Educational ICT & AV Specialists

Benefits of pro-active support

What is proactive maintenance? While preventive and predictive maintenance seek to catch and prevent symptoms before they result in breakdowns, proactive programs seek to lessen or eliminate the root causes.

In modern educational ICT the use and reliance on I.T related equipment has become more and more important and because of this demand the historical method of reactive support has slowly been phased out.

• A successful pro-active support program will gradually remove the problems out of the schools hardware over a period of time, resulting in greatly extended hardware life and reduced down time. One of the best features of a pro-active approach is that the techniques are natural extensions of those used in a predictive program, and they are easily added to existing methods
• It is apparent today that we need a balanced approach to maintenance, including the appropriate use of preventive, predictive, and pro-active methods, and these elements are not independent, but should be integral parts of a unified maintenance program.
• You’ll avoid expensive repairs and recovery costs.
• 24/7 network monitoring and maintenance will save you money by preventing expensive network disasters from ever happening in the first place.
• You’ll experience faster performance, fewer glitches, and heavily reduced downtime.
• Some parts of your system will degrade in performance over time, causing them to slow down, hang up, and crash. Our preventative maintenance and network monitoring will detect these problems early and prevent them from escalating into more expensive repairs and downtime.
• You’ll feel as though you have an in-house IT department - without the staffing costs.
• As a network support customer, you’ll have access to knowledgeable support staff that can be reached immediately should you have any kind of problem or question.
• You’ll receive substantial discounts on IT services that you are already buying.
• Most IT firms will charge you over every little thing they do. Under the Fluentblu support program, you’ll pay one flat fee covering all onsite and remote support. All areas and guidelines are clearly documented, with any chargeable additions such as project management laid out to allow financial planning and clarity.
• Thanks to our remote monitoring and maintenance software, we have the ability to remotely access and repair most network problems right from our offices. If we cannot fix it remotely, we dispatch a technician to your office on the pre agreed technician visit.
• Feedback from clients on our proactive support package say it is wonderful to avoid unexpected costs for fixing or restoring their network.
• You’ll safeguard your important admin and curriculum data through an automated and monitored backup procedure.
• The data on the hard disk is always more important than the hardware that houses it. If you rely on your computer systems for daily operations, now is the time to start protecting your critical, irreplaceable electronic information. With our proactive support the responsibility moves from the school to us! We construct the data protection procedure to securely store your most important data when YOU need it and ensure it’s available at the click of a button.

Server Support and Monitoring

24/7 live monitoring of all server based hardware within the schools network. This proactive support service focuses on the following areas:-

• Backup routines automated and monitored
• Disk Space
• Software Updates
• Security
• Event Logs
• Anti Virus
• Server Performance

Throughout the monitoring process all alerts are sent directly to the support team, this is then resolved either remotely or by liaising directly with the school. This service is UNCAPPED.

ICT Support Helpdesk

24/7 Server monitoring will be backed up by an uncapped email /phone helpdesk facility in which issues can be reported either via the teaching staff, or by the schools ICT team/ co-ordinator. All highlighted problems will then be dealt with either via remote support or if necessary at the pre arranged site visit.

Onsite ICT Support Liaison

As part of the support we will be providing a dedicated liaison manager whose responsibility is to facilitate the communication between the schools staff and our ICT support engineers and helpdesk.

We are fully aware that during the day it is often difficult to relay information and these issues can often build up to potentially unnecessary downtime. Your Fluentblu representative will proactively assess the schools current ICT resources and reliability and by communicating directly with staff and the assigned ICT contact, speed up the process between initial issue and its resolution.

Onsite Engineer

To complete the ICT support we will be providing the school with an onsite engineer, whose primary role is to assist the school with resolving technical faults and promoting best use of its ICT hardware and resources. This service is available on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis and can be adjusted over time to meet the changing needs of the school.

This service is especially important when evaluating the benefits of potential new hardware or technology. This also includes keeping all current network schematics up to date, which ultimately will provide the school with the tools to plan an effective ICT roadmap for the coming years.

This part of the package provides the school with the high end knowledge and support to ensure that the network is up to date and technically as advanced as it can be and with consistent monitoring and onsite evaluation will develop over time, allowing the school to plan and budget effectively.

Examples of engineer tasks

• Installation of software and managing updates
• Laptop and desktop configuration issues (if cannot be resolved remotely or the support team is unable to get access)
• Printing issues
• Hardware Inventory Update
• Installation of new hardware, i.e. PC systems, Laptops, Printers, visualisers etc ( if within allocated onsite time)
• Upgrading hardware i.e. memory, hard drives etc

Hardware Labour

If any hardware requires repair and is out of warranty, all labour time (based on work completed at our office) will be provided FREE of charge any parts required will be chargeable and in the event of additional components being needed the school we be informed and provided with a cost breakdown. No work shall be carried out without the schools consent.

Audio Visual Support

As part of the support agreement Fluentblu will provide a technical helpdesk for all AV faults involving projectors and interactive whiteboards. All major brands will be supported including SMART, Promethean, Hitachi, E-Instruction etc. All warranty issues will be facilitated by Fluentblu directly with the manufacturer on the schools behalf. All relevant serial numbers and documentation requested by the provider must be provided to the support team by the school prior to a repair being requested.

Any hardware faults that cannot be resolved over the phone will be assessed onsite by a Fluentblu representative who will then advise the school of the best action to resolve the issue. This applies to all hardware outside of warranty. All warranty protected hardware will be initially assessed by our helpdesk and then reported to the relevant manufacturer for guidance and if required onsite repair.

For all technical issues not associated with hardware i.e. software issues, calibration of IWB, s etc this will either be resolved over the phone directly with the school, or if required via the fortnightly support liaison site visit.

Please note that projector bulb changes are not covered under these terms.

All support packages are individual to each school and can be tailored to suit the individual requirements of our customers. If you would like to get a fresh perspective of support options for your school, please call us on 01234 84 33 00 to arrange a complimentary site visit.