How do I set up my home and office computers in order to telecommute?

Question

I am getting ready to leave my current office position because I am moving out of the area. My current employer has expressed interest in having me telecommute but neither of us know how to go about getting things set up both at the office and at my home so I can do this. Can someone please guide me in the right direction? I do front desk work for a dental office so I would need to be able to access the dental program and database on the office server (so I can set appointments, billing, etc.) as well as be able to forward phone calls to my home office. Thanks!!

Answer 1

http://www.planetdds.com/micropractice.aspx



You might want to start with the current software vendor and having them providing remote access. Then you won't have the dental database programmer pointing fingers at your connectivity software vendor and vice versa. Let them worry about connectivity, security, and uptime. The phone company should be able to handle the phone stuff.

Answer 2

Phone call forwarding, of course, is your phone company's business, or get it on a cellular phone, in which case, it won't matter where you are.



As for the rest, you could do all your stuff in an online application, shared between home and office. Two examples of many (and PLEASE keep in mind that there are many) are GoOgle and Zoho. Each has an online database and email and documents and calendaring setup (all of which could be coordinated with one or two or so "userids" such as you and your employer).



For GoOgle the setup is called GoOgle Applications for Your Domain (GAfYD). What happens is, kind of complicated. Maybe you'd even get the help of a technician to set it all up?



First, purchase a domain name ($7 or $8 a year, price of a paperback book, cheap, no?). Then fetch a free gmail userid. Then that gmail userid sets up a GoOgle Apps for Your Domain account for the domain name, and that GAfYD account can have the userids for email/calendar/documents/spreadsheets and all that stuff.



Does that cover it? Side benefit: the dentist could put a web page out on GAfYD to show off the home office and tell folks how to get there.

Answer 3

This can be done fairly easily if you have the skill sets. This is not for those who are untrained and not for those who are IT novices.



Having said the above, this is what I have done for other dental offices that are my customers:



1. Make sure the dental office Internet connection has a static LAN IP address.

2. Make sure the dental office's network has a router that will host an IPSec Virtual Private Network (VPN). This requires a business class router, not a home grade router. Cisco, Adtran, 3Com business class routers can do this. Netgear, Linksys, D Link, Belkin, etc cannot.

3. You will need the same type of router at your home but you need not have a static public IP address - however it would be nice if you did.

4. You should have a network printer at home and at the office. The network printer has its own LAN IP address. This enables you to print from the office LAN to your home printer and from the home to the office printer. The server should be set up with your home printer as one of its printers. Your home pc should be set up with your office printer as one of its pcs. If there is no need to print as indicated, these printers are not needed. Usually they are.

5. Your home pc must have Remote Desktop on it (XP Pro or Vista Business). Your server must have Remote Desktop enabled on it.

6. You configure the two routers to enable a Virtual Private Network (VPN) link between the two locations. This enables you to access the office from home.

7. After VPN link is made, use Remote Desktop to access server, log in with your user name and you can run the server based programs and print off either at office printer or home printer, whichever is prudent for your needs.

8. Check with the phone companies serving your area in regards to call forwards. Some offer the forwarding that requires someone at the office to activate and deactivate call forwarding which may be cumbersome for you. Others offer a service that enables you to call forward enable or disable via a phone company web site which would be pretty helpful to you. You will likely need more than one phone line. If all calls come to you, you need to be able to route some calls back to the office (e.g. another doctor needs to talk to your doctor). This can be done but this is not a home grade phone.



This pretty much sums it up.



I recommend you hire someone to do this for you.



Note - I see some have recommended a web based remote access program. Be careful! These are not secure and can be compromised. This would be a breach of confidentiality and can get you into legal hot water. A VPN is secure and safe and acceptable. Cutting corners with a compromisible system is likely to come back to haunt you.

Answer 4

Windows XP and Vista support "Remote Desktop" natively. I would suggest using this method since you will be working with applications and not just file manipulation. You do not need to buy anything to make this work. You would need to configure the router for port forwarding to the desktop computer you would want to connect with. The desktop must also be configured to allow remote desktop connections for that user. All you need to do on the home computer is to launch Remote Desktop and enter the WAN IP address and port number of the computer you are connecting to. There are several steps you need to make to ensure that the connection works and that it is secure. There are also 3rd party applications that work faster than Remote Desktop, but these are apps you would have to buy or pay a service for.