welcome to v6

managed messaging services (amongst other nice technology things!)

03.02.10: On a Quest …

v6 has been migrating email accounts forever; and has used and seen most of the tools on the market for converting data; most of which are what our engineers call “point and shoot”; in that you point tool at a Notes mailfile, hit “run” and it spits out a Outlook Personal Folder file (referred to as a .pst file!) and this is what we had become used to.

However, our recent migration project with the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) we moved to use Quest Software’s Migrator for Lotus Notes.

It’s fair to say there was a little setting up required and the instance we installed is not that portable, but it was well worth the effort. The software essentially takes a snapshot of the Lotus Notes Address Book, squirts the various users, groups etc into an SQL database – we actually ran with an MSSQL Express instance as we did not require the scale of full MSSQL etc.

Once we have our “import” of the Notes environment, we were able to batch (called collections) our users by department, point the software at the data to be converted and hit “migrate” and then get on with other tasks. The batch converting was great!

We were a little nervous about heading into a client migration weekend with a new tool – we had used versions of it before – but we really has nothing to worry about. Support from Quest – what little we needed – was timely and quality – and the migration went without a hitch.

The most obvious benefits we saw with this product was being able to batch; a greater (faster) throughput; the migration of unread / read marks from Notes Email; and the intelligence in the tool to be able to differentiate from Address Books, Archives and mailfiles.

A happy customer makes for a happy v6; we will use Quest tools again.

25.11.09: Making self service a beautiful thing

For as long as I have been in IT; I always been at one end of the support process either for the service I am building, migrating to or indeed running. By this I mean creating tickets looking for support, or answering them, providing support. I have long been an advocate of enabling end user communities to help themselves. There are countless benefits to his, and I am sure I don’t need to go into them; but in short: no hanging on the phone pressing buttons; the ability to present an immediate fix to the issue in hand and when it comes to service provision, the ability for customers to order what they need, pay, login and get on with their business.

v6, in its many forms has been working towards this very model for a few years and at last I can say, has everything coming together the way I have always wanted. Some years ago, we ran the Live project which was to bring the likes of ordering out to the internet and allow customers to order and change their existing orders online. This worked well; but still needed some human intervention to complete and check orders. Granted this was no bad thing as it gave us the opportunity to contact and actually talk to our customers; another service element I am keen on.

We have since moved the Live projects platform into a full service automation platform that will allow v6 to extend a great degree of flexibility in terms of commitment to customers, allow control of all messaging service elements and order anything new required in a matter of clicks. The new store will be launched at https://store.thinkv6.net, where upon our old eStore will be repointed to this address.

There will be some slight billing process changes; but we will write to those customers advising what needs to happen. It will be painless.

That will take care on the customer control and provisioning giving an almost ”as-fast-as-you-can-type” speed to provisioning.

On the support side, we will launch our new support application that will allow the viewing of tickets  online; will pick up tickets from our existing support@@thinkv6.com address as well as present possible solutions even before you have hit the submit button. We will also build up a Knowledge Base of FAQs etc that customers are welcome to browse etc.

All in all, we are heading for a better customer experience based on what we ourselves have experienced over the years in some of the world’s biggest companies) and now expect from our own vendors and suppliers. Naturally, we are still at end of the phone in the UK if you want to talk.

Oh and on the run up to the Festive Season; may wish our American customers and contacts a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Kenny,
Director, v6

21.11.09: Sorting those categories out …

21.11.09: Good Evening & Welcome …

v6 Team Blog is off …