Working from home has been technologically feasible for decades, but it has also come with its fair share of hurdles and roadblocks. Especially in regards to employee visibility, monitoring productivity, and holding the “remote worker” accountable for their work-related responsibilities. Managing remote employees and maintaining business as usual is a sizeable feat. While it can most certainly be done—being proficient at it requires a mental leap for traditionally minded managers. Business leaders can no longer monitor productivity based upon workers’ “desk time” and visible activity levels and in most cases have to implement new and invasive reporting strategies in order to monitor remote productivity properly.

With the current global state most managers have had to pivot to virtual work environment and that requires a re-calibration on how to lead their now remote teams effectively. There are many good use cases for VDI, but perhaps none is more compelling than work-from-home companies managing remote employees. Whatever the frequency, IT departments can use virtual desktops to keep work-from-home employees in a controlled and secure environment and provide management with the necessary tools to increase employee productivity and transparency.

The Benefits of using Virtual Desktops with RMM.

Remote monitoring and management (RMM) is an IT management software that gives IT professionals a “single pane of glass” visibility to all end-user devices on a network in real time, streamlining system health and performance checks across IT infrastructure. RMM software allows administrators to manage multiple endpoints from a single console, including login activity, the installation of software, file sharing & activity reporting, keystrokes and even detection of new devices. It also allows you to proactively identify and resolve potential problems remotely, without physically sending a technician to the scene. It also enables your team to remain in the background as they fix issues, rather than take over an entire device system. Remote monitoring and access gives your team extensive visibility and a wide range of tools. This approach to IT maintenance allows businesses to focus on their core competencies, while IT experts monitors their systems. RMM provides specific benefits in five key areas.

1.) Increased Productivity and Accountability:

By using virtual desktops, remote employees have access to all of their business-critical applications, software and files in a secure location from any device. This type of IT management solution often allows its employees to use a thin client by storing data and applications on a cloud platform.  This provides consistent performance whether they are working onsite for a day or working from home. Your VDI implementation may allow you to have a single “golden” image. Changes to this image will be propagated to each user’s image. This ensures your entire workforce has the exact suite of applications they need and that every device is kept up to date. It also means you can control the security measures that are used and how often checks are performed to keep the work environments safe (more on this below).

2.) Improved Security & Business Continuity:

Security is one of the biggest challenges that work-from-home companies run into, and it’s yet another area that VDI can address. As mentioned previously, data partitioning or only giving user’s access to specific files and folders ensures an organizational level of data security. Additionally, VDIs that are run in a private cloud like TetherView are accessed from a single point—this reduces the need for VPNs and the points of failure that come with end to end computing. Managers and IT teams can receive and array of reports ranging from files/folders accessed by users to download reports. Moreover, managers and IT teams can disable USB devices. This ensures sensitive data is not downloaded or stored on a user’s personal device. With RMM constant monitoring reduces the risk of system failure (or downtime), as your team receives information immediately and can fix any potential issues in the early stages. Through remote, in-the-background monitoring and fixing, your clients experience less disruption during the servicing process. In addition, proactive monitoring and preemptive issue resolution make for long-lasting, high-performing devices, as well as increased network stability.

3.) Reduced Maintenance:

Another key advantage to utilizing RMM is reducing overall maintenance. RMM software can handle much of the routine maintenance that an IT system requires. By automating tasks like updates and patching, an RMM can help boost the productivity of your technicians. It also reduces labor costs, allowing your technicians to support a greater number of clients and solve complex tasks as efficiently as possible. Through proactively monitoring client endpoints and automating simple tasks, an RMM allows your technicians to spend more time on proactive maintenance, minimizing client downtime—and sending their trust and satisfaction through the roof. In addition, RMM is capable of patching all the necessary applications and running extensive reports for tracking. RMM software can make patching quick and easy, blacklisting patches with errors and testing all patches before deploying. It also provides the data in one centralized location, making information easy to find, reducing employee training costs and speeding up your service delivery.

In Summary, a punch list of the benefits of RMM Tool:

RMM Tools Help(s):

• Small and medium businesses (SMBs) with enterprise-level automation and monitoring
• Detect issues before they cause crises or critical system failure
• The systematic management of clients’ IT requirements
• Ensure optimal network stability
• Enhance performance of clients’ systems
• Extend life span of clients’ systems and devices
• Ensure better end-user productivity
• Clients get better customer loyalty and satisfaction
• MSPs keep client-related issues under control or avoid issues and thereby ensure higher profit margins
• MSPs expand their client base and provide better service

Here are some of the ways TetherView utilizes RMM to enable our clients:

• Gather insight about client networks- includes gaining information about machine health and status and supplying reports and data about client systems/networks
• Maintain client systems and keep them up to date
• Track issues and resolve them remotely. This is done by generating alerts (tickets) and resolving issues
• Resolve issues even before clients notice them
• Remotely administer patches and install software and updates using a single, unified dashboard
• Helps administer tasks simultaneously to many systems at once from a remote location
• Automate scheduled maintenance tasks at clients’ locations