What You Should Do if You Think You’ve Lost Your Phone

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Even the most dedicated smartphone user will lose it from time to time, which is particularly inconvenient if you are away from the safety of your home or office. To help address this issue, we’ve put together some ideas for what you should do if you ever do lose your device.

Of course, a phone is rarely just a phone these days, and it’s likely your device contains a fair amount of personal information on it, such as your messages, phone calls, payment information, banking details, and so on. Losing your phone is an especially big deal considering these facts.

First, Try Looking for Your Phone

Sometimes you might set your phone down somewhere and forget about it, or it might fall out of your pocket in the car. Most cell providers will give you the ability to locate your phone, provided it’s not set to silent. Both Apple and Android also offer features that help you locate a lost phone, provided you have set up the service before losing the device. Hopefully, the phone finding features help you locate your device, but if not, then you’ll want to jump on the rest of the options listed below to take immediate action.

Cancel Service for the Device

You’ll want to take action to cancel service for the device through your service provider. This will help to limit the damage done as a result of the device going MIA. They can also help you acquire a replacement device.

Deactivate Any Mobile Accounts

You’ll also want to deactivate your mobile accounts so that potential threats cannot take advantage of the information located on them. Most providers give you the ability to remotely wipe your device, all while backing up information to the cloud for easy restoration later on. Really the big goal here is to prevent data from being stolen from the device.

Change Any Relevant Passwords

Changing all of your passwords is going to take a while, but you don’t want the hacker to potentially break into any of them with your device. You should be changing your passwords periodically anyway, so it shouldn’t take an event like this to make you consider doing so.

Report the Loss or Theft to the Authorities

If you think someone has stolen or found your device, you can always file a police report to see if they can do anything about it. Although, there is no guarantee that anything will come of it. If nothing else, you’re helping them collect information about potential crimes so they can take more preventative actions later on. If you have insurance, you’ll have to provide a police report in most cases, too.

Report Your Lost Device to IT

If you lose your work device, then you’ll need to report it to IT so that they are aware of the device being lost or stolen. Your IT department will then do a lot of the work for you, shutting it down, wiping the phone, and keeping an eye on accounts while you address password issues.

Look Forward to a New Phone

While losing a phone might not be a great thing to experience, you can rest easy knowing that you’ll be able to get a new device and get back in action as soon as possible. The new device might even be more up-to-date, too!

For more on how to address common issues with your technology, be sure to keep coming back to our blog.

from: https://reciprocaltech.com/blog/what-you-should-do-if-you-think-youve-lost-your-phone/

What You Need to Do to Better Secure Your Cloud-Hosted Data

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The cloud has become a hugely popular resource for businesses of all sizes to lean on for a multitude of needs, many using it for some form of data storage. While using the cloud for this means, however, it is wise for you to do everything available to secure the data you’ve stored there. Let’s go over a few things that we recommend you do to help protect your data.

Encrypt All Data

While most cloud providers will maintain some pretty stringent security on their end, we cannot recommend strongly enough that you encrypt your data both as it is in transit and while it is stored in the cloud itself. This helps ensure that, even if your cloud data is somehow stolen, there is less of a chance that it will be of any value to the cybercriminal responsible in its jumbled and obscured state.

Reinforce Your Access Controls

On the topic of data being somehow stolen, you need to be sure you are doing everything you can to avoid someone who should not have access to it getting that access. Fittingly, access controls are necessary to implement in order to avoid this. Restricting access based on each user’s role and needs is step one. Step two is to protect your cloud access behind multi-factor authentication measures. By combining these two elements, you not only make it less likely that someone can access your stored data, you limit what they can influence should they manage to do so.

Regularly Audit Your Cloud

Just keeping a close eye on your cloud storage and its contents can help you prevent security issues and incidents. Checking audit logs and utilizing some of the tools that many cloud providers offer make this much easier—and should you discover an issue, taking quick and decisive action is key to resolving it without incident.

We’re Always Here to Help

Working with Reciprocal Technologies means that you have an advocate on your side to help you manage your business’ IT, including your cloud solutions. Give us a call at (317) 759-3972 to learn more about what we have to offer businesses in Indiana.

from: https://reciprocaltech.com/blog/what-you-need-to-do-to-better-secure-your-cloud-hosted-data/

Are the Apps You Get From the App Stores Secure?

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The smartphone app ecosystems today are extraordinarily vast. The Google Play store has over 3.5 million apps available, while the Apple App store has over 1.6 million apps. The question becomes, with so many different applications available on these platforms, how can you be so sure that the apps you are downloading to your mobile device are secure? Let’s take a look at mobile app store security and why it’s become more than just a security issue. 

App Store Security

Both Google and Apple take care in order to protect their users from malware. It’s not a perfect system, but generally, these app stores want you to be able to trust the content available on them. This is kind of ominous since a corrupt app could presumably steal data, deploy malware, and other negative things. 

Google’s Play Store has a lot of protections in place to limit the number of insecure apps that make it on the platform, but they also have the highest track record of problematic software available for the user to download. The Apple app store has fewer examples of this type of problem being reported, but it still happens. The same can be said of Amazon’s. Basically, if you are going to download apps for your mobile device, most of them will be legitimate. 

That’s not to say that you should trust every download. 

Do App Stores Make All Apps Safe for Consumers?

The world’s massive amount of mobile device users depend on their app ecosystems to acquire the secure software they use to make their mobile devices run. The official app stores, the Google Play store for Android-fueled phones; and Apple store for iOS-fueled devices, have procedures in place that check every new app for malicious behavior. Unfortunately, some malignant apps do get through, even though it is a minuscule percentage, these apps can still deploy malware and siphon data and put any network that phone comes into contact with into peril. 

