Many organizations in spite of having a self-service password reset web portal continue to witness Password reset tickets as a major chunk of the help desk incidents and SRs . All this in spite of email reminders and AD prompts on user screens.

There has to be a better way of leveraging the SSPR to create stronger ROIs and quicker paybacks than with organic user adoption of SSPR.

Anakage with its proactive remediation platform, has successfully been able to achieve the adoption of the SSPR by the users. Let’s see how Anakage platform achieve this.

Anakage proactive module is an agent installed on the user’s machines or the end points (laptops/desktops) which:

i) Forces the users to register on the SSPR portal

ii) Reminds users and enforces them to self-reset their passwords before password expires

(iii) Provides the link for Password reset/ unlock account in the windows login screen itself. This swings up the SSPR adoption by making SSPR available even to the locked users when the user needs it without having to memorize the SSPR URL.

Let’s review in detail the usage jerkiness of SSPR and how the Anakage platform smoothens out:

Case 1 – Employees do not register on the SSPR web portal and tickets gets created for resetting the password/ unlocking the account

Solution – Force users to register on the Self-Service Password Registration Portal.

The organization will have a list of users who have not registered on the portal. Admin can import this data into admin dashboard of Anakage’s proactive remediation platform which ensures that the platform does not need deep integration to the enterprise systems, if the frequency is higher then a one time API integration is recommended to get the runtime data. Depending on the number of users and your password reset timelines, you can choose whether you want an API integration for real time updates or periodic upload of non registered users’ list . The next step is executed by the Proactive module, which will start showing messages to users on screen by detecting the time of password expiry of the user as per the password reset policy which is generally 90 days. Users can act on the message and they would be directly taken to the Password registration portal for registration. Alternatively, if the user is busy when reminder pops up they can snooze the message for allowed time and post the last reminder the proactive module (agent installed on the end user’s machine) would force the user to act. This results in boosting  SSPR registrations, a key step especially if you have challenge questions setup instead of OTP based resets . Now even when the user forgets the password or the account is locked they can go to this portal and reset it on their own by answering their challenge questions

Case 2 – Employees do not reset their passwords on time in spite of repetitive notifications or emails

Solution – Detect when the password is going to expire and coax user with on screen reminders to reset it.  

Reset can be through a self-service password reset portal or usual way of CTRL+ALT+Del and reset. The mechanism of snooze and reminders are same as case 1.

Case 3 – Employee’s password has expired due to the password reset policy and they are locked out of their machine or their account is locked out manually by the Admins (for various reasons)

Solution – Press CTRL+ALT+Del. User would get a hyperlink in Windows log on screen to open up the  SSPR portal  where the Employee can self reset their password or unlock their account.This solution is independent of the first two cases and does not require a Proactive agent to be installed on the user’s machine. It works for the usual on-premise set up as well as for Remotely connected systems (laptops/desktops). The link to the SSPR web portal is configurable  as per  Organization’s SSPR.

1. On desktop/laptop in Windows Lock screen

2. On Remote desktop login screen

BENEFITS OF ANAKAGE SELF-SERVICE PASSWORD RESET (SSPR) SOLUTION

• Increase ROI on SSPR portal. Users actually start using SSPR effortlessly without having to remember the URL or to act on missed email or subtle AD prompts.
• Improved user experience. Users are happy to self-service AD related issues in minutes than waiting on IT Help Desk technician.

The post Self Service Password Reset (Sspr) Solution – Anakage Technologies  first appeared on NAZING written by Olivia Bradley

 Issue:

It is not unusual to get an error message that says “Microsoft Excel has Stopped Working”. Rather than switching to panic mode, just understand that this error is widespread and definitely not fatal.

As a first step, try to figure out what’s causing the “Microsoft Excel has stopped working” problem. You can save time by selecting the best solution to your problem once you’ve determined the cause of the error. Here is a list of some possible reasons.

Environment:

Microsoft Excel

1. Microsoft Office Excel Application is Outdated

If you haven’t installed MS Office updates, Excel might stop working, hang, or freeze. Keep MS Office up to date. Setting Windows to automatically download and install the most recent (and recommended) Microsoft Office updates might assist you in preventing and resolving the issue. Here’s how you do it:

Installing the updates essentially aids in the replacement of obsolete files as well as the correction of vulnerabilities that may be creating issues with your Excel application.

