Minnetonka Teleworkers Integration Consultants

Expanding your telecommuter workforce can have a major impact on network architecture, security/compliance, and company workflows. Progent has two decades of experience helping SMBs to design, configure, manage, optimize, and debug IT environments that support at-home workers. Progent can help your Minnetonka organization to pick the appropriate tools and adhere to leading practices in creating and operating a secure virtual office solution for telecommuters that promotes collaboration and delivers maximum business value. Progent can provide services ranging from as-needed guidance for helping you past challenging technical bottlenecks to full project management to help you successfully complete mission-critical tasks.

Progent can assist Minnetonka, Minnesota businesses to succeed with any aspect of building a high-performing work-from-home ecosystem by providing network infrastructure design and configuration services, IP voice expertise, voice/video conferencing support, collaboration platform customization and training, cloud integration, Help Desk outsourcing, cybersecurity, data protection solutions, and unified management.

Infrastructure for Telecommuters
Setting up the physical and software infrastructure required for a remote workforce can be particularly complicated if you have to manage a mix of personal equipment like PCs and laptops, routers, and Wi-Fi appliances from an assortment of vendors and with a mix of OS software and firmware levels. Progent's experience providing online help for both legacy as well as modern technologies in remote office solutions enables you to make cost-effective use of your existing infrastructure and provides you with fast access to top-tire consultants for making essential upgrades. Support services offered by Progent to assist you to create a productive work-at-home infrastructure include:

• Virtual Private Network (VPN) connectivity makes it possible to establish a secure connection for authenticated at-home workers to use IT resources situated at your corporate datacenter or in the cloud. Progent can help your company to deploy and maintain VPN connections between your at-home workforce and your various network resources by providing online VPN integration consulting. For businesses with Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco-certified ASA consultants can help your remote workers to utilize Cisco's AnyConnect software for secure VPN tunneling for a wide selection of endpoint devices including Microsoft Windows, macOS, Apple iOS, Linux, and Google Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) products allow a telecommuter to see and use a data center PC's desktop. This technology gives network managers more control over the digital environment of at-home employees and ensures them a consistent and more productive experience. Progent's VDI consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI solutions.
• Routers connect home networks to the Internet and support VPN tunnels, home Wi-Fi connectivity, and firewalls. Progent can provide top-tier remote support for configuring home routers from all major vendors. See router configuration support from Cisco-certified consultants.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, often shared by the whole family and visitors, are frequently utilized by telecommuters to connect to their router for work. This can cause throughput as well as security issues. Progent can assist businesses to mitigate these problems by delivering expertise like Aironet configuration expertise, Cisco-certified Meraki WiFi installation consulting, and Ubiquiti Unifi wireless access point integration help.
• Internet connectivity methods impact the performance and reliability of connections between telecommuters and the corporate network. Mission-critical applications may require redundant Internet access in case the primary connection fails. Progent can provide expertise for selecting service providers, picking sensible service offerings, and integrating high-availability Internet connections. See Internet access integration services.

IP Voice Integration for At-Home Workers
Expanding the company PBX system to include teleworkers is vital to maintaining a productive work-at-home solution. A variety of cloud-based digital PBX products are popular with SMBs to support telecommuters. Many larger organizations depend on Cisco's modern or legacy products for VoIP management. Progent can assist organizations of all sizes to design or tune a telecommuter IP voice environment that provides the versatility, transparency and protection required for teleworkers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE IP Voice experts can provide high-level support to help businesses tune their existing Cisco IP voice systems to handle a growing remote workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM or CUCM) extends enterprise telephony capabilities to devices like IP phones, media processing platforms, VoIP gateways, and multimedia software deployed throughout the network. Unified Communications Manager manages other combined media services like messaging, voice/video conferencing, and customer collaboration networks. For details about Progent's CUCM expertise, refer to Cisco Unified Communications Manager expertise.
• CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing software and has been replaced by Cisco Unified CM or CUCM. Progent's consultants can help you to maintain your existing CallManager deployment or upgrade smoothly to Cisco's current IP telephony solutions. For details about Progent's expertise for CallManager and Cisco's other older IP voice platforms, see Cisco CallManager expertise.
• Cisco IP Gateways enable integration with PSTN networks and with clients working outside the corporate firewall such as at-home workers. Progent offers consulting expertise for Cisco's earlier generation IP gateways including the UC520, UC540 and UC560 product lines as well as for modern Cisco SIP gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway integration consulting.
• Additional VoIP Products supported by Progent's consultants include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can help you to enhance your wide area network infrastructure to support these solutions and deliver as-needed configuration and troubleshooting services.

