Hello everyone, I hope I came to the right place to ask my stupid question. I’m currently working in a company that stuck way way back in time. I’m talking some people are still working in DOS level back in time. There is some revamping of this in progres, but it’s going to be a long run.
The “IT department” (called computing department, lol) consist basically of 2 people, boss and me. Boss loves the old days, he’s “happily” using Win XP on his computer and hates everything newer than Win7, although half of everything he tries to do doesn’t work there anymore (and don’t even start with security of the OS). Anyway… that’s about the company background and what to expect.
During currently ongoing upgrades to get this company at least to 21st cwntury, there will be some sw licencing happening. I’m expecting like buying dozens of Office 2021 keys and some other standalone soft too. But there’s problem with managing those keys, as there is no precedence, no rules and everything’s going to be from the scratch almost. People are coming and going, PCs are dying (remember, there are still some DOS machines), hard drives replacing, etc. etc. Windows domain? Not in this company. Ever.
So, how do you keep track of what is installed and where? Thank you very much.
Mobile Device Management software to keep track of what’s installed on devices (probably won’t work with DOS)
I personally use a password manager to keep track of software keys, but realistically you should probably look for a way to get licenses that doesn’t involve typing a key everywhere.
MD is a great idea to promote during this transition.
I’ve found you also need a company system that is independent of system management tools - some places use a help desk ticketing system, some use a change management system.
Some friends in the SMB space use a single system for their company (IT consulting firms) to track their clients, client hardware purchase dates, contracts, warranty, every change they make, Admin accounts, device ID’s, their billable time, etc.
This way all info on a client is maintained in a single place in case (this is the important bit) you get hit by a bus.
That’s a common refrain - “what happens if bob gets hit by a bus?”. Can’t have any knowledge dependent upon a single person, everything needs to be maintained in a single, accessible form, hosted on company servers and backed up.
Being a small operation, this could be a hard sell. Maybe an open-source help desk solution that you can host internally would be acceptible. The hardest part with that is defining roles and who has access to what.
Something you may consider - small orgs have difficulty documenting their systems (basically it’s a lack of manpower, you got shit to do, and documentation seems unimportant). Since there’s a transition, it would be incredibly useful to introduce requirements gathering and documentation. A typical model defines Business Requirements, which are mapped to System Requirements, which are then mapped to Technical Requirements (e.g. One Business Requirement will often map to several System Requirements, which usually map to multiple Technical Requirements).
Look into Business Systems Analysis, there’s some intro docs out there for how to do this, it’s pretty straightforward, and you don’t have to do all the detail, just having some documentation is better than none.
Thanks for deep reply. I’ll chew through it.
Documentation is non-existent now and that’s what bothers me the most. I, at least, started to put my agenda and acquired how-tos to plain txt files for future, because with so much shit going on I tend to forget stuff. I’d like to extend it and make it system-wide to cover all the IT related stuff in the company with some proper software to do it in (no idea which). But there’s virtually no way this lack of documentation will change dramatically anytime soon. There’s simply no will from higher ups and even if there was, there would be no manpower to do it :-( We’re barely holding things running.