2. Faulty Add-ins

Excel add-ins make it easier to work with the program, but they can occasionally cause it to malfunction. Start Excel in safe mode, which will allow you to open the program without add-ins.

To start Excel in safe mode, do one of the following steps.

If you see that the issue is resolved in Safe Mode, add-ins are the problem. Disable add-ins by following these steps:

Re-enable the add-ins one by one if everything is working well (while simultaneously restarting Excel each time). That way, you’ll be able to figure out which add-in is causing the issue and permanently deactivate it.

3. Repair Office Installation

Excel errors can also be caused by a malfunction of the other Microsoft Office applications. In this case, repairing your MS Office installation is a good idea.

Here’s how:

Even if you only wish to repair one application, such as Word or Excel, this will repair the complete Office suite. If you have a standalone app installed, type its name into the search box.This will fix the ‘Microsoft Excel has stopped working’ error and repair the Excel application.

4. Check Antivirus Integration

Using anti-virus software that is not up to date makes it simple for viruses to infiltrate your computer, leading Excel to stop working. This problem might also occur if your antivirus software is incompatible with the Excel program. To protect Excel from new viruses, make sure your antivirus product is up to date.

A macro is a set of actions like clicks and keystrokes that can be run multiple times. They can be created by the user or be downloaded. With macro malware attacks becoming common, Microsoft integrates antivirus with its Office applications. In some cases, you may have performance issues because of this. If this is the case, prevent antivirus software from interacting with Excel by disabling the Add-in. Make sure to only install macros from trusted sources.

5. Recompile Macros

Errors can also be caused by faulty macros. If this is the case, you’ll need to adjust a few settings to ensure that utilizing Macros does not cause Microsoft Excel to crash. Here’s how you do it.

If faulty Macros were causing Microsoft Excel to stop working, the problem should now be resolved, and you should be able to use Macros without crashing Excel.

Conclusion:

The above steps can help resolve “Microsoft excel has stopped working” in windows system, depending upon the engineer or a user could follow the steps to resolve the issue.

The Anakage platform can help resolve issue using “Proactive Cobot” which is an agent at the end point and could help fix the issue “M S Excel has stopped working” without providing admin rights to the user.

Click here to see a video on “M.S.Excel Functionality Loss”

Would you want your users to self-resolve such issues?

The post How to resolve “Microsoft Excel has stopped working”? — Anakage Technologies first appeared on NAZING written by Olivia Bradley

INTRODUCTION

Anakage is an end-user support automation platform that empowers the Shared Services Center or NOC Model automation using the concept of Multi-tenancy. It is a smarter way of handling IT Service Desk Automation. Let us see How.

HOW?

Multi-tenancy is a software architecture where a single instance of software application running on a server serves multiple tenants.

We can take the example of the apartment. At the main gate, they have a centralized administration for security, electricity, water, and other facilities. These facilities would be owned by the apartment owner and shared by the tenants.

Apart from the software application, each customer can also share a multi-tenant database as well.

TYPES OF ARCHITECTURE  FOR SHARED SERVICES CENTER OR NOC MODEL AUTOMATION

There are 2 main types of Multi-Tenant Architecture for Shared Services Center or NOC Model automation:

• Single Data Base with one Application server
• Multiple Data bases with one Application server

Anakage Self-Help and Self-Heal Platform supports both the Multi-Tenant models. Each customer is called a tenant or facility in Anakage platform which will access content or solutions assigned to them specifically using a Content Management System, read more. Each tenant or facility will see a personalized version of the Application including custom content and personalization like banners and logo.

Below are the two Multi-Tenant options:

In both the Muti-Tenant options, the application can show different solutions for different Tenants or Customers or Users.

ANAKAGE ARCHITECTURE   FOR SHARED SERVICES CENTER OR NOC MODEL AUTOMATION

Below is the basic Multi-Tenant Architecture diagram of the platform for Shared Services Center or NOC Model automation:

This type of multi tenant architecture allows different set of users to have different sets of solutions specific to their requirement and the Admins can manage the Multi-Tenants easily.

Both the Anakage platforms- i) Self-Help and ii) Self-Heal supports remote solution firing of Admins, without taking the control of the User’s machine using remote control software.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR SHARED SERVICES CENTER OR NOC MODEL AUTOMATION?

