Nicolet
IT services in Nicolet for teams of 5 to 15 computers
In a small office, IT always ends up on somebody’s shoulders. The bookkeeper who once set up the printer. The assistant director who is “good with that stuff”. That person has another job to do. OKTO Solutions takes over from Trois-Rivières, about 26 km from Nicolet.
In Nicolet, an organization with 5 to 15 computers and no IT person can hand its machines, accounts and backups to OKTO Solutions. Service is delivered remotely from Trois-Rivières, about 26 km away, with scheduled visits. The employee who used to rescue coworkers simply becomes the point of contact.
Who can look after IT for a small Nicolet office with no IT person?
OKTO Solutions offers to take charge of IT for small organizations in Nicolet that have 5 to 15 computers and nobody responsible for them. The company is based in Trois-Rivières, about 26 km away, and has neither an office nor a technician in Nicolet. Service is remote: an employee asks for help from their own computer, a technician connects and sorts it out, every business day between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Updates, antivirus, backup and Microsoft 365 accounts are kept up without anyone in-house having to think about them. The coworker who used to do all of that on top of regular duties remains the point of contact, but no longer keeps the passwords in a notebook and is no longer the only one who knows how to restore a file. Scheduled visits are used to install hardware or walk through the equipment.
The portrait
Do you recognize your office’s “computer person”?
She never applied for the role. One day the wireless dropped, she restarted the router, and she has been the one people call ever since. She created the email addresses, picked the antivirus off a store shelf, plugged in the backup drive behind the filing cabinet. It works, and that is to her credit.
Her skill is not the issue. Being alone is. Nobody checks whether the backup ran this week. Nobody else knows the router password. And each time a coworker interrupts her about a printer, her own file falls behind. When she goes on vacation, the whole office holds its breath.
The first move: every device in the office goes from “unknown” to “taken care of” in the inventory.
Taking stock
Everything that lives in one person’s head
None of this is a criticism. It is the usual picture of a ten-computer office where someone does their best between two other tasks.
| What we often see | How it goes wrong | What changes once the fleet is managed |
|---|---|---|
| Passwords written in a notebook or an Excel file | The notebook goes missing, or everyone can read it | A password vault, limited to two designated people |
| A backup drive that stays plugged in | Ransomware encrypts it along with everything else | A copy kept outside the office and a restore test on record |
| Updates done “when there is time” | Known flaws stay open for months | Patches applied remotely, without anyone having to ask |
| A former employee’s account still active | A forgotten way in that nobody watches | Accounts closed on the day of departure |
| One shared administrator login | No way of knowing who did what | Named accounts, administrator rights kept to a few |
A small organization that holds client, member or patient files also falls under Law 25, whatever its size. For email, see email protection for small businesses.
The takeover
What does the first month look like?
Nobody gets pushed around. The office keeps running while we pick things up one at a time, alongside the person who knows them.
- A meeting with your go-to person. She tells us what she set up and what worries her. No better documentation exists.
- Our tools installed on each computer, to see the true state of updates, antivirus and disks.
- Passwords moved to safety and two-step sign-in turned on for email.
- A backup rebuilt properly, followed by a test: we restore a real file in front of you.
- A one-page summary handed to management: what we found, what is fixed, what is left to decide.
Help is requested from the corner of the screen, without bothering the coworker at the next desk.
Day to day
Who do your employees turn to when they are stuck?
Us, directly. Each computer has a small assistant next to the clock. The employee clicks, describes the problem in a sentence, and the request reaches a technician. Phoning or writing works too. Either way, your assistant is no longer in the middle.
For an office this size, the Standard plan is often the starting point, since it includes user support. The Base plan monitors, protects and backs up, without that support: it suits an office where someone in-house wants to keep doing the troubleshooting. The Complet plan adds advanced security and the emergency line.
The territory
Nicolet, seat of the Nicolet-Yamaska regional county municipality
Seat of the Nicolet-Yamaska regional county municipality, in the Centre-du-Québec region, Nicolet counted 8,620 residents in the 2021 census, and the École nationale de police du Québec has its campus there. This page is written for the town’s small teams: professional offices, shops, non-profits.
Trois-Rivières
Our only office, on the north shore of the river. The technicians who answer your employees work there.
Bécancour
The neighbouring city, where industrial park suppliers have to demonstrate their security to customers.
Shawinigan
In Mauricie, for companies whose network spans both offices and a production floor.
Our other territories appear on the service areas page. Ready to write? Use the contact page.
Questions and answers
Your questions about our services in Nicolet
We have eight computers. Is that too small for a managed IT provider?
Our office assistant has handled the computers for years. What changes for her?
Every password is in a notebook. Where do we begin?
Do you have an office or a technician in Nicolet?
Do you come on site?
What if everything goes down on a Saturday?
Free up the person who fixes everything
Tell us how many computers you have and who looks after them today. We will explain what we would take over, in what order, and what it would change for that person.
Reviewed by Antonio Pazzi, president of OKTO Solutions · updated