What Types of Problems Can Users See?

If you are one of the people that is unfortunate enough to download a malicious app from a reputable app store, here are three problems you can run into:

• Ad fraud – Most popular apps and games use advertising to make money, but fraudulent ads actually run in the background, rerouting ad clicks to different websites and using up the battery and bandwidth of the user’s phone. 
• Browser hacking – Malicious apps can work to hijack an Internet browser causing it to open websites that transmit personal information or promote fraudulent material
• Data theft – While all apps are actually installed away from the critical data on your phone, users that aren’t vigilant about what access an app can have to a device can have their data stolen. 

What You Can Do

There are a few definitive steps you can take to ensure that you don’t deal with malicious apps. They include:

• Don’t jailbreak your phone – Sure, the app stores may not be perfect, but it is infinitely more secure than downloading alternative apps from the Internet. Sideloading apps on a jailbroken phone will increase the chances you will have to deal with malicious apps, so don’t do it.
• Keep mobile OS updated – Like any other piece of software, you need to frequently update your OS to ensure that you aren’t dealing with vulnerabilities that could cause problems. 
• Research apps before you download them – You should look at the reviews of apps before you download them. Smaller developers put out great tools, but the more you know about an app before it gets downloaded the more confident you can be that you aren’t downloading malware. 

If you would like to learn more about how to navigate mobile productivity and security for your business, call one of our knowledgeable consultants at (317) 759-3972 today.

from: https://reciprocaltech.com/blog/are-the-apps-you-get-from-the-app-stores-secure/

Tip of the Week: How to Resize Excel Rows and Columns

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Microsoft Excel can be a great tool to help your business organize data, but the default size of the cell doesn’t leave much room for you to be productive. You can adjust the size of each cell depending on the purpose of the data stored within, starting with the width and the height of each column and row. Let’s go over how you can resize each individual cell.

How to Resize Columns and Rows in Excel

To start resizing your columns and rows, you first should select the cells you want to adjust. We’re going to use the example of resizing all cells in the spreadsheet. To do this, click the space at the top left corner of the spreadsheet. It should be right next to the leftmost column. If you’ve clicked on the right thing, you’ll see a green outline around all of your spreadsheet.

This will give you immediate control over the width and height of all rows and columns by clicking and dragging the borders of them.

How to Get More Specific Measurements

For more specific measurements on your columns and rows, you can adjust them as well. By default, the size of rows is set to 8.43 points and the size of columns is set to 15 points. You can change these measurements by right-clicking the top or left-most part of the column or row and selecting Column Width or Row Height, accordingly. You enter the measurements into the dialog box, then hit OK. The maximum values you can plug in here are 255 points for columns and 409 points for rows.

How to Use the AutoFit Feature

Another option you have is to AutoFit the size of your cells to fit the size of the data found in them. You’ll find this option under the Home tab in the Format section. Click on AutoFit and adjust the settings for row height or column width as needed. Empty cells will simply stay at the default size.

Hopefully you found this tip helpful for your spreadsheet needs. Excel can be finicky if you’re not used to working in it, so even simple tips like these can help you get more out of it. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled on our blog for more great tips for all of your favorite business technology solutions, and contact Reciprocal Technologies for any of your technology needs.

from: https://reciprocaltech.com/blog/tip-of-the-week-how-to-resize-excel-rows-and-columns/

Unnecessary Meetings are a More Serious Problem Than You’d Think

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Anyone who has spent a considerable amount of time in a professional occupation knows that meetings come with the territory. After all, running a business requires a lot of coordination, communication, and teamwork, and meetings are opportunities for employees to gather and discuss important business-related ideas. However, the amount of time wasted and misused on unnecessary meetings is a topic of concern.

A recent report from Asana, the Anatomy of Work global index, details just how much time businesses spend on meetings and other minutiae, which the report titles “work about work.” If you think about it, this phrase makes a lot of sense. Meetings are often about work, but there is no work actually being done in them. The report in question asked 9,615 knowledge workers from the United States, UK, Australia, France, Germany, and Japan what issues crop up which prevent them from getting work done.

These workers reported that, on average, they spent 58% of their workdays on “work about work”, 33% of their days on skilled work, and 9% of their days on strategic work.

We’d like you to ask yourself, “Is this why I hired my employees? So they can spend the majority of their time in meetings, not getting work done?”

It’s a hard reality to grasp, especially because organization is key to a lot of business’ success. Asana defines “work about work” as any activities other than the skilled work you were hired to do. For example, if you have a sales analyst who is stuck in endless logistics meetings rather than talking to prospective customers, or a programmer who hasn’t touched code in three days because they are stuck in planning meetings, there’s “work about work” involved.

To break these numbers down a bit more, consider the following statistics:

• Executives spend 3.6 hours per week on average in unnecessary meetings.
• Knowledge workers spend 2.8 hours per week on average in unnecessary meetings.
• Executives are 30% more likely to miss a deadline than the average worker due to phone or video meetings.
• 32% of workers claim that video calls take up more time than they did one year ago.
• 22% of workers claim that audio calls take up more time than they did one year ago.

So, how would you like to reclaim all of that lost time?

Obviously meetings aren’t going to go away—that’s just part of running a business, unfortunately—but you can strategically use technology solutions to streamline them and make them less of a drain on your resources. To help your team collaborate and communicate more effectively so that work about work doesn’t consume their workdays, we recommend you contact Reciprocal Technologies to discuss how technology solutions can make meetings go more smoothly and efficiently. To learn more, call us today at (317) 759-3972.

from: https://reciprocaltech.com/blog/unnecessary-meetings-are-a-more-serious-problem-than-youd-think/

“Innovation” and “Smartphone” Aren’t as Related as They Once Were

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Smartphones are, in a word, ubiquitous. With 86.29% of the global population owning a smartphone in 2023 (according to Statista), one would think—pretty justifiably—that the smartphone market is doing pretty well indeed. 