An Engineer/Admin can easily handle multiple clients. There is no need of client-specific onsite engineers for each client. Depending on the rules set by the Admins, the Self-Heal agent can collect and report the required information across the multiple end points. One engineer can easily handle the remote solution firing for multiple clients, both in terms of Self-Heal and Self-Help solutions. The engineer can easily fire the solutions across multiple end points, depending on the solutions failed and also when the users are not doing the self-service. You can read more on the remote solution firing blog here.

BENEFITS

1) Avoid Capex and reduce Opex

Cost avoidance of OnPremise deployment and ongoing maintenance itself is a big savings lever to move towards a secure cloud model. Since the shared infrastructure is scalable, there will not be any resource constraints to growth at a marginal cost increment without additional Capex. If you only need offline application or a self heal agent, there is no need of thinking for AD integration for SSO, thus further cutting down on Deployment costs by limiting to configure the required solutions for each client. Finally fewer NOC resources can handle up to 50% of the calls remotely thus reducing the need for onsite engineers.

2) Scalable

The architecture of the multi-tenant application ensures every client can grow its user base on the platform without having to add Capex. The modules can be configured easily and this makes using the application expedient. There is no need to change the codes or the data structure because the shared codes are always common.

3) Faster Deployments

With a plug and play platform that does not require on-premise deployment you will just need to plug in custom solutions that address clients’ top volume drivers. So, room for infinite customizations while still maintaining an underlying codebase which remains constant for all the users, including old and new customers.

4) Secure

• Anakage follows OWASP top best practices and regularly scan our application using standard tools.
• Crucial information like IP, network or any user credentials are not sent to the server. Hence, it is a secure environment.
• At no point in time the solutions of other clients will be intercepted by another client because they are not authenticated to do so.
• Tunneling of information through VPN can also be done to enable security.

CONCLUSION

In terms of resources, few engineers who were already maintaining other accounts can easily maintain new accounts. In terms of scaling and deployments, even the time required to deploy can be drastically reduced. If there was a need for 6 weeks for a typical single tenant architecture, the same can be reduced to 2 weeks, depending on the Anakage components. This will reduce the overall costs, in terms of deploying solutions which indirectly can also save the costs of the business impact, if otherwise.

The post Remote Service Desk Automation In A Noc Model – Anakage Technologies first appeared on NAZING written by Olivia Bradley

What if you have been adopting the service desk automation and you find that it is still not giving you a much ROI ? What if the users are not using the self-help options to resolve issues and the tickets are getting piled up on Engineer’s account?

Gartner research shows that service executives believe 40% or more of today’s live volume could be resolved in self-service channels, yet only 9% of customer service journeys are solved entirely in self-service channels.

Anakage can not only help Enterprises with Self-service solutions but can also help Admins/Engineers to fire the solutions remotely, if otherwise.

Anakage Self-service application can be used to resolve endpoint (laptops/desktops) issues by users themselves. It is available in two flavors-

1) Offline application

2) Online application(using an online portal)

Below is the Self-Help dashboard that users can use, to resolve issues-

In spite of the self-service solutions, at times like these the issue gets reported.

1. The user is in a hurry, to complete other tasks and does not have time to resolve issue on his own
2. The user forgot about the Self-help solution
3. The user does not understand which solutions to use

In situations like these, an Admin or an L1 engineer can easily fire the appropriate solutions, across the endpoints for the reported issues, at one go.

Below is the Admin dashboard, which can be used to fire solutions across all the reported end points-

Depending on the situations, the solutions can be fired in two ways-

1. With message to the user. (the user will understand which solution is running and he/she can also understand the solutions, if they did not know about it)
2. Without any message to the user (the solution runs in the background)

Benefits of using this-

• An engineer can easily handle multiple clients.
• No time wasted waiting in call queues, especially when the service desk is dealing with a much larger volume of calls 
• Information requests are handled at source, taking strain off your service desk staff
• Handle admin level issues, which require admin privileges, remotely.
• Significant reduction in the handling cost of issues and service requests 

Anakage also offers proactive agent for Self-heal issues at source. The users will never know the issues. The engineer/admin can analyze it using the Analytics dashboard and the Admins can also fire the solutions remotely, in case self-heal solutions fails.

