This year our office will be closed for the holidays from Saturday 19 December through Sunday 3 January 2021. We will be back on Monday 4 January 2021.
For support whilst we are closed, please raise a ticket at directionforward.com/support or email [email protected].
Please note that all other contact methods will not be monitored during this time, including phone calls, emails and texts.
We wish you all happy holidays and best wishes for the new year!
We are pleased to introduce Two Factor Authentication (also known as 2FA, Multi Factor Authentication and MFA) for our Cloud Backup and Shared Drive services.
Enabling Two Factor Authentication will further safeguard your data and means you are 99.9% less likely to be compromised. This protects your accounts with a two step login – after entering your username and password as usual, you will be asked to enter 6-digit code which is either texted to your phone or created by your phone’s security app.
To turn on Two Factor Authentication for Cloud Backup and/or Shared Drive, please log in to your web portal (links below), click on the top right Profile icon and select Privacy and security. Finally, click Enable on the Two Factor Authentication section and follow the instructions.
Due to the UK completing the transition period of leaving the EU at the end of 2020, there will be some changes to how some of your services are billed and there may be some changes to how your data is handled. These changes all result from the ways in which we will need to work with top tier providers, most if not all of which are US-based for technology and infrastructure.
Top tier providers – such as Microsoft, Amazon and Google – have informed us that all their billing from 1 January 2021 will be conducted in our local currency (GBP), rather than their local currency and/or the end customer local currency. Thus top tier providers will be billing in GBP.
UK organisations
If you are a UK organisation, any hardware, software, licenses and other third party services which have been billed in GBP will continue with no change. Any items which were previously billed in USD and converted to GBP by us will now be billed in GBP directly. This may result in a slight increase in the cost of said items, which will be entirely dictated by the top tier provider based on their pricing.
European organisations
If you are a European organisation, any hardware, software, licenses and other third party services which have been billed in EUR will continue with no change. Any items which were previously billed in USD and converted to EUR by us will now be billed in GBP which will be converted to EUR by us. This may result in a slight increase in the cost of said items, which will be dictated by both the top tier provider based on their pricing and/or potential currency conversion fees.
Future localised billing
If you are a European organisation that is adversely affected by these changes in 2021, we may be able to offer you billing directly in EU and data protection agreements via our European OÜ entity.
Shipping from the UK to the EU
We are fully EORI compliant and we will provide our Economic Operator Registration and Identification number on request. This allows us to move hardware between the UK and the EU. Please note that shipping from the UK to the EU may be subject to additional charges due to the new post-Brexit processes and customs requirements – we are currently unsure as to what these will be until this becomes common practice in January ’21.
Data protection with the EU and the US
The UK government has indicated that the GDPR will continue following Brexit, with a new version including some amendments currently termed the ‘UK GDPR’ coming into effect. Standard contractual clauses (SCCs) may be required for some services and/or territories. We will issue a further update covering data protection and security soon.
A significant update for Macs is coming very soon from Apple, and we are recommending that Mac users do not update to this right away.
The incoming update for macOS (the Mac operating system) is called Big Sur and is the very first update for version 11.0. The previous version change of this significance was way back in March 2001, when Apple released version 10.0. All versions since have been incremental, e.g. the most recent being Catalina version 10.15.
Big Sur makes a very significant change to how the Mac operating system works, which impacts all third party (i.e. non-Apple) software. Not everyone is ready for this, even massive companies and providers, so not everything is yet compatible.
Our recommendation is to wait until the major applications and services have caught up and released their own updates to work with Big Sur. And also, to wait for any general initial teething problems to be ironed out – which is always our recommendation with such significant operating system changes.
If you have already updated to Big Sur early (the official release hasn’t happened quite yet), this won’t be a problem for your Mac, but some of your non-Apple software and/or services may not work properly or may work in a reduced state – until they are fully compatible. We estimate this should be by the end of October, generally speaking.
