January 31, 2025 - This week’s notables

We hope you had a wonderful final week of January.

Upcoming Events

Mark your calendar and join us at Longview Farm for the following upcoming events! We're excited to welcome you—just make sure to set your GPS to 143 Cedar Ln. Glenmoore, PA 19343 (avoid Cedar Ridge Ln) for the best route straight to the fun!

📆 Saturday, February 1 – Join us for a live music event during our Midshow Reception for Toward a Tender Place, by Hannah Zartman! Through motifs of community, connection, and queerness, Hannah develops heavily patterned work that incorporates imagery of the natural world and intricate surface design. In addition to creating multi-media, print-heavy pieces, Hannah's fiber work emphasizes repetition and color interactions.

📆 Saturday, February 22 – Save the date! We are hosting an Artist Talk with our current exhibiting artist, Hannah Zartman in collaboration with the Women’s and Gender Studies Collection! The Women’s and Gender Studies Collection is an online, always free, peer-reviewed, radically open-licensed resource available to everyone: students, teachers, community organizations, activists, and beyond. Hannah’s work is featured in the Women’s and Gender Studies Collection, and you can purchase some of it from the gallery!

📆 Sundays, 12 to 3 p.m. – Join us at the Longview Gallery every Sunday to view and shop from our current exhibition, Toward a Tender Place, by Hannah Zartman. Check out what we have coming up in 2025!

Infrastructure & Support  

During the recent Infrastructure & Support meeting, several key topics were discussed. Firstly, a webinar on CMMC hosted by Project Spectrum offered valuable resources and insights into federal cybersecurity issues. This is relevant for our clients who comply with NIST 800-171 cybersecurity standards, as CMMC builds on these protocols. We are helping them prepare for CMMC certification, which will soon be mandatory for government contracts.

On the cybersecurity front, we are also assessing the viability of using Teams as a telehealth platform for a healthcare client. Fortunately, Microsoft is a leader in cybersecurity and adheres to various industry standards. With the right licensing and configuration, Teams can be utilized for HIPAA-compliant telehealth services.

In other news, a recent Windows update seems to have caused issues for some users when trying to sign in with their PIN. If you encounter this problem, try signing in with your Microsoft password instead. On the Windows sign-in page, select 'sign-in options' and choose the key icon. This workaround should allow you to sign in and resolve the PIN issue for your next sign-in.

Devices 

Devices! A very relevant topic this week... and last.

We've set up new WatchGuard network infrastructure for a client, which includes a T45 FireBox (firewall) and an AP330 wifi Access Point. We continue to be impressed by the ease of deployment and configuration of WatchGuard devices, especially their user-friendly cloud management interface offered by WatchGuard Cloud.

In other device-related news, we've encountered a challenge in supporting various models of Teams phone devices. At INW, we primarily use the Teams desktop app with a Yealink desktop speakerphone, which serves as an external speaker and microphone for our PCs. Recently, we've deployed solutions for customers requiring traditional desktop phones. While the core features are mostly the same, there are differences in how and where you access these features on the Teams desktop app versus any model of Teams Phone device. Assisting end users with these devices can be challenging due to these variations in feature location and accessibility. Unlike computers, where we can use a remote support tool to see what the user sees, this is not possible with phones. We are inquiring with our vendors to find suitable training materials that will enable us to better support these users in the future.

Operations & Growth

In the recent Infrastructure & Support meeting, we covered several important topics. The team reviewed progress across various projects, including the successful migration of files and forms from a client's personal Google drive to their company's SharePoint. We also discussed Dynamics Marketing initiatives for Longview Farm, highlighting the need to add a business unit field to accounts and contacts in Dynamics 365 Field Service. This effort will be prioritized to enable us to utilize Dynamics more effectively for our expanding enterprises.

Additionally, a comprehensive discussion was had about the marketing strategies for our Home Solutions business beyond social media. We considered alternatives such as local TV ads, coupon mailers, and publications like Chester County Life. More on this to come, as we coordinate with our marketing specialists to put these strategies into action. Additionally, we talked about integrating Shopify orders into Business Central, ensuring the proper handling of Longview Gallery sales and generating commission statements for artists.

Information Radiation

Earlier this week, we discussed an account we recently deployed Yealink equipment for regarding Teams phone challenges. The issue isn't with the equipment itself; rather, we're struggling to train users on devices with different user interfaces. Upon further review, we're initiating the development of a training course for the Yealink equipment using the Zansai (formerly LMS365) AI course content creation tool. Additionally, we intend to make training mandatory for future Teams deployment projects to ensure new Teams phone users are comfortable with their equipment's features and interface. Moreover, we're planning a Teams 201 course that covers advanced features for users already familiar with the basics of Teams phones.

We’re also pleased to announce improvements in our internal communication infrastructure. As we explore ways to streamline communication for our expanding team, we’ve identified a need for an internal communications Team where everyone can access information related to employment, such as benefits, holidays, and timesheets. While we do have our Viva Connections Intranet, it lacks some beneficial features found in a Team. For example, a shared group calendar and a place to schedule channel meetings so notes and meeting chats remain with the Team. Additionally, our Creative team has been working on a resource dashboard to organize all our online tools, making it easy to find the right tool for the job.

Finally, the Longview Gallery is now available as a rentable meeting or production space on Peerspace! If you need a private, unique space for working, meeting, or shooting your next TikTok, check us out!