As we move more of our workloads from the office into our own homes during COVID-19, many of us have to adjust to the routine or “new normal” of working from home. One of the many surprises that we may come across as IT professionals during this time will stem from the myriad of different setups we will encounter when supporting our users’ home networks.
Well, what’s going on?
It would not be a surprise to see an increase of support tickets during this period of working from home. The dreaded “My internet is not working!” or the “Outlook is not working!” complaint that we all see across our support tickets with little to no explanation of the actual problem. As you troubleshoot these issues, you may find more helpful information such as intermittent connectivity, even though modern browsers are working just fine. You may find that sync for any service is not working reliably.
Story time!
We had one user experience similar issues described above where they had connectivity issues at home but did not have the same problems in the office. Through troubleshooting, we found that it was various different apps not handling IPv6 properly. We simply disabled it and everything started to work properly. Could we have spent hours on end to troubleshoot why IPv6 was not working? Yes, we could have, but that would mean significant down time for the user.
It’s important during these challenging times to work as efficiently as possible to allow users to continue their workflows. It’s difficult as it is to adjust to working from home, and when you add technical problems to the mix, the user experience can take a nosedive. After all, as IT professionals, we’re here to improve the user experience, not make it worse.
Final Thoughts
While users are adjusting to the new workflows, we as IT professionals also must adjust accordingly. Although we may not have as much control as we normally do when users are in the office, utilizing the current infrastructure that you know to work reliably, the best we can do in these circumstances is to utilize apps such as Teams to enhance communication and assist where we can when users have issues once they try working from home. Stay safe and continue practicing social distancing!