The opposite is actually true. Let’s take a quick look at the smartphone market and its decreases, as well as the lack of innovation that is largely blamed for this decline.

The Smartphone Market Has Gotten Smaller Through Consolidation

Or, in other words, the market is shrinking.

Not all that long ago, the smartphone market was relatively flooded with companies looking to carve out a share for themselves. As time has passed, however, many of these companies have left the space. Some, like LG, Microsoft, and Amazon, simply closed their smartphone divisions and stopped making the devices, while others have been bought and sold, like Motorola—once a leader in the space—has experienced a few times.

2022 alone saw a 12% decline in the market. Admittedly, this doesn’t seem to line up with some of the statistics we’ve referenced here. How could the market for a product category with an 86%-plus global adoption rate be in decline?

Here’s the thing, though: a lot of these people aren’t shelling out for a new phone every 18-to-24 months like they once were.

There are various reasons for this, of course, but a big one is the lack of innovation most of the smartphone space has seen.

Are Smartphone Manufacturers Actually Innovating?

If you ask the manufacturers, they certainly are. Nowadays, a budget smartphone can compete with what a flagship from just a few years before had to offer. However, this accomplishment means less each year, as flagships introduce less and less with each iteration.

Keep in mind, these flagship phones—famously, the most expensive option—once showed massive improvements across the board each year. New chipsets were incorporated into the builds, displays were brighter and increased in resolution, there were real improvements made to the camera setups, and user interfaces tried new and innovative designs. 

Lately, this has changed. Real innovations have been scarce, but costs have risen more than ever. Any actually innovative changes we’ve seen haven’t really gone anywhere, as the practical need for these changes falls short of the costs.

Little Reason to Invest Means People Aren’t Going to Make an Investment

As innovation decelerates, so does the incentive for people to buy a new device. Let me put it this way: would you jump to purchase a new device, for twice the money you paid for your last one (that still works, by the way), that really didn’t add anything significant?

No?

That’s exactly why so few companies have persevered in the space and managed to make a profit. They’ve filled their marketing with buzzwords referring to innovation, without doing very much of any substance to back up these words.

Sure, having the latest and greatest new iPhone or Samsung Galaxy or Google Pixel is nice, especially when upgrading from an older phone from a few years ago, but the differences between the model from one year to the next really doesn’t justify the cost for most consumers.

However, despite all this, it can’t be denied that the smartphone is integral to today’s societal makeup. This is what has largely preserved the need for continued buy-in, despite the lack of any functional enhancements of any note.

We Can Help You Integrate Mobility into Your Business’ Operations

While adding mobile devices to your organization’s IT brings a lot of benefits, it also adds some significant managerial challenges. We’re here to assist, with our technicians helping you manage all the new endpoints you have with a robust mobile policy, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy, and other aspects that will help you better take advantage of mobile productivity. Call us at (317) 759-3972 to get started, or with any questions you may have.

from: https://reciprocaltech.com/blog/innovation-and-smartphone-arent-as-related-as-they-once-were/

IT Management is Just Part of What We Offer

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There are a few options out there for businesses to turn to for IT management. Many hire an in-house IT team, and many of them suddenly find that their in-house team is exceptionally busy. Some may even find that not everything is able to be accomplished by this team simply because of how many challenges are on the ever-growing docket. Fortunately, these businesses have another great option to turn to, in addition to their in-house team: managed IT services.

Small businesses could do a whole lot worse than turn to Reciprocal Technologies and the managed IT services we offer. What follows are four reasons we’re so confident in saying so.

Two Words: Cost. Savings.

Speaking candidly, managed IT helps save businesses money. Not only are internal IT workers expensive to find, interview, and onboard, they are expensive to retain with all the stress they are so often under. Burnout is very real, and the IT department is no stranger to it.

Plus, technology is notoriously expensive to maintain as well, particularly if your strategy is to exclusively replace technology when it breaks. With the help of managed services from a trusted provider like us, you’ll have more affordable access to an entire team of IT professionals ready to assist your in-house staff with their responsibilities, working proactively to help eliminate issues before a problem starts.

Security. Need I Say More?

Network security is a complicated thing, with dozens of moving parts and considerations to keep in mind. There’s a constant race to keep everything up-to-date and patched, along with the constant threat of outside forces worming (sometimes literally) their way in. This is all before we mention the unfortunate fact that, intentionally or not, your own employees can create security issues.

This is why the expertise of an MSP can prove to be such a great asset. Our team can tackle your cybersecurity needs on two fronts, both reinforcing your network to preventatively keep as many threats as possible out and helping train your team to be more secure so that they don’t invite threats in. On top of all this, we can help keep an eye on your network via our remote monitoring and management tools.

Improved Performance

As technology gets older, things tend to slow down a bit and work less well than they once did. We can step in to help avoid these effects, proactively maintaining your technology and nipping budding issues…well, in the bud. We’ll make sure that your infrastructure is appropriately patched and up-to-date, and all without having to leave our offices and interrupt your team by arriving in person.

Our Team Will Be Available to You

Speaking of our team, you’ll be able to leverage their capabilities the way that you best see fit. Is your internal team too busy working on big initiatives to help the rest of your team with small issues as they pop up? Or perhaps you’re dealing with the opposite? Maybe you don’t currently have any IT resources, and have been reliant on the services provided by another provider who gets there when they get there.

Outsourcing even some of your IT needs to Reciprocal Technologies can help solve so many operational issues, making work a more straightforward and less stressful experience for everyone.