Voice/Video Conferencing for Telecommuters
A wide selection of video conferencing platforms from major technology companies enable online meetings, video conferencing, chat sessions, and screen/content sharing for both onsite workers and telecommuters. Many organizations use multiple conferencing products to meet the needs of their various partners and clients. Progent can assist you to maintain your existing conferencing environment and optimize the experience of your at-home employees.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular communications platform that enables real-time presence, instant messaging, voice and video conferencing plus the seamless integration of these capabilities within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 productivity software such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Outlook. Progent offers the expertise of Microsoft-certified specialists who can assist your company to configure and maintain Skype for Business client software to support your at-home employees. For details about Progent's consulting services for Skype for Business, see Skype for Business integration experts.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video calling app for compatible iOS, iPadOS, iPod and macOS devices. FaceTime works on Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Newer editions of FaceTime allow up to 32 simultaneous users for voice/video calls. To learn more about Progent's support expertise for FaceTime, visit Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center provides online conferencing for most computing devices. Offered via Cisco's Webex Cloud platform, Webex capabilities include sharing discrete content or computer screens, presentations that incorporate rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Flash videos, session recording, plus editing and playback for future reference and training. To learn more about Progent's support expertise for Cisco Webex as well as for additional video conferencing products from Cisco, see Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's next-generation replacement for Skype for Business. Teams provides a portal for conversations, contacts, and information with features such as voice/video calling, persistent chat, plus data sharing. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Teams as well as for additional Microsoft 365 apps, visit Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Additional Conferencing Platforms supported by Progent include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can deliver configuration and troubleshooting services for these conferencing platforms and assist you to optimize your WAN infrastructure to host them.

Microsoft Collaboration Platforms for Telecommuters
Microsoft's collaboration products are tightly integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office and Microsoft 365 families, offering a powerful ecosystem of productivity apps that create a cohesive user experience for sharing information throughout a corporate network and on a wide range of endpoint devices. Progent has delivered remote consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange since their initial releases and can assist businesses to configure these flagship collaboration products to optimize the productivity of your at-home workforce.

Microsoft's collaboration platforms are tightly integrated with Microsoft's popular Office suite, providing a rich ecosystem of applications that deliver a consistent user experience for sharing information across multiple sites and on a wide variety of endpoint devices. Progent has provided remote consulting services for SharePoint and Exchange since their initial releases and can help at-home workers set up and use these flagship collaboration platforms to maximize productivity.

Microsoft Teams works on top of Microsoft 365 and supports third-party cloud services to provide real-time collaboration. Developed as a replacement for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams can enable chat, video meetings that include screen sharing, phone calls, cloud voicemail, group email, plus file and app sharing. Teams is tightly integrated with Microsoft 365 and relies on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Entra (previously called Azure Active Directory) for supporting its complete range of capabilities. For details about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams, visit planning and deployment expertise for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium.

SharePoint uses web sites to enable collaboration and knowledge delivery by providing policy-driven delivery of data, business processes, and utilities for searching through enterprise-wide business data. SharePoint enables you to build protected web portals that enables remote workforce to see and update consolidated business intelligence via Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). To find out about Progent's SharePoint consulting expertise, see SharePoint integration and development consulting.