To see more technical information on the significant change in how macOS works, please see Apple’s information here: support.apple.com/en-us/HT210999
To find out more on Big Sur and what new features it will bring, please see Apple’s information here: apple.com/macos/big-sur-preview
From 1st November, Google will apply a surcharge to ads served in these territories:
Google says these fees are being applied:
These fees will be shown on your invoice or statement as a separate line item per country and will be displayed in the “Transactions” section of your Google Ads account.
If you pay through monthly invoicing or automatic payments, these fees will be added in addition to your account budget. To adjust your account budget, see here support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375395.
If you pay through manual payments, these fees may be charged after your payment has been fully spent.
Google’s full explanation is available here: support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9750227. Please note that our charges for serving Google Ads will increase inline with this from the same date, ie 1st November.
We are pleased to offer a 20% discount on ESET Smart Security Premium for all new licenses.
Smart Security Premium is ESET’s award-winning internet security suite, combining anti-virus, privacy protection, anti-theft, firewall, online transaction protection and much more. It can even encrypt your files and removable media for safeguarding of your data and protection in case of theft or loss. ESET is the only internet security protection with a paid license that we recommend and is trusted by over 100 million users worldwide.
Please contact us to receive your discount.
Promotion valid for up to 5 users per license, until 7th September, 2020.
Microsoft has announced that it will no longer provide technical support or updates for Office 2010 on both PC & Mac and Office 2016 on Mac after October 13, 2020.
This will mean that Microsoft will no longer provide fixes for bugs or security updates for these versions of these products. Office 2010 and Office 2016 will continue to operate, however no technical support will be provided and they will be vulnerable to bugs which could lead to security issues.
Microsoft recommends upgrading all older versions to the latest version – Office 2019, which is now part of their Microsoft 365 service. For which there are different levels of subscriptions for business – please see below:
One- off licenses for Office 2019 are also available from us can also be purchased for £59.99+VAT per machine..
We are a Microsoft Silver Partner and provide all the above at discounted partner pricing. And we can assist you with upgrading older versions of Office 2010 or Office 2016 on your machines. Please contact us for further information.
Following improvements in performance and security, all Shared Drive and Cloud Backup customers should upgrade to the new version (v4.15) of the desktop app.
The new version will be available on Tuesday, 4th August. Please update when you are automatically prompted..
Those who are already running the latest software will not be prompted and do not need to make any changes.
Microsoft is working on a new feature to “Add shortcut to My files” for folders shared with you, which will be available worldwide by the end of September 2020.
This new feature will give users the ability to add shortcuts to shared folders in OneDrive and SharePoint, making it easier to find and work on these files. The shortcuts will also appear at the OneDrive root with the owner’s details in the sharing column in order to differentiate it from your own content.
Currently, when a user adds a shortcut to a SharePoint folder that was already synchronised the user will not see the new shortcut in their OneDrive folder, but the previously synced folder will remain in File Explorer. This is a limitation in the public preview that Microsoft aims to address before making the feature generally available.
Once the public preview has rolled out to your organisation, to use this feature:
OneDrive
In OneDrive, in the navigation bar, select Shared > Shared with me
Find the folder that you want to add, and click the little circle icon in the folder’s tile to select that particular folder
Click Add shortcut to My files button or right-click the folder and select Add shortcut to My files
SharePoint/Teams
Select Add shortcut to My files to add the shortcut to the entire library or select a specific folder that you want to add and then select Add shortcut to My files
For further information please see further instructions on support.microsoft or contact us.
Microsoft have announced a new look and an updated Yammer, which will automatically replace the previous version.
Yammer is an Enterprise Social Network (ESN) and part of Microsoft 365, which allows communication with users inside (and also outside) an organisation. Through new ‘Yammer Conversations’ you can integrate conversation feeds within SharePoint sites from any Yammer community or user, to stay up to date with discussions without leaving SharePoint.
New features include previews of media and visuals, the ability to upload images and files into conversations, and Yammer management actions – such as Close Conversation, Mark Best Answer to a Question, and Pin a conversation.
Sites already using Yammer Conversations will automatically be updated with the new version. For organisations who have not yet set up Yammer, please see here on how to add to SharePoint.