The only pre-requisite for remotely firing the solutions would be Anakage self-service application or self-heal agent to be installed at the endpoints, which can be installed using the msi installer or pushed across the end points via SCCM tool.

Click here to get in touch with us to know more about how we can help you implement a successful Service Desk Automation.

Anakage End-User Support Automation platform for IT Help Desks enables Enterprise IT to reduce support tickets at source, improve end point compliance, accelerate onboarding and help users self-service and digitally adopt applications. Also reduce tickets by eliminating them at source by user self-service, proactively resolve before the user notices it, maintain compliance and automate your high volume processes.

The post Remote Solution Firing In It Service Desk – Anakage first appeared on NAZING written by Olivia Bradley

PLANNING SERVICE DESK AUTOMATION

While considering Service Desk Automation one of the key things to consider is how to reduce the cycle of Incident to Problem Management and Change Management thereafter without compromising quality.

PROBLEM MANAGEMENT

Let’s narrow down key tasks of Problem Management in the End-User Support space which are Root Cause Analysis , Solution and Deploying the solution including Change Management.

PROBLEM WITH PROBLEM MANAGEMENT

While up to 50% of the IT service desk issues are repeat in nature many of which have an underlying root cause, most organizations fail to address these repeat incidents inspite of knowing what they are and why they occur.

We realize that there are operational challenges to reduce the lifecycle of Problem Management owing below:

• fetching relevant actionable information for Root cause Analysis
• creating and deploying the fix takes costly skills and is time consuming

DESIRED FREQUENCY OF END POINT INFORMATION COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

When you really look at historic data you realize very few new categories of Incidents pop up every two quarters or so. But when they do, it takes hell lot of time to figure out the Root cause, find and deploy a permanent fix.

IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES

Most often, it is not feasible to do a RCA (Root cause analysis) due to lack of relevant information from the end points at the right time . While there are free tools like Event Viewer and paid End Point Analytic tools available to aid this process, organizations continue to grapple with too much noise in the data besides operational issues to implement such solutions given the implementation constraints on the ground,

Let’s look at a probable real-life scenario of incident to problem management along with challenges that IT faces in conducting RCA and executing the identified solution:

• 0 to 12 weeks for moving from Incident to Problem management (PM) àITSM reports indicate a trend of up to 25% systems experiencing occasional crashes in the last 12 weeks
• 12 to 17 weeks for Root Cause Analysis and identifying a Solution àProblem Management (PM) team rules out low RAM or hard disc as possible causes based on ITAM reports for these impacted machines
  PM team in 2 weeks catches hold of only 10% of the impacted users to pull out Event viewer logs
  Log analysis indicates required permissions were missing from some of the component services causing the crashes, read more here
  A PowerShell script was developed and tested to check necessary registry settings and grant permissions, read more here
• 17 weeks onwards – Roadblock while Deploying the fixNon Microsoft signed PS scripts are not allowed in environment so now Engineers have to manually run this as an Administrator on thousands of impacted machines and there is no way to proactively identify from hundreds of thousands of machines (the situation doesn’t improve even if it is just double digit number of machines as the Service Desk time is always constrained)

After nearly 17 weeks this is not a nice and expected outcome, IT is burn out, Management is not happy and users continue to loose time / productivity ….not a desired state to be in!

Anakage provides a remediation platform:

• with hundreds of pre-built solutions
• that facilitates accelerated Root cause Analysis by a Collector that pulls only the relevant info you need
• with a scriptless workflow creator to create new Solutions
• and a updater to push your new solutions to end points

Proactive CoBot can reduce 80% of your effort and time to pull out necessary information from logs using CoBot’s collector and then use CoBot’s services to run newly built remediation solutions without requiring Admin privileges.

For known issues which require user intervention and which can not be prevented from occuring sporadically, Anakage offers Online and Offline CoBots.

Anakage has consistently reduced upto 50% of the incidents at source at reduced prices from competition, thus creating stronger business outcomes for clients and partners. Get in touch with us to know more about we can help you implement a successful IT Service Desk Automation,

The post Service Desk Automation For Issue Discovery And Remediation – Anakage Technologies first appeared on NAZING written by Olivia Bradley

Introduction

End point Non-Compliance detection & auto-remediation app  is a Windows OS client server application where compliance criteria across multiple Agents installed at end points can be monitored and any deviation rectified automatically. All detected non-compliance and remediation status across multiple Products is reported in one single view providing Enterprise wide view.