Exchange and Exchange Online offer secure collaboration features including public folders, shared mailboxes, and shared calendars and contacts. Progent's Microsoft certified Exchange experts can show you how to activate and utilize these features for your at-home workers. For details about Progent's Exchange consulting expertise, visit deployment consulting for Microsoft Exchange Server.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s shared cloud-based storage service, comparable to GoogleDrive. At-home workers can save files to OneDrive, and colleagues anywhere can share them safely through a web browser. Provided with Office 365, OneDrive enables at-home employees to jointly author files. Revisions created offline are automatically uploaded when you go back online. To find out about Progent's support services for Microsoft OneDrive, see Microsoft Onedrive integration consulting.

Public Cloud Integration for Teleworkers
Progent offers advanced online assistance for helping businesses to create, manage and troubleshoot cohesive network architectures that incorporate internal data centers, teleworkers, branches, and public cloud resources. Progent offers top-tier consultant for all types of cloud service such as Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service. Progent can help teleworkers fix problems with cloud access, identity, and cybersecurity.

Microsoft Azure is a popular family of cloud services that enables you to use infrastructure, servers, and critical applications hosted on Microsoft's extensive cloud. Azure offers more than 100 services services including the ability to host Windows and Linux-powered VMs, on-demand cloud storage, messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and backup/restore. Progent can help you to deploy virtual machines on Azure Virtual Machines, configure storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity management with Azure AD, and design backup and restore systems with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also help you establish secure connections to Azure services for telecommuters by configuring and troubleshooting firewall appliances and VPN tunnels. To learn about Progent's expertise for Microsoft Azure, see Microsoft Azure expertise.

Microsoft 365, formerly branded Office 365, is Microsoft's popular family of client productivity software and cloud services available by subscription. Office applications and cloud services are provided in a variety of plans designed for customers ranging from individuals and households to large enterprises. Progent can provide fast and affordable remote contact with experts familiar with Microsoft 365-compatible endpoints running Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android technology. Progent's experts can help your business to evaluate the numerous subscription plans available for Microsoft 365 and configure 365 applications for your teleworkers to achieve maximum business value. For details about Progent's support services for Microsoft 365, refer to Microsoft 365 integration expertise.

Exchange Online is among the most popular applications in the Microsoft 365 product suite. Exchange Online offers the benefits of lower costs for physical infrastructure, simplified management, dynamic scaling, high reliability, and other advantages associated with public clouds. Microsoft has designed Exchange Online to run transparently with local deployments of Exchange, enabling you to create hybrid cloud/onsite information systems. Progent's certified Exchange consultants can provide as-needed help to get you past challenging IT bottlenecks and can also provide comprehensive project management services to ensure your telecommuters have easy and secure access to your Exchange Online deployment. For details Progent's consulting expertise for Exchange Online, visit Exchange Online integration and troubleshooting expertise.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a pioneer in the public cloud arena and is the industry's top source of cloud-based services. Progent can provide rapid and affordable online access to cloud integration experts who can help your business to design, deploy, manage, and troubleshoot hybrid IT networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with local resources and with other popular cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure. Progent also can provide access to Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to help your company to create a high-uptime network architecture so your employees have a consistent computing experience whether they are working from your headquarters, a remote branch, at home, or on the road. For details about Progent's consulting services for Amazon AWS, refer to Amazon AWS consulting support.

Google Cloud is a popular collection of cloud computing services that provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco experts can help your organization to extend your current IT assets with the Google Cloud Platform, and Progent's DBA consultants can help you make your mission-critical applications cloud ready so your at-home workers can take full advantage of Google Cloud services. Progent's consultants can assist your business to set up VMs on Google Cloud Compute Engine, design an efficient storage system with Google Cloud Storage, and streamline identity management for telecommuters with GCP Cloud Identity. Progent can also assist your business to use GCP's management technology to control and track your GCP ecosystem. To find out, refer to Google Cloud Platform integration services.

