#RemoteWorking - Trying to work 100% 'in the cloud' and found a few 'features' ...

Given my plan on improving my #remoteworking skills in the coming weeks, I needed to check out some of my basic assumptions to see if I could do my 'normal' day job in the cloud, before I go off and play with stuff like #VR meeting experiences.

So I tried something today …

My ‘work’ laptop is a MS Surface Book that I’ve been using for 18+ months. Most of the apps I use like Asana, Trello, Slack, Salesforce, Toggl, Zoom, Dropbox etc are all ‘in the cloud’, yet I’m old school for email and office applications. I use the classic Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint and so on. Plus I have a lots of files on my hard disk and I have a bunch of video & audio apps installed.

This afternoon I went out with an older Surface Pro, which I’ve not been using for work so it has none of my usual apps installed. So I tried to work 100% from the cloud ...

I came across a few features …

• Accessing my cloud apps. I did not have browser links to all my apps in the cloud, so I had to go off and 'find' the logon screen to all the apps that I wanted to use. Not that hard to do but a bit tedious when you usually have all of them book marked.
• Not all the passwords I needed were in my Password Manager … I though they all were but a few were missing or out of sync. Not ideal.
• I have two factor authentication set up for most, but not all of the apps I use. I was a little surprised that some were sending me an SMS, some an email and others using Google Authenticator. I guess I had set them all up like that. All worked, it just took a bit of time to get it all done. (and a NOTE to ME - Do NOT lose my phone ...)
• Using Outlook 365 ‘online’ VS the Outlook App is different. It’s a different look and feel and bit clunkier to use (in my opinion).
• I assumed I had all my offline email folders synced with the cloud, turns out that a few folders were not … Need to fix that.
• I use Dropbox and Google Drive a lot, and while I believed I had all my files synced in the cloud, it turns out a few files and folders are missing … Another thing to fix.
• Asana, Toggl, Trello, SF, Slack, Zoom, Skype etc all worked fine as you would assume, so no issues there.
• Now I did not try to do any video or audio editing. I’m sure there are online apps out there, I’ve just not used them. Some to think about.

So what were my take-away’s;

1. I’ve always assumed the tech would just work and that with my cloud apps syncing all the time, then everything ‘should’ be fine. And most stuff did work. But it did take me a good bit of time to get everything authenticated and up and running.
2. Yet I had some critical files and folders missing. If I was stuck in another city / country for a few weeks and not able to access my work laptop, then I had no chance to get those files. And depending on the files, that could be a problem.
3. The ‘look & feel’ for some of the apps was different to me. And while I think all the functionality & features I typically need to be production were there, it might take me longer to do stuff VS doing it on my usual laptop. That's something to bear in mind when we’re setting deadlines with others who are working remotely in the coming weeks… 

Now all of the above is very specific to me. I have my ways of doing things and my setup. Everyone will have a different way and their own setup.

That said, do go and check how you would access all your email, your messages, your files and applications if you are working remotely and not using your usual work device.

It's an interesting experiment. Plus it's probably better to find out what works or not when you can then go and fix any issues, rather than find out the hard way later.

All in all, an interesting ‘experiment’.

Kevin.