Enlarging your remote workforce can have a significant impact on IT architecture, cybersecurity, and corporate workflows. Progent has 20 years of background helping SMBs to design, configure, administer, tune, and troubleshoot IT environments that support work-from-home employees. Progent can help your Fresno organization to select the right tools and follow best practices in building and operating a safe virtual office solution for teleworkers that facilitates teamwork and returns top value. Progent offers services that go from as-needed guidance for helping you over occasional technical roadblocks to comprehensive project management or co-management to help you carry out mission-critical initiatives.

Progent's consultants can assist Fresno, California businesses to succeed with any facet of building a high-functioning work-from-home ecosystem by delivering infrastructure design and configuration services, VoIP PBX expertise, video conferencing support, collaboration platform customization and training, cloud integration, Call Desk augmentation, data security, backup/restore solutions, and streamlined management.

Network Infrastructure for a Remote Workforce
Integrating the physical and software infrastructure required for an at-home work environment can be particularly challenging if you have to accommodate a combination of personal equipment such as desktop computers and notebooks, routers, and wireless appliances from various manufacturers and with a mix of OS software and firmware releases. Progent's experience providing remote help for both legacy and modern IT products in virtual office solutions allows you to make efficient use of your existing infrastructure and provides you with fast access to expertise for making essential updates. Services available from Progent to help your company to create a productive work-at-home infrastructure include:

  • VPN connectivity makes it possible to create a safe tunnel for authenticated at-home workers to access IT resources located at your corporate data center or in a public cloud. Progent can help your company to configure and manage VPN connections between your teleworkers and your various IT resources by providing online VPN configuration support. For organizations with Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco ASA consultants can help your remote workers to set up Cisco's AnyConnect client software to provide safe VPN connections for a wide selection of endpoint devices including Windows, Mac, iOS, Linux, and Android.
  • Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) platforms allow a teleworker to view and interact with a remote computer's desktop. This provides IT managers significant control over the computing environment of telecommuters and offers remote users a familiar work experience. Progent's VDI consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI consulting.
  • Routers attach at-home computer networks to the Internet and typically support VPN tunnels, home wireless connectivity, and firewalls. Progent offers expert online consulting for setting up routers from a range of vendors. See router configuration services from Cisco-certified experts.
  • Home Wi-Fi networks, often shared by families and visitors, are commonly utilized by at-home employees to access their Internet router for work. This can create throughput and cybersecurity issues. Progent can help you to mitigate these problems by delivering expertise that include Cisco Aironet integration consulting, Cisco Meraki WiFi deployment expertise, and Ubiquiti Unifi wireless AP integration help.
  • Internet connectivity solutions impact the performance and availability of connections between telecommuters and the company data center. Mission-critical processes might demand backup Internet access in case the primary connection fails. Progent can provide guidance for selecting ISPs, selecting appropriate bandwidth and data volume bundles, and configuring high-availability Internet connections. Refer to Internet access solutions.

IP Voice Integration for Remote Workers
Expanding the company phone environment to include teleworkers is vital to supporting an effective work-at-home solution. A variety of cloud-based VoIP platforms are used by SMBs to server remote users. Many larger organizations rely on Cisco's modern or older products for VoIP solutions. Progent can assist organizations of any size to design or maintain a remote IP voice service that delivers the flexibility, transparency and security required for telecommuters. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE IP Voice consultants offer advanced support to help businesses tune their current Cisco IP voice systems to support a growing remote workforce.

  • Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM) extends advanced IP telephony capabilities to devices like VoIP phones, media processing platforms, VoIP gateways, and multimedia apps used throughout the network. Unified Communications Manager manages additional combined media services like unified messaging, video conferencing, and team interaction networks. For details about Progent's Cisco Unified CM or CUCM expertise, visit CUCM consulting services.
  • Cisco CallManager is Cisco's earlier call-processing agent and has been replaced by CUCM. Progent's consultants can help you to support your existing CallManager environment or migrate efficiently to Cisco's current IP telephony solutions. To learn about Progent's support services for CallManager and Cisco's other early VoIP products, visit Cisco CallManager consulting services.
  • Cisco IP Gateways provide connectivity with public telephony networks and with clients operating outside the corporate firewall such as telecommuters. Progent offers expert support for Cisco's legacy IP gateways including the UC520, UC540 and UC560 product lines and for modern Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateway integration expertise.
  • Additional VoIP Platforms supported by Progent include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can help you to update your WAN infrastructure to support these solutions and deliver online deployment and troubleshooting expertise.

