Remote work is the new norm

The COVID-19 pandemic forced organizations around the world to fast-track to the future of work and quickly adapt to a new remote reality. More than 70% of the knowledge-based workers have been working from home during the pandemic.  
While 2020 was the year the world went fully remote the industry studies show 80% of full-time workers want to remain working remotely or adopt a hybrid model to work from home (WFH) at least three days per week long after the pandemic is over and organizations can fully re-open.  

However, the sudden change came with many technological challenges to organizations. Specifically, the organizations that were going remote for the first time had to adapt to the new reality faster and smarter.

Kodez ongoing partnership with Fitness Passport

Fitness passport enables organizations across Australia to offer their employees and their families affordable, unlimited access to over 1,300 fitness facilities with no financial outlay to the employer.
Covid-19 pandemic did not exempt Fitness Passport from adapting to the new normal of remote working. They had to find a seamless, secure and uncomplicated solution that would be easy to maintain.

We believe that every successful solution is a result of fully understanding the client concerns and desired outcome.

Fitness Passport partnership with Kodez allowed us to provide the best customize technology makeovers. With the unpredicted challenges that came with WFH, Fitness Passport wanted to explore the possibilities a cloud-based Microsoft infrastructure could offer for their ongoing concerns on security risks of different WFH setups.

Challenges Vs Solutions

Fitness Passport is known to embrace challenges but one of the concerns about migrating to a fully cloud-based infrastructure during a pandemic was, it might disrupt the current work processes and add more adjustments to the already rapidly changing work life.

Fitness Passport current frame consists of Google Suite, Dropbox and Local file shares required system admins to manage multiple admin consoles which is time-consuming as well as an avoidable extra expense. Kodez evaluated and determined cloud-based Microsoft solution structured around Office 365 would be the best solution for Fitness Passport's current concerns surrounding WFH, managing multiple consoles and future business growth.

Kodez is an expert in Cloud and understands what involves in a cloud migration process for an organization such as Fitness Passport and the uncertainties clients may have, so we began by addressing those concerns immediately.

• Microsoft’s 365 migration would enable Fitness Passport to bring their Google Suite, Dropbox and Local files under one roof reducing time and maintenance costs.  
• Microsoft’s user-friendly interface would allow Fitness Passport to transit without re-training users or providing additional support or administration for a longer period. This would solve one of the main concerns clients had about not adding any burden on the employees who are already trying to navigate the new work-life remotely.  
• Kodez conducted multiple background analyses.  In addition to the multiple admin costs, the current usages of multiple systems meant multiple licencing renewals and maintaining multiple user logins. With Microsoft 365, the user access is simplified and centralized with one login and the client also can enjoy a lower licensing expense.  
• One of the biggest concerns for Fitness Passport was the security of devices and data. They found the exchange’s security and compliance capabilities very attractive. Office 356 platform provided a unified look and feel for the user, enabling them to engage with colleagues socially, share content, schedule meetings, complete tasks, synchronize data and view files. 
• Microsoft Intune features a collection of tools and cybersecurity benefits for mobile device management and enables users to be productive while keeping the organisation data protected regardless of what device or where they’re working from.

Microsoft 365 Migration

Microsoft 365 is designed to help people and businesses achieve more with innovative Office apps, intelligent cloud services, and world-class security. The migration process began with a setup of Azure AD and with the help of BitTitan and Mover first phase of the data migration was done.
The Migration was done in two phases to avoid any interruption for the operations. Phase one focused on migrating all organization data excluding the last 30 days and on the final stage all remaining data was migrated. During the migration process, more than 120 Fitness Passport mailboxes and two terabytes files were migrated to office 365.

Office 365 has become the de facto standard for not only safety but for efficiency as a whole when implemented in an organization. Office 365 and host of free applications provide ease of access to all the features offered.  Users can explore MS teams, Office Groups, OneDrive and Office applications with a single sign-on. This experience provides users to access a range of content and elements that would boost their daily productivity and make the work-life experience easier than ever before.

The Office 365 solution also increased the overall company mailbox sizes at no additional cost. The mailboxes now allow Fitness Passport employees to easily share their calendars with outside customers and vendors. Since Microsoft established the industry standard for enterprise mail, the Office 365 solution also improves collaboration and connects users to a modernized system that is continually updated. Because the new system requires little internal management or maintenance, Fitness Passport is now exploring ways to take the extra time and IT resources to redirect them toward internal projects and enhancements.

Additionally, Microsoft 365 migration increased the personal user space in the cloud and enabled system policies that ensure a more secure yet simpler file and report sharing system via SharePoint.
With the scope of device management that Microsoft Intune features the Fitness Passport system admins can now seamlessly manage employee devices that were assigned for remote working with the Active directory, whether the devices were company-owned or BYOD, on Windows or Mac, IOS or Android.

Microsoft 365 migration Kodez provided was an easy to grasp, super streamlined, and extremely relevant solution to resolve concerns the work from the home environment has brought to the corporate world. And Fitness Passport was able to increase geographic mobility and flexibility, simultaneously protecting their business’s information.

Kodez continues to have a strong ongoing relationship with Fitness Passport, assisting them through the post-implementation process and extra troubleshooting services during these challenging times. Currently, Fitness Passport together with Kodez guidance exploring the options on Security hardening and Virtualisation.