Here is a little one that may help…
A while ago we were approached by one of our Clients who had an office full of staff, they had recently upgraded all their network hardware and software to the latest Windows Servers and the Client Machines to the latest versions of Windows.
They had a previous “Whiteboard” application that provided real time information to all office staff as to who was In or Out of the Office at any time. This application had been written for them many years ago and was not able to run on their new infrastructure, we were therefore tasked with sourcing a suitable solution for them that would allow users, when they logged into their workstation to show as in the office, allow them to place ‘Out of Office’ notes so that all staff could see who was in the office, for those not in, where they were and when they were expected back in the office. What is more support staff were required to be able to change user’s statuses for occasions when they called in sick or their planned timetable changed.
We carried out extensive research on behalf of our Client, many offerings we found meant that the data was kept off site on the servers of the software supplier and hence involved regular monthly ongoing subscription costs and of course with these offerings they would only work if an internet connection was available all the time, for those reasons these options were immediately discounted.
We narrowed our recommendation down to one piece of software that ‘ticked all the boxes and more’, what’s more we could run a five user version free of charge, with free support forever and, if the system worked as well as advertised then we could request a timed trial for as many users as we wanted.
The software did take up quite a fair amount of research time to find it as the developers website was not easy to come by, however, we did find it and after extensive research we downloaded the free trial and installed it within our own network and to this day we continue to enjoy the use the free five user version.
We requested a multiuser timed trial, installed the software on our Client’s infrastructure and all their users’ workstations via a group policy silent installation, user manuals were downloaded from the developer’s website and after a period of testing our Client reported back to us that the software was ideal for their intended use.
The costs represented superb value for money at AUS$11.00 per user (as of today just under £7.00 per user) as a one off licence fee which included maintenance upgrades for the subsequent year and any further upgrades at half price thereafter which included a further years maintenance/upgrades. Support for the software was free forever, even for the five user free version.
Even better news was to come when we discovered that our Client could take advantage of a 50% upgrade discount as they had been using another similar product in the past and this could be proven with screenshots of the old system they used.
The software could not only work on a Local Area Network (LAN), but also across the Wide Area Network (WAN) allowing remote offices to report the status of the staff throughout the organisation to each other in real time.
In a nut shell the features of this software are as follows:-
WHOS-IN Pro In Out Board
WHOS-IN Pro is an easy to use Windows in/out board and employee/staff tracking system that provides all you need to keep track of who’s in and who’s out of the office. With WHOS-IN Pro there is no more time wasted checking a wall-mounted Office Board to see if someone is In, Out, at Lunch, or on Leave… all the information you need is presented on screen, in an easy to read format.
The software includes a presence sensing feature which reports if the users screen is in use or locked to all staff members in real time (they may have gone to visit the small room or one of the many coffee runs)…
It allows the organisation to add new status messages apart from the usual ‘In/Out/Leave/Sick’ etc. and allows users to leave messages on their status as to where they are, when they are expected back or any other appropriate message that will assist their colleagues.
The software has been developed over a period in excess of 15 years of user suggestions and to put it quite simply ‘it just works’.
As you will gather from this brief write up, if you are looking for such a software application we would without hesitation recommend the use of this WHOS-IN Pro software, we are not affiliated with the developers of this software.
If you decide to take a look at this software and require any further information or assistance from us with any installation then give us a shout via our online contact form.