Voice/Video Conferencing for Teleworkers
A wide range of video conferencing platforms from leading vendors enable online meetings, video conferencing, chat, and screen sharing for both onsite users and at-home workers. Many companies utilize multiple products to accommodate their various partners and customers. Progent can assist your organization to manage your current conferencing environment and enhance the productivity of your remote workforce.

  • Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular communications platform that enables presence, instant messaging, audio and video calling and conferencing plus the seamless integration of these functions within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 productivity software including PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Outlook. Progent offers the expertise of Microsoft-certified consultants who can help your company to deploy and manage Skype for Business clients to support your at-home employees. For details about Progent's support expertise for Skype for Business, refer to Skype for Business consulting experts.
  • FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video calling app for iOS and macOS computers and smartphones. FaceTime works over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Current versions of FaceTime support up to 32 concurrent users for video calls. For details about Progent's consulting services for FaceTime, see Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
  • Webex Meeting Center supports online conferencing for virtually all desktop or mobile devices. Delivered through Cisco's Webex Cloud platform, Webex services include sharing specific content or computer screens, presentations that incorporate rich media including Microsoft PowerPoint, session capture, plus editing and playback for future reference. For details about Progent's support services for Cisco Webex as well as for additional video conferencing products from Cisco, refer to Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
  • Teams is Microsoft's next-generation replacement for Skype for Business. Teams acts as a portal for conferencing, contacts, and content with features such as video conferencing, persistent threaded chat, plus data sharing. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams as well as for other Microsoft 365 apps, visit Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
  • Additional Voice/Video Conferencing Apps supported by Progent's conferencing experts include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can deliver configuration and debugging services for these conferencing platforms and help your business to tune your network infrastructure to run them.

Microsoft Collaboration Platforms for Remote and Hybrid Workers
Microsoft's collaboration products are closely integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office families, offering a powerful environment of productivity apps that deliver a consistent user experience for sharing information across multiple sites and on a wide range of endpoint computers. Progent has provided remote consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange since their first releases and can help businesses to configure these flagship collaboration products to maximize the effectiveness of your at-home workers.

Microsoft's collaboration platforms are tightly integrated with Microsoft's popular Office suite, providing a rich ecosystem of applications that deliver a consistent user experience for sharing information across multiple sites and on a wide variety of endpoint devices. Progent has provided remote consulting services for SharePoint and Exchange since their initial releases and can help at-home workers set up and use these flagship collaboration platforms to maximize productivity.

Microsoft Teams Solutions Experts for At-Home WorkersMicrosoft Teams works on top of Microsoft 365 and supports third-party cloud services to deliver real-time collaboration and communication. Designed as a replacement for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams can enable chat, audio/video meetings with screen sharing, calling, cloud voicemail, group email, as well as file and app sharing. Teams is tightly integrated with Microsoft 365 and relies on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Azure Entra (formerly called Azure Active Directory) for supporting its full range of features. To learn more about Progent's support services for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium, visit solution design and configuration consulting for Microsoft Teams.

SharePoint Deployment Experts for Remote WorkersSharePoint uses web sites to facilitate collaboration and information sharing by offering policy-driven access to content, workflow, and tools for looking through company-wide information silos. SharePoint permits you to build secure portals that permits remote workforce to view and update consolidated business intelligence via Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social networking sites, and Web Parts. To find out about Progent's SharePoint consulting services, see SharePoint integration and development consulting.

Exchange Configuration Consultants for Remote WorkersExchange and Exchange Online offer secure collaboration features including public folders, shared mailboxes, and shared calendars and contacts. Progent's Microsoft certified Exchange experts can show you how to activate and utilize these features for your at-home workers. For information about Progent's Exchange expertise, go to planning and configuration consulting for Exchange Server.