Any way you cut it, having a relationship with a managed service provider like us is likely to result in greater success. Find out more about how we can help you accomplish more by giving us a call at (317) 759-3972.

from: https://reciprocaltech.com/blog/it-management-is-just-part-of-what-we-offer/

Your Network Needs to Be Secure…These Tools Can Help

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From the outside looking in, network security can be intimidating to consider. There are so many moving parts that go into protecting a business, it’s understandable that you might not know where to start. Fortunately, we do, and we’re happy to provide this list of critical network security tools that should be seen as the foundation for your company’s protection.

Access Controls and Logs

Your various employees are going to need access to various data points and resources based on their role in your organization. On the same token, there are various data points that some employees simply don’t need access to. Restricting access on what is effectively a need-to-know basis helps to secure your data and keep your team on-task all at once. Implementing access logs also helps indicate when things were accessed, and by whom, giving you visibility of any suspicious activity. At the very least, these logs can give you the heads up when one of your team members has more access than they should, giving you the opportunity to correct the issue.

Antivirus/Antimalware

Nothing is perfect, and there may be occasions when a threat manages to bypass some of the other protections we’ll discuss in a moment. An antivirus program, sometimes referred to as anti-malware, is a useful software to have installed for when this happens. So long as you have it updated to reference the latest threat definitions, this handy security utility can and will stop a great number of threats—and with these threat definitions being built upon, the usefulness that your antivirus provides will grow over time.

Content Filtering

Let me ask you this: would you prefer that your team spend their work time working, or catching up on the latest episode of [insert name of latest must-see streaming series here]? As much as you’d like to be able to trust your team to be diligent, there is no harm in stopping them from accessing websites and online content that does little but waste time.

On a related note, content filtering can also stop your team from being redirected to malicious websites or blatantly inappropriate content—and can be directed to specific employees who find it challenging to resist temptation.

Firewalls

The best kind of threat is the one that’s taken care of before it’s even on your radar. This is effectively the function of a firewall, as it proactively prevents most threats from ever reaching your network. This is what we were discussing back in the antivirus conversation—ideally, your firewall will help to minimize the threats that need to be resolved by your antivirus.

Spam Blocking

Spam messages are not only incredibly frustrating to sort through and deal with, they can often be laden with phishing threats and malware. Eliminating them with a robust spam blocker not only prevents them from hitting your employees’ inboxes and wasting time, but removes the risk that an employee could click through one of them.

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)

VPNs, and the overall encryption that the technology relies on, are a great asset that provides a crucial level of protection—particularly if someone is working remotely and still needs to interface with the data stored on your business network. Using a VPN provides a secure connection so that data can be exchanged without exposing it to outside threats.

Interested in learning more about any of the above business technologies? Turn to Reciprocal Technologies! Our team can ensure you are equipped with the protections you need to operate your business securely. Give us a call at (317) 759-3972 to learn more.

from: https://reciprocaltech.com/blog/your-network-needs-to-be-securethese-tools-can-help/

Tip of the Week: Adding a Web Shortcut to Your Desktop

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Keyboard shortcuts are great ways to make your workday just a little more efficient without much effort. Did you know that you can make a keyboard shortcut on your Windows computer that can direct you to a specific webpage? Let’s go over how you can make it happen.

There are a couple of ways you can make your keyboard Internet shortcut.

Manually

To manually make your keyboard Internet shortcut, right-click on your desktop and select New > Shortcut. When the dialog box opens, type the website URL in the box that appears, then select Next. You’ll then be prompted to give your new shortcut a name. Once you’re ready, click Finish. Your new icon will appear on your desktop.

Now, when you right-click it, you can select Properties to see information about the shortcut. From here, you can change the URL, assign a shortcut key, and change the icon. Click in the Shortcut key box, then type the key you would like to use for your new shortcut. The key combination will then appear in the box.

Click-and-Drag

To save yourself a step, you can simply click-and-drag the shortcut’s URL to your desktop to make the shortcut a bit faster and more easily. This also assigns your shortcut a name in the form of the website page’s name. From here, you can right-click the shortcut, select Properties, and see the same information that you could see in the above step.

And that’s all there is to it! Now you can make custom keyboard shortcuts for your favorite websites. Alternatively, you could just use bookmarks in your browser, but the more tools you have at your disposal, the better.

Reciprocal Technologies can help your team best utilize its technology for the sake of productivity. To learn more, call us today at (317) 759-3972.

from: https://reciprocaltech.com/blog/tip-of-the-week-adding-a-web-shortcut-to-your-desktop/

Your Productivity is Tied to How Happy Your Team Is

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The best thing you can do for your employees is provide a good work experience, but what do we mean when we say this? In essence, you spend a lot of time trying to find the best fit for your organization, so you want to invest a solid amount of effort into making sure they stick around. This goes beyond compensation; you should consider the following for your business’ work experience.

Employee Turnover is Expensive

You know that hiring and training employees is costly, and it goes beyond just their initial low level of productivity. Onboarding new talent can cost anywhere between 1-1.5 times the position’s salary for someone who has been at your business for five years. This number only increases as the responsibilities do; that’s a lot of investment for someone who could jump ship at any moment.

Here’s How to Foster a Solid Work Experience

Your mission is simple: keep your employees from jumping ship. Unfortunately, it’s not nearly as simple as we make it out to be, as there are countless variables that can be considered for retaining employees. You can start by just making their experiences with your business more meaningful. Here are a couple of ways to do this:

Follow Through on Your Mission

Employees don’t like when things swing too far in one direction without any explanation or notice. Some of the issues employees might have is hiring/firing people, operational changes, and policies or procedures that are either undercooked or underenforced. These are all organizational issues and should be treated as such. Take a moment to think about your company’s long-term goals and stick to them. Don’t change them too much, unless the market forces you to do so, and your employees should see that you are trying to make the most out of their valuable skills and time.