Compliance Parameters details

The dashboard displays Product wise a set of monitored parameters and settings as detected at end points. The product categories on which compliance parameters are configurable and can be categorized as following:

• Protection: Antivirus, Firewall, Hard drive encryption
• Operating system: Windows
• Software: Java, Chrome, Browser, MS Office, Flash
• Network: Secure web etc.
• Data Loss Prevention: Symantec
• System: Patching, Disc space
• Communication management and tracking: Video or any text based reminder with action enforcement mechanisms on end users

Illustrative view of Products and monitored Parameters

The following is the summary of the available metrics and corresponding configurations

How the Platform works

Deployment mode

Anakage compliance platform provides both agent based (installed at end point) and agent less (by scheduled push through SCCM or through distribution platforms) solutions

• Agent Less Solution deployment

Compliance exe runs on the end points at the schedule specified from SCCM and after run and post actions, it self destructs leaving zero footprints. So no exe installation is required at the end points. And all the performed compliance task actions get reported on the reporting portal.

• Agent Based Solution deployment

Agent based exe is installed at the end points (installation can be done through SCCM or other software distribution tools) and checks compliance status at predefined intervals.

Features

1. Regulatory Remediation Integration: Compliance remediation with both scheduled and manual triggering

Not only it collects and report compliance status, Compliance remediation and automation platform comes with the capability to remediate issues for certain metric parameters. Solution fixation can be either scheduled (agent initiated) or manual (admin initiated). The manual solution fixation can be invoked from admin portal.

In admin portal, all the compliance parameter statuses get reported. For a particular compliance parameter, i.e. antivirus scan compliant- if there are a few end points which are not antivirus scan compliant, it will appear as ‘fail’ entries.

If the ‘fail’ button is clicked, it will show the details of the end points for which the compliance failed.  Admin can manually trigger compliance solution for the ‘fail’ entries by clicking on the ‘Fix’ button.

Upon clicking the ‘Fix’ button , a screen will come up allowing admin to select end points and action type.

2. Complete Enterprise wide Compliance Reporting in one single dashboard

All the predefined compliance parameters can be monitored from one central dashboard without any need for scripting or coding.

3. Multi attribute Reporting and Visualization

In the reporting portal, it is possible to view the report from different aspects- compliance status for different products with the corresponding end point and location facility/business unit details helping admin to follow the evolution of the compliance status and check if the overall compliance is improving or regressing. Options of reporting at Solution level, individual Product parameter level besides Facility, geography or Business unit wise are also available

• Overall Product wise report

It shows the product wise drop down for which the compliance status is checked.

• Product parameter (compliance parameters predefined for each product) wise report

Under any product it shows the particular parameter compliance status which are configured. Like for ‘secure web’ product, the compliance parameters are ‘installed’ (installed properly or not) or ‘version’ (version updated or not) – against these parameters it will show the compliance status.

• Compliance before and after status report

There are options to have dashboards showing the compliance status at Parameter level before and after running the compliance exe (weather manual or scheduled). If some parameter shows ‘false’ (non compliant) before running the exe (in initial data), it gets remediated (if possible) and the taken actions also gets reported (in final data).

• Location facility wise report

It shows the compliance data for different locations or business units providing a precise view of compliance for different segments of the organization.

All these reports can be downloaded from the portal and on the basis of the report; the IT Ops/Info Sec can inform engineers to take required actions.

Experience Non Compliance Detection and Auto Remediation and discover what Anakage can do for your organization.

The post Non-Compliance Detection and Auto Remediation – Anakage Technologies first appeared on NAZING written by Olivia Bradley

Setup time zone in Windows to enable overall performance and settings, in this blog you will learn how to setup Time zone in windows.

Although Windows 10 does a decent job of identifying and establishing time zone settings according to your region during installation, there could be a variety of reasons why your device isn’t showing the right local time.

It could be because your settings weren’t recognized correctly, you’re traveling to a new place with a different time zone, or you bought a gadget preconfigured with different settings from another country. Whatever the reason for your computer’s inability to display the right local time, Windows 10 has a number of choices for changing the time zone, including the Settings interface, Command Prompt, and PowerShell.

