Office Relocation Tips for IT

<-- The server room on 10th floor, way before the office movement.

All right. The reason I'm writing this, is because I have a box on my desk, a really really BIG old printer and BIG CPU under my desk, and a jungle of boxes lying around behind my chair. And that's a better situation than Day 1, because now it's somewhat more sorted (box for network cable, box for telephone, etc). Oh, and the second reason is because we can't find the charger/adaptor for a wireless access point that needs to be installed at the 14th floor (*cries*).

So, tips for you IT guys who manage the server room and have to clean it up when you move office:

• Label, Label, Label. When me and my friend first unpack one of the biggest box, we found all sorts of things inside. There were phone cables, network cables, power extension cables, power extension plugs, monitor cable, printer cable, adaptors, chargers, CDs, mouse, keyboard. Even a very old and small and heavy laptop (which is broken). Not to mention papers, books, etc. And the worst thing is, we don't know which belong to whom. Even if it's not assigned to anyone, you can put a sticker label that says: Network cable for server XYZ.
  
• Then categorize. Prepare a box (the box is labeled, of course) for network cables. A box for telephone cables. A box for power extension cables. A box for laptop adaptors. You get the drift. This way, when someone asked you for an extension cable because she needs more than 2 power outlets on her desk, you don't open so many box and without a result. Also, it saves your time from unnecessarily unpacking things. And, you can arrange the boxes neatly and leave it at that if the server room space is still tight (yeah, just try to stuff things from 3 server rooms to 1).
• Mark the location for each equipment with a printed, clear, human readable text. For example: you have 3 existing printers and you'll have 7 incoming printers. Where should they be placed? Take the space allocation printout (you know, the floor plan where you mark this desk belongs to whom), and also put your printers/scanners locations there. In the body of every printers, there should be a sticker that said: Printer A, belongs to Mrs. A, from Building A, to Building B 10th Floor. And on the desk where the printer should be placed, stick a printed card (preferable than post-it) that says "Printer A". So then you'll know where to put it and you'll know if anything's missing. And don't put unknown devices on someone's desk! In Day 1 someone asked me for help because he has a big printer on his desk (that wasn't supposed to be there).
  
• Print the user name and phone extension and stick it to the desk. This way you'll know where to put a PC with "John Smith" sticker on it and a telephone with "Ext 200" sticker on it.
  
• Print a checklist and stick it to users' desk. Really. If you need to: plug in the CPU/mouse/keyboard, test the network connection, check the file sharing mappings, check the corporate Office templates, check the proxy, set up new printers, etc for each computer, you really should just print the checklist and stick it to everyone's desk. That way when you're done, you just tick it off and you'll know that you're done with the desk.
  
• Print the Extension List and stick it to user's desk. Or, if your General Admin department have a printed Office Relocation Welcome Kit/Book for everyone, just attach the extension list inside the book.
  
• Print each user's login confidentials, put in a sealed envelope and hand them when they move in. That way your phone won't be ringing all the times from users asking his/her internet password, etc.
• Test your servers! Really. This is the most important thing. When all business files reside in the server, people can't work if the server (OMG) dies. Or behaving bad by disconnecting random people. Or rejecting new proxy users. Or behaves strangely because someone forgets to check the disk quota for each department (ouch, sorry guys).
• Ask for help. Seriously. If you have 6 staffs, 3 of them programmers and 3 of them tech support, get all of them to help in the Moving Day (Day 0). Surely someone can help printing & sticking the checklist etc and generally be helpful, right?
  
• Sort out your Task Priorities, brief everyone of The Plan and have a master commander (ha ha) to coordinate the process. I constantly pestering my friend to say "Okay, done, what else?" and he sometimes doesn't have the answer to that while everything's still a mess. Hmm.. shouldn't we have a checklist that said: Okay, number 1 is to plug everyone's PC to the desks, number 2 is plugging in the phones, etc.
  
• Give your team food and beverages. Seriously. When people are helping you, even when you feel like that's their job, you should say thank you and provide food and drinks.