Care What Others Say

People value when their voices are heard. You can preemptively solve a lot of problems simply by listening to your employees and addressing their concerns as appropriate. Plus, people like to be involved and to know that their feedback is helpful for the future of the organization, so if you show them that their presence matters, they will be more likely to stick around to see how they can change things for the better.

Encourage Social Activity

A little social activity and camaraderie-building in the office can go a long way toward people being happy and comfortable with their workplace. People spend most of their waking hours in the workplace, which is a sobering fact in and of itself, so your employees should at least get to know and enjoy being around each other to at least an acceptable level. Better work relations means better collaboration and more productivity, after all.

At the end of the day, your business cannot do what it does best without your employees, so make sure they feel seen and appreciated through your actions and policies. To learn more about how you can use technology to aid in these efforts, reach out to us at (317) 759-3972.

from: https://reciprocaltech.com/blog/your-productivity-is-tied-to-how-happy-your-team-is/

Tip of the Week: Mellow Out When Things Aren’t Going Your Way

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There is a lot made of the importance of productivity when it comes to running a business. Of course, without a consistent output, revenue growth is impossible. As a result, many workers expect the same kind of effort that they give. When they don’t see that effort, tensions can get high and they can get stressed out pretty easily. Today, we will go through a couple of tips that will help you maintain composure when your job delivers more stress than you’d like. 

Stress is a Ruiner

One of the problems with stress is that it clouds rational judgment. When people get stressed out at work it can severely hinder their work performance because they aren’t focused on the job at hand, but on the stressors. Work isn’t always a cakewalk, especially if you are stressed out. Before we give you a couple of tips on how to cope, let’s identify some of the most common reasons people are stressed out at work:

• Too much work
• No available upward mobility
• Unclear instructions
• Unreasonable demands
• Frustrating work environment
• Financial or personal problems

Regardless of what the problem is, the more stressed out a person is, the worse his/her performance will be.  Let’s take a look at three things you can do to reduce workplace stress: 

Keep Track of Your Stressors

It doesn’t matter if that guy at the desk near you is a slob and his desk looks like your kitchen after you cook a three-course meal or you simply didn’t get enough sleep and are grouchy, you need to identify what is bothering you and when it does. One thing you can do is track these stressors in a work journal. By recording your thoughts, feelings, and notes about your work environment, you will be able to better identify the problems and create healthy responses for them. 

Establish Boundaries

It is more difficult than ever for people to create boundaries between their work life and their home life; especially if they work from home. If one part of your life is creating stress, it is best to keep it away from the other part. Create and stick to rules governing when you can and can’t work. For example, if you are habitually checking work notifications at times when you should be relaxing or focusing on family or other important things, you need to set a rule that you aren’t allowed to look at your work notifications at these defined times. 

Communicate

Most bosses don’t ask what their role is: it is to make sure their people are productive. This is not to say that most people want to push their subordinates to the limit of their sanity. If you explain your problem to your manager, there is a good chance that they will do something to help you better manage your business tasks. No one wants burnt out employees, so having a frank conversation about your situation can go a long way toward reducing your stress. 

While work isn’t always going to be easy, it doesn’t have to be so hard that you are tearing your hair out. Companies that choose to outsource some of their responsibilities have a tendency to see better productivity and efficiency than those that do everything in-house. The IT professionals at Reciprocal Technologies provide a lot of value with our managed IT services and can help you have a more efficient and effective workplace culture. Give us a call at (317) 759-3972 to learn more.

from: https://reciprocaltech.com/blog/tip-of-the-week-mellow-out-when-things-arent-going-your-way/

Beginners Guide to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

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Our world is increasingly driven by data, which means the global regulations that govern data are reaching new heights of importance. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is such a regulation and has been in effect since 2018. It sets out clear requirements for how companies should securely collect, use, store, and manage personal data of EU citizens while ensuring they remain compliant in their everyday processes. For businesses unfamiliar with GDPR compliance, this can appear as an intimidating prospect. In this guide to GDPR compliance, we will provide an overview of what the regulation entails and share actionable tips on how beginners can get up to speed with meeting its requirements.

GDPR: What Does it Stand For?

GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation. It is an EU legislation that was designed to standardize data protection laws across member states. The GDPR was approved by the European Union in April 2016 and went into effect in May 2018. It replaces the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC and applies to all individuals within the European Economic Area (EEA) regardless of their citizenship or residence.

The purpose of GDPR is to give individuals more control over their personal data by increasing transparency and accountability of organizations that process data. The regulation sets out clear requirements for how companies must securely collect, use, store, and manage personal data of EU citizens while ensuring they remain compliant in their everyday processes. GDPR sets the minimum standards for data protection, but individual member states can add additional requirements. Failing to comply with GDPR can result in a financial penalty of up to 4% of annual global turnover or €20 million, whichever is higher. As such, it is essential for organizations to understand the GDPR and take the necessary steps to comply with the regulation.

What Exactly is GDPR Compliance?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a comprehensive set of regulations passed by the European Union (EU) designed to give EU citizens control over their personal data. It applies to any entity that processes the personal data of EU citizens, regardless of their physical location. GDPR Compliance involves meeting all obligations set out in the regulation including managing customer data securely, providing customers with access to the data held about them, and providing notices about the data collected.

Businesses are responsible for understanding what personal data is processed, for what purpose, and where it is stored. They must ensure that appropriate technical and organizational measures are in place to protect the data from unauthorized access and any other forms of misuse. This includes implementing encryption of personal data, preventing data loss, and conducting regular security reviews. In addition, companies must provide customers with access to their data and must be transparent about how the data is used. Companies must also provide customers with the right to access, rectify, and erase their own data.