Onedrive Deployment Consultants for At-Home WorkersOneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud-based file hosting and synchronization service, comparable to GoogleDrive. At-home users can store files to the OneDrive service, and co-workers can share them safely via a web browser. Included with Office 365, OneDrive allows remote employees to jointly author documents. Edits created offline are automatically synced when you reconnect to the Internet. For information about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft OneDrive, see Onedrive integration consulting.

Public Cloud Integration for Remote Workers
Progent can provide advanced remote assistance for enabling businesses to build, maintain and optimize integrated network architectures that include internal data centers, remote workers, branch offices, plus cloud resources. Progent offers top-tier consultant for all types of cloud service including Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service. Progent can help telecommuters resolve problems with public cloud connectivity, authentication, and security.

Microsoft Azure Integration for Remote WorkersMicrosoft Azure is a leading platform for public cloud services that allows you to use infrastructure, servers, and critical apps hosted on Microsoft's extensive cloud. Azure offers over 100 cloud-based services including the ability to host Windows and Linux-based VMs, scalable cloud storage, email and messaging, app development with Visual Studio, and data protection. Progent can assist you to set up virtual machines on Azure Virtual Machines, configure cloud-based storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity control with Azure AD, and design data backup and restore solutions with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also show you how to create protected access to Azure services for at-home workers by configuring and debugging firewalls and VPN tunnels. To find out about Progent's expertise for Microsoft Azure, see Microsoft Azure expertise.

Microsoft 365 Integration Services for Remote WorkersMicrosoft 365, previously branded Office 365, is Microsoft's popular suite of business productivity software and cloud services available by subscription. Office applications and services are marketed in a selection of plans intended for users ranging from students and households to major corporations. Progent can provide quick and easy online contact with experts knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible endpoint devices based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android operating systems. Progent can help you to evaluate the numerous subscription bundles offered with Microsoft 365 and configure 365 applications for your teleworkers to achieve top business value. To find out about Progent's support services for Microsoft 365, visit Microsoft 365 integration expertise.

Exchange Online Integration for TelecommutersMicrosoft 365 Exchange Online is one of the most popular cloud-based applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product suite. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online provides the benefits of lower spending for physical infrastructure, easier management, on-demand scaling, high availability, and other benefits associated with cloud computing. Microsoft has designed Exchange Online to operate transparently with on-premises deployments of Exchange, enabling customers to create hybrid networks. Progent's Exchange experts can provide as-needed help to guide you past tough technical roadblocks and also offer comprehensive project management outsourcing to make sure your remote workers have convenient and secure access to your Exchange Online environment. To learn Progent's consulting expertise for Exchange Online, go to Exchange Online integration and support expertise.

Amazon AWS Integration Services for At-Home WorkersAmazon Web Services (AWS) is a trailblazer in the public cloud computing arena and is the world's leading source of cloud services. Progent offers quick and affordable online access to cloud integration experts who can assist your organization to design, implement, manage, and debug hybrid IT networks that incorporate Amazon AWS cloud services with local data centers and with other popular cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure. Progent also can provide access to Cisco-certified CCIE networking experts to assist your company to create a high-availability network model to make sure your employees have a consistent computing environment regardless of whether they are working from your main office, a remote branch, at home, or on the road. For information about Progent's expertise for Amazon AWS, see Amazon AWS consulting services.

Google Cloud Integration Services for Remote WorkersGoogle Cloud Platform (GCP) is a popular set of cloud computing services that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products. Progent's Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can help your organization to scale your current IT resources with the Google Cloud Platform, and Progent's DBA consultants can show you how to make your critical applications cloud friendly so your telecommuters can benefit fully from Google Cloud services. Progent's consultants can assist your business to deploy VMs on Google Cloud Compute Engine, plan an efficient storage system with GCP Storage, and streamline identity control for telecommuters with Google Cloud Identity. Progent can also assist you to utilize GCP's unified management tools to control and track your Google Cloud ecosystem. For details, visit Google Cloud Platform integration services.

