So far we have 3 branches located in different region, around 5-10 employees per branch with their own laptop

Some problems I found is whenever laptop crash or need to be reinstalled, it will be pain in ass since we only have 1 IT guy, which is me, in the main branch (it will take around 3-4 hours of commuting to reach other branch and fix it for them)

Also we store our data at one master GDrive and share the files to each employee, but I found it difficult for the employee to search the stored data, since the shared files will be in shortcut form, not the actual data itself and windows can’t search the file content, this will be pain in ass for my sales person since they need to search the file’s content for specific invoice or customer name

Is there any selfhosted tool that can make my life easier as the only IT guy in this company?

  • operator207@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I can’t speak necessarily well to the question of where to store files, I’m not sure what security you need to have or are required to have. That would dictate a large part of an acceptable answer. I can however help with keeping that commute down to HW issues only.

    MeshCentral - Remote into a system, some basic monitoring (plugin abilities), keep you from having to drive 3-4 hours to fix a printer install or something stupid and not boot/network related.

    Build a GOOD usb imaging stick to leave at each branch (lock it up with the branch manager?) so when you need to image (assuming no bad hardware) you can walk the end user through booting and clicking ‘GO’. Once it boots back into windows use Mesh to walk them through the rest of the login and setup process.

    Have a desktop/laptop setup in the office ‘ready to go’ as a loaner. Have the user ship it to you to fix. It can be an old laptop, loaners are not for replacement, they are to ‘get you by’ until your main system is back up and running. How much does it cost for you to drive (not just gas money, but existing work stoppage) to another branch, fix a system, and drive back? Sounds like an entire day of work to do that based on what you said above. Shipping a laptop back and forth (even next day FedEx prices) can make sense.