Overall, GDPR compliance requires companies to implement the necessary policies and processes to ensure customer data is secure and handled responsibly. Companies must also be vigilant in monitoring their data practices and taking any necessary action to remain compliant with the GDPR. By following the GDPR regulations, companies can ensure that they meet the rights of EU citizens and protect them against any potential misuse of their personal data.

Who Does GDPR Compliance Apply to?

GDPR compliance applies to any company that collects, processes, or stores the personal data of EU citizens, regardless of the company’s location. This means that companies in the United States, Asia, and any other region around the world may be subject to the GDPR if they process EU citizens’ data. Companies must abide by the GDPR’s requirements if they are deemed data controllers or processors. Data controllers determine the purpose and means of processing the personal data of EU citizens, while processors are responsible for actually processing the data on behalf of the controllers. The GDPR is meant to protect the fundamental right to privacy for EU citizens, and so the regulation applies to any business that could potentially infringe upon that right. Companies must take the necessary steps to ensure they are compliant with the GDPR to avoid any potential fines or other consequences.

Tips for Remaining GDPR Compliant

The first step to GDPR compliance is understanding the regulation itself. While the full text of the regulation can be intimidating, there are a few core concepts that must be understood. First, GDPR applies to all organizations that collect, store, or process personal data of EU citizens, regardless of their physical location. Second, personal data is any information related to an identifiable individual and includes names, addresses, contact details, IP addresses, and biometric data. Finally, GDPR requires organizations to be transparent with their data practices, as they must provide notifications to customers around data collection, obtain consent for data processing, and ensure that data is collected and stored securely.

Once the regulation is understood, the next step is to review and update existing data collection and processing policies. Companies should ensure that they are obtaining consent for the collection of data, regularly reviewing the accuracy and relevance of their data, and providing clear notices to customers around data collection, like outlining how the company uses their personal data and how they can exercise their rights to access, amend, and delete their data. Companies should also ensure that they are taking steps to protect their customers’ data, like using encryption and secure passwords, and limiting access to personal data only to those who need it. Finally, companies should also have a process in place for responding to data requests and reporting data breaches. By taking these steps, companies can ensure that they remain compliant with GDPR and protect their customers’ data.

Conclusion

Adhering to GDPR requirements is now more important than ever. Companies need to take the necessary steps to guarantee they are up-to-date and compliant with the regulation, or else face hefty fines. To ensure customer data safety, businesses should implement processes such as employee training, strong policies, and reliable technologies. With the proper understanding and preparation, organizations can remain in line with GDPR regulations while also safeguarding their customers’ information.

from: https://reciprocaltech.com/blog/beginners-guide-to-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr-compliance/

Email Encryption Keeps Prying Eyes Off of Your Messages

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Email is crucial to the success of any business, but it also might contain sensitive information that is meant for the eyes of your organization—and its clients—only. Most modern email platforms give you tools you need to secure your email solution, so let’s go over how you might enable these features and what they look like.

For the purposes of this blog, we’ll use Gmail and Microsoft Outlook as the main examples. Of course, you can rely on us if you have further questions about your IT security, or IT solutions in general.

How to Secure Emails in Gmail

There are a couple of options at your disposal for Gmail. For example, you can seal an email using a password that is delivered to a designated phone number. This is Confidential Mode, and it’s one way you can guarantee that the message is only readable by the intended recipient. Furthermore, they cannot copy, forward, download, or print the message.

Here are the steps you need to take, outlined below:

• Open Gmail and start a new message by clicking Compose
• You’ll find a small lock icon at the bottom of the message window. Clicking it will activate Confidential Mode.
• You can then set an expiration date for your message, with the options One day, One week, One month, Three months, or Five years.
• You can then protect your encrypted message via an SMS Passcode, where you set the access code and can have it sent directly to the recipient’s mobile device. If you skip the password option by selecting No Passcode, recipients will only be able to view the message, not download or copy from it.

This process applies to each of the attachments on the email, so you can really get a lot of value from this protection.

Businesses using a paid Google Workspace account can also use encryption (S/MIME, or Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) to protect their emails. This is because they are hosted on a dedicated email server and you can implement such advanced features.

How to Secure Emails in Outlook

Outlook also comes with a feature to protect your emails, but it’s called Open Message Encryption. It’s something you can access through any email provider, and it can help to protect your messages from interception or being forwarded and/or printed by the recipient. It’s also quite simple to implement.

In the Outlook Web App:

• Start a new message by clicking the New message button.
• Click the Encrypt button you’ll find in the message window.
• Above the To button, you’ll see the option to Change permissions. Select it.
• You’ll be able to select the appropriate level of permissions for that message.
• Complete your message, and click Send.

In the Outlook Desktop App:

• Navigate to the Home tab and select New Email.
• A message window will appear. Click into the Options tab.
• Click into Permissions, and select the appropriate permissions to apply to the message.
• Complete your message, and click Send.

Consider All Available Security Options

If you want assistance with any and all security options for your network, be sure to contact Reciprocal Technologies at (317) 759-3972.

from: https://reciprocaltech.com/blog/email-encryption-keeps-prying-eyes-off-of-your-messages/

Maximizing Productivity with VoIP Features: Auto Attendant, Call Forwarding, and More

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VoIP technology has revolutionized the way businesses communicate, offering productivity tools and features designed to streamline operations. VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) allows businesses to make and receive calls from any phone in their building or remotely, without relying on traditional telephone systems. Common VoIP features include auto attendant, call forwarding, call routing, caller ID blocking, and more—these all combine to provide clear communication between parties involved. In this article, we will discuss these features in detail and explain how they can be used to maximize business productivity. 