Help Desk Call Center Support for Teleworkers
An emergency, enterprise-wide changeover to a teleworker business model, which might be activated by an epidemic or as part of a business continuity preparedness plan, can overstretch even the most efficient in-house Call Center. Progent's Call Center services make it possible for businesses of any size to outsource or augment their Call Desk with Progent's online Technical Response Center (TRC) services.

  • Progent's Standard Call Desk support services utilize Progent's extensive team of online IT support experts along with enterprise-class ticketing and tracking technology to provide an economical, modern Help Desk Call Center. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services offer an end-to-end solution that addresses all aspects of remote Level 1 PC support from help requests through trouble ticket generation, desktop sharing, problem resolution, and reporting. A browser-based User's Service Portal allows telecommuters to monitor or revise the status of their active tickets, enter information, and upload screenshots or relevant files. Support services are provided at a substantial discount off Progent's ordinary Level 1 desktop support rates, and Progent makes available the option of rapid escalation to Level 2 and Level 3 IT specialists to deal with advanced issues. To learn more, refer to Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small companies.
  • Progent's Help Desk Call Center Supplemental Service allows your company to supplement your existing Support Desk organization by sharing delivery of Call Center support transparently between your in-house support personnel and Progent's extensive team of desktop support engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's co-managed Call Center service is based on a co-sourcing support solution based on the leading professional services automation platform for handling service requests and trouble tickets, establishing ownership, tracking progress, and generating reports. For information about how Progent's Help Desk Augmentation Services can help your company to deliver world-class technical support to your at-home workforce, see Progent's Help Desk supplementation Services.

Security and Compliance for At-Home Workers
At-home staff members typically use their personal computers and often work in an unsecured physical space. This situation multiplies their vulnerability to cyber attacks and requires judicious configuration of firewalls, anti-malware tools, multi-factor authentication, remote monitoring, intensive user training, and the development of policies based on best practices. Progent's veteran roster of data security solutions experts can help your business to design, configure and maintain an effective security solution that guards critical information resources in environments that include telecommuters.

Firewall Integration Services for At-Home WorkersFirewalls enable companies to create a network environment that can be securely utilized by on-premises users as well as by an at-home workforce, mobile employees, vendors, clients, and other stakeholders. Next-generation firewall appliances permit you to configure and manage different access rights to different groups of users and to expand your IT network and adjust your security as your business evolves and as cyber threats grow increasingly sophisticated. Progent works with both current and legacy security devices from all major manufacturers like Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. To find out more about Progent's firewall integration expertise, see firewall configuration and support services.

Remote Security Monitoring for TelecommutersRemote Endpoint Monitoring makes it possible to track the various computers utilized by remote workers and either block or spot and respond to modern cyber attacks such as ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) services, a small-footprint software agent is put on each secured endpoint, watching all activity and utilizing state-of-the-art behavioral threat analysis from SentinelOne to identify zero-day threats at inception. When an attack is spotted, ProSight Active Security Monitoring immediately isolates the impacted endpoint from the network to contain the malware. Since the ProSight ASM agent is self-contained, endpoints remain protected even when they are offline. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. For details about ProSight ASM, go to remote endpoint monitoring for at-home workers.

Two-factor Authentication Services for TeleworkersProgent's Duo MFA Services utilize Cisco's Duo technology to protect against password theft through the use of two-factor authentication. Duo enables one-tap identity confirmation with Apple iOS, Google Android, and other out-of-band devices. With Duo 2FA, whenever you sign into a secured application and give your password you are requested to verify who you are on a device that only you have and that is accessed using a different ("out-of-band") network channel. A wide selection of devices can be utilized as this second means of authentication such as a smartphone or wearable, a hardware token, a landline phone, etc. You can designate several validation devices. To learn more about Duo two-factor identity authentication services, visit Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for telecommuters.

Security Audit Services for At-Home WorkersSecurity Audits can evaluate the exposure of your information system to all classes of external and local security threats for a network that incorporates teleworkers. Progent can run online, automated security inventory software for quickly and affordably uncovering a wide variety of security gaps that can be surfaced over the Internet. Progent's endpoint security assessment consulting services, which can be provided by security professionals with top credentials including CISM, ISSAP, and GIAC, can help your company to audit your operations and governance policies and review your IT infrastructure to allow you to implement the highest level of security for your teleworkers.