Environment:

Time Zone

Solution:

Using Settings

1. Open Settings.
2. Go to Time & Language.
3. Select Date & time.
4. Switch on the Set time zone automatically.

Once you’ve completed these steps, the time zone will automatically change to your current location. However, you may have to wait a while before seeing the accurate time.

  Adjust time zone manually using Settings

To change the time zone settings manually on Windows 10, follow these steps:

1. Open Settings.
2. Click on Time & Language.
3. Click on Date & time.
4. Turn off Set time zone automatically.
5. Go to the “Time zone” drop-down menu and choose India Standard Time.

  2. Using Command Prompt

1. Click on Start.
2. Look for Command Prompt, right-click and click on Run as administrator option.
3. Type this to confirm the current time zone and press Enter:
   tzutil /g
4. Type this and note the time zone that you want (IST) and hit Enter:
   tzutil /l

1. Type the following command and press Enter to set:
   tzutil /s “India Standard Time”

1. Type the following command to check if the time zone was updated successfully:
   tzutil /g

  3. Using PowerShell

1. Go to Start.
2. Search for PowerShell, right-click and Run as administrator.
3. Type this to confirm the current time zone:
   Get-TimeZone
4. Type the following command and note the time zone that you want to use:
   Get-TimeZone -ListAvailable

1. Type the following command to set the new time zone:
   Set-TimeZone -Name “India Standard Time”.

1. 
   Note: Type the full name exactly as shown by PowerShell.
2. Type this to make sure the time zone was updated successfully:
   Get-TimeZone

Conclusion:

From the above steps the engineer or the user can setup the time zone with respect to their host country, Anakage Proactive Cobot which is an agent at the endpoint can detect the missing time zone and can fix the issue silently.

Anakage also has user guided solution from offline cobot which could guide the user by opening the live application eventually reducing the efforts and following the above procedure.

Click here to see a video on “Anakage IT Help Desk Chatbot Integrated with Microsoft Teams | Chatbot which Acts” There is much more you can automate, check out our website for more details.

Would you want your users to self-resolve such issues?

About us: Anakage End User Support Automation platform for IT Help Desks enables Enterprise IT to reduce support tickets at source, improve end point compliance, accelerate onboarding and help users self service and digitally adopt applications. Also reduce tickets by eliminating them at source by user self service, proactively resolve before user notices it, maintain compliance and automate your high volume processes

The post How to Setup Time Zone in Windows? – Anakage Technologies first appeared on NAZING written by Olivia Bradley

Issue:

Fix the calculator application in windows, In this blog you will learn How to fix the calculator application in windows to help you in numbers

We can help if your calculator is acting up, won’t open, freezes, or has other problems. You’ll find answers and solutions to fix the calculator in minutes in this blog.

Environment:

Windows Calculator

Cause:

• The calculator won’t open or launch: When individuals try to run the calculator program, it does not open. The program is completely unresponsive, with no indication that a process is about to begin.
• Calculator opens and closes immediately: There is a problem in which the calculator opens, but then closes again. This could be the result of corrupted files in your system.
• Calculator not working for one user or administrator: Some face an issue where the calculator only doesn’t work for one specific user or the administrator. This can be solved easily by following the steps outlined below.
• Calculator Crashes: The app unexpectedly crashes or closes, leading users to start over multiple times.

Resolution:

1. Re-register Windows 10 apps via PowerShell

• Step 1: Press the Windows + S keys and type “PowerShell.”

• Step 2: Right-click “Windows PowerShell” > Select “Run as administrator.”
• Step 3: If asked, click “Yes” to allow PowerShell to make changes on your PC”.
• Step 4: Once PowerShell opens, copy and paste the following script into it, and hit Enter: Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | For each {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)AppXManifest.xml”}
• Step 5: These re-registers the Windows 10 apps, try opening the Calculator app again.

2.   Reset the Calculator app from your settings

• Step 1: Go to the Start menu and select “Settings.” You can also tap Windows + I to access Settings.
• Step 2: Click on the “Apps” tile and wait for all the installed applications to appear on the list. It could take a long time, if you have many apps installed
• Step 3: Type “calculator” to search for the app.