Video and Voice Calls 

At its core, VoIP is an innovative and cost-effective way for businesses to make and receive calls through the internet, without relying on traditional telephone systems. The use of VoIP eliminates the need for costly and complex hardware, allowing businesses to focus on their core operations instead of managing telecommunications infrastructure. Whether it’s for video or voice calls, VoIP allows businesses to enjoy clear communication, manage their contacts, and save money on their telecommunications costs. 

Automated Attendants 

Auto attendants are a core VoIP feature and an integral way to maximize productivity in the workplace. By automatically connecting incoming callers to the proper departments or personnel, auto attendants ensure that calls are answered promptly and do not go unanswered. This saves time and resources as calls are not misplaced or lost in the system. Auto attendants also allow organizations to customize their calls; they can create custom ring enunciations that are specific to the departments within their organization. This helps to route calls easily and quickly to the right party, eliminating the need to manually route and redirect calls. 

Call Monitoring 

Call Monitoring allows businesses to monitor their calls to ensure customer service and quality assurance standards are met. This feature can also allow supervisors and managers to listen in on calls with employees or customers to provide coaching and feedback. Call monitoring also allows businesses to record calls for training and review purposes, which is especially beneficial for customer service departments where employees must adhere to specific scripts and best practices. 

Audio & Video Conferencing 

Audio & Video Conferencing is one of the most popular and productive features of VoIP technology. This feature allows users to communicate and collaborate through audio and video calls, eliminating the need to travel by allowing you to have meetings with multiple people in separate locations at the same time. VoIP’s audio and video conferencing also supports other features such as whiteboarding, screen sharing, text chat, and more, giving employees the tools to deliver presentations, share documents, and discuss complex topics in real time. This is an effective way to increase team collaboration and ensure that everyone is on the same page. 

Bottom Line

VoIP technology is an invaluable tool for businesses looking to maximize their productivity. With features like auto attendant, call forwarding, call routing, and caller ID blocking, businesses can ensure that their communication is both efficient and secure. Furthermore, custom ring enunciations provide an individualized touch to each department’s calls, allowing businesses to make sure that each call is delivered to the right person. With VoIP, businesses can ensure that their communication is both fast and secure, while taking advantage of the increased productivity and cost savings that come with digital technology. 

from: https://reciprocaltech.com/blog/maximizing-productivity-with-voip-features-auto-attendant-call-forwarding-and-more/

The Evolution of Internet Speeds

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With the Internet cementing itself as one of the best tools to get work done, it’s easy to forget just how sluggish it used to be back when it first became available for use. Internet speeds have undergone some dramatic shifts over the years, so let’s remember the good old days when it took ages to do just about anything with it.

Internet speeds are measured in megabits. 1,000 kilobits (technically 1,024 KB) is equivalent to 1 megabit and 1,000 megabits (technically 1,024 MB) is equivalent to 1 gigabit. Keep these numbers in mind as we discuss Internet speeds and their development over the years.

Dial Up

Can you believe that it’s only been about 25 years since the Internet became widely accessible in offices and homes? It was first introduced to the mass market through the use of dial up Internet, which used the phone line to connect. In the 1990s, people would have one telephone line for both the telephone and the computer. If an individual wanted to connect to the Internet, they would be charged for long distance—even if the “call” was to the next village or city over.

Around 2000, the average modem was 56 KB/s with an uninterrupted signal. A one-megabyte image would take about 20 seconds to download. This snail’s-pace speed by today’s standards was enough to make instant messaging and email possible, but other media-based activities would take days or weeks to transmit across the connection.

DSL

“High-speed” Internet became popular as we moved into the 2000s. DSL, or Digital Subscriber Line, utilized cable connections, allowing ISPs to transmit data at much faster speeds compared to dial up. The bandwidth of a cable was able to transfer much more data compared to the traditional telephone wire. In fact, DSL was so revolutionary that it still makes up the vast majority of connections you’ll find out there. A DSL connection is capable of delivering speeds of up to 100 MB/s, but realistically, it is more likely to be around the 5 MB-to-20 MB/s range.

This large increase in speed allows for much more in terms of the work you can do. Cloud-hosted email, for example, can be utilized with these speeds, along with music streaming and website browsing. Around 2010, when DSL became widely available, there was a huge burst of application development utilizing the speeds—a new trend which is still happening to this day. Even video streaming, in the grand scheme of things, is quite new, but it wouldn’t have been possible without the inception of DSL connections.

Fiber Optic

Of course, there is also the fiber optic cable option, which is what many of today’s fastest Internet speeds utilize. Fiber optic uses light to transmit data, and is therefore much faster than DSL connections. DSL cable systems lose speed and performance the farther the signal must go, but with fiber optic, Internet speeds and bandwidth are exponentially better. Fiber optic is capable of speeds of up to tens of gigabits per second. Absolutely wild stuff.

Mobile computing has only further changed this fact, as people rely more on Wi-Fi signals than ever before. Otherwise people would be exceeding their data caps more frequently. Fiber has given people access to much faster connections—connections that systems and businesses rely on to function. It’s made working from home easier and more efficient, online schooling and telehealth more accessible, real-time data collection much simpler, and communication and collaboration more reliable.

If you’re curious about your current Internet speeds (and you should be), you can use free Internet speed test applications, like the one found at https://www.speedtest.net/. This should give you a decent enough look at your Internet speed, and if you find it’s not up to snuff, you can call us at (317) 759-3972. We can’t increase the speed of your connection—that responsibility falls to your Internet service provider—but we can optimize your network and the hardware around it to make sure you’re not losing speed from things within your control, like blocked modems, network bottlenecks, and the like.

from: https://reciprocaltech.com/blog/the-evolution-of-internet-speeds/

Today’s Businesses Shouldn’t Go Without a VPN

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Let me ask you a question: how do you balance the prevalence of remote work with the fact that a lot of company resources should only be stored on-site? A VPN—or virtual private network—provides the answer for many businesses. Let’s examine what a VPN actually is, and how it helps to protect your business’ data as you access it from outside of your business’ secure network.