NodeZero Pen Testing for At-Home WorkersHorizon3.ai's NodeZero Pentest Platform is a cutting-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that can deliver autonomous threat assessment of your at-home environment as well as your internal and perimeter networks to help you expose, rank, fix, and verify security weaknesses before threat actors can exploit them. Progent's pentest experts can assist you to deploy NodeZero to perform thorough penetration tests of your network perimeter and your internal IT infrastructure in order to determine your current security posture. Progent can also assist you to strengthen your network security and can help you to design and implement a unified cybersecurity ecosystem that streamlines management and delivers optimum cyber defense for on-prem, cloud-based, remote, and perimeter IT resources. To learn additional information about Progent's vulnerability analysis solutions based on on NodeZero's pentest products, visit Consulting Support for NodeZero's Penetration Test Products.

Download White Paper: Securing a Work-From-Home Network
To view or download a white paper describing critical areas to concentrate on for securing an IT environment that incorporates work-from-home staff, click:
Protecting a Work-From-Home (WFH) Network White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection for At-Home Workers
The field of Data Protection covers saving and recovering critical information in order to avoid data loss and minimize recovery time in case of storage system problems due to equipment issues, software hiccups, operator error, cyber attack, or any other reason. Reliable data protection solutions can be particularly difficult to design and manage in hybrid networks that combine private data centers, cloud resources, and an at-home workforce.

  • Backup/Restore solutions for at-home workers must address diverse types of personally owned endpoints. Progent can provide fast online help from consultants knowledgeable about a broad array of platforms for backing up Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac and Linux/UNIX servers and desktops as well as notebooks, iPads and smartphones. Popular backup/restore products supported by Progent's backup/recovery experts include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, CrashPlan, Mozy, and Time Machine. To protect resources distributed across a wide area network, Progent offers ProSight Data Protection Services, a managed backup/recovery subscription service that uses cloud storage and includes fine-grained restore and centralized management.
  • Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity plans typically anticipate circumstances that require a rapid changeover to telecommuting. Progent's expert disaster recovery preparedness consultants and business continuity planning specialists can help your company to produce, document and validate a DR/BC strategy that addresses the process of moving to an at-home workforce.

Unified Management for an At-Home Workforce
Microsoft has rebranded and reshuffled its endpoint management products under the name Endpoint Manager, which includes Intune for cloud management of remote devices and Configuration Manager for managing on-premises computers. Microsoft Endpoint Manager offers a centralized environment for safeguarding critical information by controlling local, mobile, and at-home endpoint devices.

Microsoft Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management suite that also includes Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and securing mobile devices and software. Remote endpoint computers can be user owned or company owned. Network admins managing the endpoint devices of teleworkers can utilize Intune to provision and validate applications on devices, push patches and certificates, configure rules for permission to access information and networks, set passwords, establish VPN tunnels, determine how teleworkers share data, set up threat defense, verify security compliance, and erase corporate information from missing, stolen or decommissioned devices. Intune works with iOS, Google Android, Windows, and macOS/OS X computers. For details about Microsoft Intune and how Progent can assist your company to use this platform to administer the endpoint computers of your at-home workers, see Intune telecommuter device management expertise.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is a feature-rich centralized MDM platform that helps network managers to keep offsite endpoint devices up to date and secure. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch technology for unified endpoint management combined with VMware's Horizon virtual application delivery platform for authorization control, application management, and setup management of endpoint devices. Workspace ONE operates with endpoints powered by Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or leading distros of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is offered by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-premises deployment through a one-time purchase. Key features of VMware Workspace ONE include fast over-the-air provisioning of new laptops, immediate onboarding of new users, policy set up and enforcement for all classes of devices, unifies reporting and analytics, an email encryption gateway, and integration with Microsoft applications and cloud-based products. To learn about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, go to VMware Workspace ONE mobile device management expertise.

Contact Progent for Telecommuter Expertise
To get in touch with Progent about building and maintaining an efficient telecommuter solution for your Fresno, California business, phone 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.