Help Desk Support for At-Home Workers
A fast, company-wide changeover to a telecommuter workforce, which might be motivated by an epidemic or as an element of a disaster recovery/business continuity plan, can overstretch even the most efficient in-house Support Desk. Progent's Help Desk services make it possible for organizations to outsource or augment their Help Desk Call Center by using Progent's remote Technical Response Center services.

• Progent's Standard Help Desk Call Center services utilize Progent's nationwide network of remote IT support experts along with enterprise-class ticketing and follow-up software to offer an economical, state-of-the-art Help Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide a comprehensive solution that addresses all aspects of remote Level 1 PC support from service requests through ticket creation, screen sharing, problem resolution, and reporting. A browser-based User's Service Portal allows from-home workers to track or revise the status of their active tickets, enter details, and append screen captures or relevant files. Desktop support services are provided at a significant discount off Progent's ordinary Level 1 desktop service charges, and Progent makes available the option of rapid hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 support specialists to resolve advanced problems. For details, see Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small companies.
• Progent's Support Desk Supplemental Service allows your business to augment your current Support Desk staff by splitting delivery of Call Center support services seamlessly between your in-house support organization and Progent's nationwide pool of desktop support technicians and subject matter specialists. Progent's co-managed Help Desk Call Center service is based on a collective support model utilizing the leading professional services automation (PSA) tool for managing help requests and ticketing, establishing ownership, tracking progress, and generating reports. For information about how Progent's Help Desk Augmentation Services can enable your company to deliver world-class IT support to your at-home employees, refer to Progent's Support Desk augmentation Services.

Security for At-Home Workers
Work-from-Home (WFH) staff members commonly utilize their own computers and usually work in an unsecured physical area. This situation increases their susceptibility to cyber attacks and calls for careful configuration of corporate firewalls, AV tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote endpoint monitoring, thorough end-user education, and the development of policies built on leading practices. Progent's veteran team of cybersecurity solutions consultants can help you to plan, configure and manage a compliant security solution that guards vital information resources in environments that include an at-home workforce.

Firewalls enable companies to build a network that can be securely accessed by on-premises users and by telecommuters, mobile workers, vendors, clients, and the public. Modern firewall devices allow you to assign and control appropriate access rights to different classes of users and to expand your IT network and modify your cybersecurity posture as your business evolves and as network attacks grow increasingly complex. Progent supports both new and legacy firewall appliances from all leading vendors like Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. For details about Progent's firewall support expertise, go to firewall configuration and support services.

Online Endpoint Monitoring makes it possible to track the various computers utilized by telecommuters and either block or identify and mitigate modern threats such as ransomware. With ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a small-footprint software agent is installed on each secured endpoint device, watching all activity and using advanced machine learning from SentinelOne to detect new attacks at inception. When a cyberattack is discovered, ProSight ASM immediately isolates the impacted endpoint device from the network to contain the malware. Because the ProSight Active Security Monitoring agent is self-contained, endpoint devices remain protected even when they are disconnected from the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. For more information about ProSight Active Security Monitoring, see remote endpoint monitoring for remote workers.

Progent's Duo authentication Services incorporate Cisco's Duo cloud technology to protect against stolen passwords by using two-factor authentication. Duo enables single-tap identity confirmation with Apple iOS, Google Android, and other personal devices. With Duo 2FA, when you sign into a secured application and enter your password you are asked to verify who you are on a unit that only you possess and that uses a separate network channel. A wide selection of devices can be utilized for this added means of ID validation including an iPhone or Android or wearable, a hardware/software token, a landline phone, etc. You may register multiple validation devices. To learn more about ProSight Duo identity authentication services, visit Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for an at-home workforce.

