Provide better remote support with Goto Assist Express
Telecommuting and travel seem to be all the rage in business recently and in some organizations staff can work from home and save money for the company, this is still the case. The economy has dented many corporate budgets from mom and pop shops to huge organizations which may be a good case for using remote support to save some money.
The use of telecommuting is a great option if it is right for your business and will honestly serve the mission statement and benefit the bottom line, however, if there are telecommuters there needs to be a good, reliable way to support and assist these users. The experience, should be as close to a desk in the office as possible, but your mileage may vary.
Providing superb support remotely
Many applications exist to help with this, from PC Anywhere to Webex (now a Cisco product), and to some extent Microsoft Live Meeting, and these applications have varying price points as well. The application that I have found to work best for my situation is brand new as of February 2009, although the concept and similar products have been here awhile.
Goto Assist Express by Citrix Online
This product is similar to the corporate version of Goto Assist but is designed for single user use. It can manage up to eight sessions with co-workers or clients concurrently and has a rather modest price point.
The subscription options and costs for the service are:
Annual – $660.00
Monthly – $69.00
Day Pass – $9.95
The annual and monthly options also allow unattended support of systems which will allow after-hours support without the user being present. The day pass option might be best for environments where there is not a constant need for the service.
The express version of Goto Assist is more affordable per user than its corporate counter part, especially if your shop dedicate one user to remote support. Here is an example:
Suppose your department has 5 staff members. Using GTA Express you might sign up for an account and rotate the staff member who is working with remote support or even schedule its use to avoid overlap.
Features of note
The application also allows the technician using it to make notes about the session which are saved in the GTA Express account online. These can be viewed by logging into http://www.gotoassistexpress.com with your username and password.
Another thing I found nice about this application is the portability. Loading the technician portion on a laptop allows support to happen from anywhere there is Internet Access. The user is directed to a custom URL and enters a session ID to access the support session. Once in session, their computer is visible to the technician. The image below shows the desktop of a computer in session.
Figure 1
Session displaying remote desktop
Not for all shops, but nice for small shops
I am not trying to replace the corporate version of Goto Assist or any other product, but to focus on the smaller shops needing to support remote users or office’s as if they were right down the hall. This was the best and most affordable solution I found for my environment, which is a single staff member shop.
To provide a more feature rich look at the application I will dive into the features in coming posts. First up, later this week, Unattended Support.
To give it a try visit the website and select free trial. This will get you 30 days to kick the tires and see if the application fits your needs.
