Remote working: Our 3 most important (and easy to implement) IT tools

As many of you already know, at Sierra Legal, we have a small team of lawyers split between Melbourne, Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Staff sometimes choose to work from our CBD offices, but most staff predominantly work from home offices.

As more and more businesses face the prospect of temporarily closing their offices over the coming weeks and months (with their employees working remotely), I wanted to share some practical tips regarding the 3 most important (and easy to implement) IT systems that we use here at Sierra Legal to allow our staff to work remotely.

1. Zoom
2. Zoom is probably the single most important system that helps us to maintain our close-knit team. Every morning starts with a team video call (often with staff located in 6 different locations) and Zoom is then used consistently through-out the day for staff to communicate with each other. Home internet speeds and line quality can differ for different members of the team, but Zoom seems to handle this much better than many of the alternatives. Links for Zoom meetings are also really easy to share with clients – and we expect to be hosting many more of our client meetings on Zoom during the foreseeable future.
3. Microsoft Office 365
4. Office 365 takes care of our email hosting (Exchange Online) and document storage (SharePoint Online). Historically, SharePoint Online had a number of data and file number limits - meaning it was not suitable for many businesses. However, most of these limitations have been removed and SharePoint Online is now a really easy and affordable option for small and medium sized businesses that need a secure online document storage solution.
5. Repstor
6. Repstor is an easy to use plug-in for Outlook. Repstor creates folders (that look and feel like standard Outlook folders) that can be mapped to (and synced with) a range of different cloud storage providers (including SharePoint, OneDrive, Dropbox and Box). Rather than staff keeping emails stored in their own inboxes (or folders within their inboxes), all project emails are stored in central repositories in SharePoint Online that the whole team has access to. If a team member is sick or on holiday (or there are multiple people working on the same project from different locations), Repstor is a really easy way to ensure that important emails can be accessed by the whole team.

If you are looking at setting up remote working systems in a hurry and would like to bounce ideas off someone, please feel free to get in touch.

It’s otherwise business as usual at Sierra Legal and the team is available by phone, email and Zoom to handle any corporate or commercial legal matters

You can even use thislink to book a call or a Zoom meeting!

Mike Jeffery

Director