So, What is a VPN?

In simple terms, a VPN is a dedicated network connection specifically configured to send and receive data securely. This means that, since you don’t want your business’ data visible to the world, it is critical such a connection is used when your team is remotely accessing your local network. By putting a VPN in place, you can ensure that your entire organization has access to a secure connection that will connect them to whatever data they are authorized to access.

How Does a VPN Work?

The key to a VPN’s inherent security is the encryption that is applied to your data as it is in transit. By encrypting the data as it travels, all a snooping hacker will be able to see is a jumbled mess, protecting your information. The VPN even hides your location, giving our hypothetical hacker effectively nothing to work with.

Why Do You Need a VPN?

It all comes down to trust, and the lack of it that you should have for public Wi-Fi connections. While undeniably intended to be convenient, public hotspots like those you’d find in an airport or your favorite coffee place just aren’t nearly secure enough to entrust your data to. Using a VPN allows you to take advantage of this convenience without this otherwise deal-breaking security tradeoff influencing your business.

Your data is more than information, after all—it’s what keeps your business going. As such, losing it or having it compromised could mean you could potentially lose your business. Planning ahead can help prevent this, especially with the help of Reciprocal Technologies and our team of IT pros. We’ll set you up with a VPN and the rest of the technology needed to enable secure and productive work wherever you may be.

Give us a call at (317) 759-3972 to learn more.

from: https://reciprocaltech.com/blog/todays-businesses-shouldnt-go-without-a-vpn/

Tip of the Week: Five Simple Steps Towards a More Productive Business

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If asked, most business owners would likely rank “improving productivity” as one of their overall business goals—and for obvious reasons. Often less obvious, however, is how to go about accomplishing this particular goal. Here, we’ve put together five different but equally effective ways to do so.

Include Wellness Initiatives in Your Benefits

It should come as no surprise that any person’s productivity is going to be intrinsically tied to their overall state of being. Do they feel healthy? Are they stressed? Research has shown that the answers to these questions are directly tied to workplace performance, and it probably won’t shock you to hear that the better off your employees are, the more your business tends to benefit from it.

Therefore, any investment that you make into the overall well-being of your team can be considered, at least tangentially, an investment back into your business. Consider adding support for fitness programs and other holistic health activities into your benefits package if at all possible, and try to shape your company culture to focus more on your team’s well-being.

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify

What do your current business goals and objectives look like? What strategies do you have in place to accomplish these goals and objectives? While everyone loves it when a plan comes together, making that plan too convoluted only makes it less attainable.

When establishing business goals on any scale, you really do want to keep it simple. A straightforward plan with clear and achievable benchmarks established makes it far easier to not only communicate this goal, but determine the benchmarks and tasks that need to be met and fulfilled in order to accomplish it. A good way to do this is to follow the SMART goal format:

• Specific – What exactly is it that you want to achieve or accomplish?
• Measurable – Which metrics will determine your success?
• Attainable – Is the goal or benchmark you’re setting something that can realistically be accomplished?
• Relevant – Why is it that this goal is important to the greater mission or purpose you are striving towards?
• Timely – When specifically should this goal be accomplished?

Following this format will help you to make simpler, and critically, more effective goals for your team to strive for.

Streamline Notorious Time Wasters

On a related note, we all know that there are certain things in the office that eat up time—and sometimes, these things don’t necessarily need to be involved when there are alternatives available. Does a conversation really require a full meeting, or could it be conveyed perfectly well through an email, or even an instant message? Has a certain process grown to be too clunky to actually be of any value? Identifying these kinds of time sinks and reevaluating your approach can help nurture more opportunities to accomplish other things.

Likewise, it is important to strike a balance in your company culture. While the type of casual conversation associated with the water cooler is important (some might argue, critical) for team morale and collaboration, it is important not to overcorrect and have camaraderie turn into commotion. The same goes for activities like personal social media usage during work hours. Limiting these potential distractions to a reasonable, healthy level can help keep employees more engaged while actively working.

Invest Time in Evaluating Your Goals

Back on the subject of your business’ goals, you don’t want yours to go stale. Circumstances change all the time. Your goals might have to do the same in response. Make sure you are taking the time every so often to examine your progress towards accomplishing the benchmarks you’ve set and making tweaks to account for the situation you are in at a given time. Let’s say you had set a goal—ideally, using the SMART method described above—that pertained to a certain project, but the team member who was leading the charge suddenly had to go on leave. How will you adapt your process to account for this change, and how will this impact the goal you’ve set? Checking in and reconsidering what is reasonable will help you be more productive by simply maintaining your team’s motivation.

Discourage Hustle Culture

Hustle culture may sound like something to strive for to reach maximum productivity, but the opposite is often true. “Rise and grind,””work hard, play hard,””your goals don’t care how you feel,” and other mantras like them don’t always inspire productivity the way they can inspire workplace burnout and disconnection.

Want to know what can inspire and enable productivity? Things like a healthy work/life balance, breaks, and vacation time. It all ties back to the wellness aspects we discussed earlier. A well-rested and refreshed worker is a worker who can usually accomplish more than one who is, to use another maxim, “burning the candle at both ends.”

We’re Here to Provide the Technology to Support Greater Productivity, Collaboration, and Flexibility

Give us a call at (317) 759-3972 to learn more about what we can do to optimize your business’ operations today.

from: https://reciprocaltech.com/blog/tip-of-the-week-five-simple-steps-towards-a-more-productive-business/