• Step 4: Click “Calculator” > “Advanced options”.
• Step 5: Click on the “Reset” button and wait for the reset process to complete.

3.   Reinstall the Calculator app

• Step 1: Go to the Start menu and select “Settings.” You can also tap Windows + I to access Settings.
• Step 2: Click on the “Apps” tile and wait for all the installed applications to appear on the list. It could take a long time, if you have many apps installed
• Step 3: Type “calculator” to search for the app.
• Step 4: Click on the “Uninstall” button.
• Step 5: Press the Windows + S keys and type in “Microsoft Store” and click on it.
• Step 6: Type in “calculator” in the search bar.

• Step 3: Choose “Windows Calculator” by Microsoft and select the “Get” button.
• Step 4: Click the “Install” button and launch the app once installation is complete.

4.   Run the System File Checker

The System File Checker (SFC scan) is an inbuilt tool. It’s the quickest way to automatically fix corrupted system files and other problems.

• Step 1: Press the Windows + R keys to bring up the Run window.
• Step 2: Type in “cmd” then press Ctrl + Shift + Enter keys to launch the Command Prompt with administrative authority.
• Step 3: If asked, click “Yes” to permit the Command Prompt to make changes on your PC.
• Step 4: Type in the following command and press Enter: sfc /scannow.

• Step 5:  Wait for corrupt files to get repaired. This could take a long time. Don’t close the Command Prompt or shut down the PC until it completes.
• Step 6: Restart your PC

5.   Download the Windows App Troubleshooter

Windows 10 has many troubleshooters for users to automatically resolve issues. While the Windows Store Apps troubleshooter isn’t on your device by default, you can easily download it and run it to restore your Calculator app.

Here are the steps you need to follow:

• Step 1: Download the Windows Store Apps troubleshooter here.
• Step 2: Launch the troubleshooter
• Step 3: Select the “Advanced” link.
• Step 4: Check the “Apply repairs automatically” box, and click Next.
• Step 5: Allow the troubleshooter to do its work and identify any faults. The troubleshooter will instantly repair and restore your Calculator app if problems are discovered.
• Step 6: Close and launch the Calculator app again.

Conclusion:

The windows calculator application is very handy to use, with its various features and capabilities, but we as users tend to rely on it in an emergency task outbreak.

The Engineer can resolve various calculator issues by reinstalling the application or manually running the steps in sequential order as mentioned above.

Depending upon the User requirement, Anakage Cobots has multiple ways to resolve various issues related to “Calculator” using both Portal or Desktop Application (Agent) at the endpoint.

There is much more you can automate, check out our website for more details. Click here to see a video on “Offline Cobot”, which is a desktop application and has catalogue of “One Click” solution” along with “User Guided” solution.

Would you want your users to self-resolve such issues?

Please fill up this form, let us connect and walk you through IT Help Desk Automation use cases.

The post How To Fix Calculator In Windows? – Anakage Technologies first appeared on NAZING written by Olivia Bradley

WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) is the technique for querying and changing basic information about any windows server, including SQL Server or Exchange Server. It provides a logical representation and structure of systems and services hosted on the server. Some of the examples of tasks you can do with WMI –

• Working with the registry
• Working with processes
• Working with services
• Performing hardware inventory
• Working with files and folders
• Working with event logs

WMI is complicated

However with time and features WMI has become slightly difficult to use. Powershell tries to solve few of the problems. Powershell 2.0 supports registry, processes, services, event logs etc. Powershell 3.0 with windows 8 and server 2012, introduced hardware inventory access as storage and network adapters.

Powershell is easy

Windows powershell used Get-WmiObject which simplified WMI. It saves minimum of 7 lines/vbscripts/perl script as compared to WMI. The single-line commands in powershell are also called cmdlets. The underlying technology of Powershell is still WMI, but the classes are basically wrapped and exposed as functions that behave like Windows PowerShell cmdlets

Powershell can access the below modules –

• WMI– Windows Management Instrumentation. It is the Microsoft implementation of Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) allowing access to data. WMI uses the Common Information Model (CIM) to describe objects such as systems, applications, network equipment.
• CIM– Common Information Model. It is a set of standards that describes how information is structured and represented at the heart of the system. It was created by the DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force), a working group to which Microsoft belongs.
• PSWA– PowerShell Web Access. This new function allows secure access to a Windows PowerShell console from a browser so as to interact with any system, even if it is outside the domain.

