Application, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, mobile browser, Phoenix Mobile iPhone App
With the recent explosion of mobile devices and their increased power, we are being asked about “accessing our BC/DR plan from a mobile device”. As more and more companies are taking their plans online/cloud based and their workforce is increasingly more mobile, having access to their plan on their device is becoming a reality. Where does this leave all these apps that we see everyday? Let’s take a look…
Jim Balsillie (co-CEO of BlackBerry) told a conference in November 2010 (only seven months ago) that “We believe that you can bring the mobile to the Web but you don’t need to go through some kind of control point of an SDK, and that’s the core part of our message.”. While that might work in concept, BlackBerry is being crushed under the Android and Apple onslaught of Apps. It really is simple, users don’t want to access information that is designed for a larger screen, crunched into a little 4 in screen. Alternatively, they don’t want a stripped down edition where they are shown limited information decided upon by the developer of the website. With more than 300,000 apps available for iPhones alone, I think the market has spoken.
What do you get with an App that accesses your plan instead of “just a browser”?
As there aren’t many Apps on the market for Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery, the options are limited. However, of those that are available they offer a completely different experience than viewing a website. They actually allow you to interact with your complete recovery plan. You have a single location to:
- send a notification
- acknowledge a notification
- send your location to your team members
- find directions to your hotsite
- read your plan without having to scroll through the entire plan.
Each of these tasks (or actions) are built to look and function perfectly for your device (iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry or Android). It becomes an extension of your plan instead of fighting with your plan. As you have probably already found out, if you make the process difficult, the users simply won’t use it!
To recap, what we have learned… Regardless of whatever anyone tells you, reading your plan on a mobile device through a browser is not “Mobile Enabled”. To truly be able to access your plan, you need to have an extension of your plan in your hand 24/7/365. If you don’t believe ask anyone to access Facebook through their mobile browser and not the App that has been built to make the process easier, faster and better. If your social life deserves an app… Shouldn’t your business?
About KingsBridge
KingsBridge offers private businesses and government organizations a unique combination of industry knowledge and cost-effective disaster recovery / business continuity solutions. KingsBridge products and seminars provide the tools to assess possible threats and create tailored plans which mitigate risks and minimize losses in the event of a disruption to business. Kingsbridge is headquartered in Ogdensburg, New York, with an office in Ottawa, Canada. For more information visit us at www.DisasterRecovery.com.
Filed under: KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Knowledge | Tags: business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, business impact analysis, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, disaster recovery software, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Phoenix software, threat risk analysis
Oh no… There is a storm coming!
Oh no… There is a labor strike coming!
Oh no… There is X coming!
Regardless of whatever that “X” is, as a recovery planner we teach our clients and students that you are building a solution that allows you business to recover after the event. Let’s switch that up a bit…
What if you capitalized on the media that precedes event “X”?
Not sure what I mean…? Let’s use a scenario.
Winter 2011 had some terrible weather across the world. In each of these weather related events, there was (for the most part) significant warning. So much so, that twitter, news outlets and RSS/email feeds were going crazy with the impending doom of whatever the weather was… Let’s say you are a retailer who does a lot of online sales, or a car dealership with lots of cars in stock or a software company that has to hit quarterly sales targets and there is a big weather system coming through your region in the next 24 hours.
Do you;
A) Send all your employees home early to avoid the weather?
B) Keep everyone to their regular schedule and brave the weather? Or
C) Do a huge weather blowout sale with pizza and movies to keep morale high?
By the “strict” rules of recovery planning, you would choose option “A” and put a message on your voicemail saying the weather has closed the company. Maybe have people login from home (if your business supports that) and wait until the weather passes.
What actually happens? Usually closer to “B”, depending on your business using the thought process “If I can make it to work, so can you!”, unfortunately “they” don’t own the business and will likely not make it to work for various reasons.
What you should do is “C”, again depending on your business and if it is possible. If you are an online retailer; have a huge winter weather sale, promise discounted shipping due to the delay, or sell off most (if not all) of your winter gear to increase your bottom line. If you are a car dealer; you don’t want to brush off all the cars after the storm (or repair them if that occurs), so throw in a snow brush, buy a bunch of snow shovels or have a local plowing company plow out your new customers driveway. For the software company; have a winter promotion to save before the big storm, depending what you sell think outside the box to make it fun.
If you choose the “C” option, there are a couple things to remember, keep it fun, keep it light and if your staff want to go home for various reasons make sure you accommodate them.
In recovery planning cash flow is critical (you’ll hear that a lot), so option “C” will likely increase your cash flow, allow you to achieve sales goals and ensure your company is around for the next storm!
PS – With so much social media right now, email feeds and 24-hour news stations starving for news make sure you get your message out to the public. It shouldn’t cost a lot and if your customers are spread across the county or country, make sure they all have the same chance to buy at a discounted rate!
About KingsBridge
KingsBridge offers private businesses and government organizations a unique combination of industry knowledge and cost-effective disaster recovery / business continuity solutions. KingsBridge products and seminars provide the tools to assess possible threats and create tailored plans which mitigate risks and minimize losses in the event of a disruption to business. Kingsbridge is headquartered in Ogdensburg, New York, with offices in Ottawa, Canada and Burlington, Vermont. For more information visit us at www.DisasterRecovery.com.
Filed under: KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Knowledge | Tags: bit.ly, business, business continuity, business continuity software, business disaster, business impact analysis, Continuity of Operations, COOP, disaster preparation, disaster recovery software, KingsBridge Disaster Recovery, Phoenix software
As an addendum to our most recent post on how the events in Libya could affect your business, there is also the problem with using the bit.ly service for shortening URLs. The article at http://is.gd/YPbBL8 explains why your links may be cut off.
About KingsBridge
KingsBridge offers private businesses and government organizations a unique combination of industry knowledge and cost-effective disaster recovery / business continuity solutions. KingsBridge products and seminars provide the tools to assess possible threats and create tailored plans which mitigate risks and minimize losses in the event of a disruption to business. Kingsbridge is headquartered in Ogdensburg, New York, with offices in Ottawa, Canada and Burlington, Vermont. For more information visit us at www.DisasterRecovery.com.