Security Audits can assess the vulnerability of your network to all classes of outside and internal security threats for an environment that incorporates remote workers. Progent can deploy remote, automated cybersecurity inventory software for quickly and affordably uncovering a broad range of security gaps that can be surfaced via the Internet. Progent's endpoint security assessment consulting services, which can be provided by security experts with advanced certifications such as CISA, ISSAP, and GIAC, can help your business to audit your processes and policies and assess your network infrastructure to enable you to implement top-level protection for your at-home workers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Pentest Platform is a cutting-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that can deliver automated testing of your at-home environment as well as your internal and perimeter networks to help you find, rank, remediate, and confirm cybersecurity vulnerabilities before threat actors can exploit them. Progent's pentest experts can help you to use NodeZero to carry out comprehensive penetration tests of your network perimeter and your internal IT infrastructure in order to evaluate your current security posture. Progent's NodeZero experts can also help you to harden your network security and can assist you to plan and implement a cohesive cybersecurity ecosystem that simplifies management and provides maximum protection for on-prem, multi-cloud, remote, and perimeter IT resources. To learn additional information about Progent's threat assessment solutions based on on NodeZero's penetration test products, refer to Consulting Support for NodeZero's Penetration Test Platform.

Download White Paper: Protecting a Work-From-Home (WFH) Environment
To view or download a white paper about key things to concentrate on for securing an IT environment that includes telecommuters, click:
Protecting a Work-From-Home (WFH) Network White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection Solutions for At-Home Workers
The field of Data Protection covers saving and recovering vital data in order to avoid data loss and minimize recovery time in the event of storage system problems due to equipment issues, software hiccups, operator mistakes, malware, or any other reason. Reliable data protection strategies can be especially difficult to design and maintain in hybrid networks that combine in-house data centers, cloud resources, and at-home workers.

• Backup/Recovery solutions for remote workers must cover multiple types of user-owned endpoints. Progent offers quick remote help from experts knowledgeable about a wide range of platforms for backing up Microsoft Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX powered servers and desktops as well as notebooks, tablets and smartphones. Popular backup/restore products maintained by Progent's backup/recovery experts include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, CrashPlan, Mozy, and Time Machine. To back up data distributed throughout a hybrid network, Progent offers ProSight Data Protection Services, a managed backup/recovery subscription service that uses cloud-based storage and includes granular recovery and unified management.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) strategies commonly anticipate scenarios that call for a quick changeover to telecommuting. Progent's senior disaster recovery preparedness consultants and business continuity specialists can help your company to develop, document and test a DR/BC strategy that includes the process of moving to telecommuting.

Unified Management for Telecommuters
Microsoft has rebranded and rebundled its endpoint management platforms under the name Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which includes Intune for cloud-based management of remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing on-premises endpoints. Microsoft Endpoint Manager offers a centralized solution for protecting critical data by managing onsite, mobile, and at-home endpoint devices.

Microsoft Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also includes Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and protecting remote computers and software. Managed endpoint devices can be personally owned or company owned. Network administrators managing the enrolled endpoint computers of at-home workers can use Intune to deploy and authenticate applications on managed devices, push updates and certificates, set up policies for permission to access data and networks, set passwords, create VPN tunnels, control how telecommuters share data, set up threat defense, ensure compliance, and delete corporate data from lost, stolen or deactivated devices. Microsoft Intune runs with Apple iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS computers. To learn about Microsoft Intune and how Progent can help your company to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to manage the devices of your at-home workers, see Intune telecommuter device management experts.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced centralized MDM platform that helps network managers to keep off-premises endpoints up to date and secure. Workspace ONE uses VMware AirWatch for unified endpoint administration plus VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery technology for authorization control, application management, and setup management of endpoint computers. Workspace ONE operates with devices powered by Windows 10, macOS, iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or popular distros of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is offered by subscription as a cloud service or as an on-premises product through a perpetual license. Top capabilities of VMware Workspace ONE include fast remote deployment of out-of-the-box notebooks, immediate onboarding of new employees, policy set up and enforcement for all classes of endpoints, unifies management reporting and performance analytics, an email encryption gateway, and integration with Microsoft apps and cloud products. For information about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, visit VMware Workspace ONE remote endpoint management expertise.

Contact Progent for Remote Workforce Expertise
To get in touch with Progent about creating and maintaining a productive telecommuter solution for your Minnetonka, Minnesota business, phone 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.