Sample commands in WMI vs Powershell –

Advantages of Powershell

• Powershell has access to all .NET libraries in addition to the items mentioned above so you can take advantage of anything you could with a language like C# or VB.NET.
• Powershell often allows you to do more with less compared to VBscript. In some cases you can reduce VBscripts that are hundreds of lines to just tens of lines in PowerShell.
• Microsoft has designed powershell for the OS and application automation across all its platforms.
• PowerShell is also interactive. This allows to try out things at the console first and integrate them into larger more complicated scripts.

With Anakage intelligent training technology it is easier to learn these concepts. It guides you step by step on your system. Above topic being discussed is also part of our “Learning Application” for Windows Active Directory. If you want to evaluate it let us know by sending a mail to us at enterprise@anakage.in . You can know more about our offering for training.

The post Powershell Vs Wmi For Windows Management And Automation – Anakage Technologies first appeared on NAZING written by Olivia Bradley

Automation is the key. The millennial employee workforce prefers self-service for common occurring issues before reaching out to the Service Desk agent. As per Gartner 40% of incidents are self serviceable, yet most organizations fail in implementations. There are several external effects including decreased revenue, poor customer satisfaction, even declination in company reputation if employee’s ie. end-users’ needs are not met.  Leaders in technology are exploring ways to digitize their workplace and improve employee productivity and Anakage service desk automation platform complements this journey by fixing issues without any burden of ticket logging.

CLIENT’S CURRENT STATE

• 40% of incidents are self-serviceable, but organizations fail to implement self-service
• Average employee spends 91 hours in a year for IT related issues
• On an average, users need to wait for 20 minutes to 4 hours to days, for Service Desk engineers to resolve routine issues
• Script based automation fails to resolve incidents when manual intervention is required

Some examples are-

Mail archival– (Here users need to enter outlook profile credentials and manually select mails and name the outlook data file, so the solution cannot be fully automated)

Unable to read digitally signed emails– (As to read IRM (Information Rights Management) protected mails users need to install AD RMS policy templates separately, so the solution cannot be automated)

TARGET STATE

• End-user support ticket reduction by Service Desk Automation process and technology interventions
• Increase user productivity by reducing machine downtime
• Move users to adopt enterprise applications and use them optimally

ACHIEVE YOUR ‘TARGET STATE’ WITH ANAKAGE

Anakage is a service desk automation platform that helps to reduce the effort of incident logging while increasing user experience. It transforms conventional service desk agent based linear model with automation  and In-Application Bot assisted self-support. The platform provides insight on consumption and effectiveness feeding continuous improvement process.

ANAKAGE SOLUTION

SILENT DETECT AND FIX SOLUTIONS AT END POINTS (LAPTOPS/DESKTOPS)

Click the below links to watch silent detect and fix solution videos for the mentioned situations:

• Unable to perform fill handle & drag-drop cells and formula bar is not visible in excel (Video watch time-1.19 mins)
• System performance issue (Video watch time-0.58 mins)
• Password reset enforcement (Video watch time-1.40 mins)

INTELLIGENT IN-APPLICATION GUIDANCE TO HAND HOLD ISSUES WHERE SILENT RESOLUTIONS NOT POSSIBLE

Click the below links to watch Self-service in app guidance videos:

• Guiding user to resolve skype issues with In-App guidance feature (Video watch time-0.51 mins)
• Resolving Printer(configuration/mapping) & Skype issue(repeated login prompts) using a combination of automation and In-App user guidance (Video watch time-1.43 mins)
• Application How-To’s/Onboarding/Self-service delivered as In-App guidance (Video watch time-3.08 mins)
• Unable to open word attachment in outlook (Video watch time-2.25 mins)

HOW ANAKAGE SERVICE DESK AUTOMATION PLATFORM WORKS

 Watch the video on ‘How Anakage Platform Works:

 ANAKAGE PLATFORM DETAILS

 ANAKAGE BENEFITS

• Up to 40% tickets addressable by service desk automation  cobots
• Up to 80% efforts reduction in non compliance detection and remediation
• Faster and easier onboarding of users using Multilingual Content Management System
• At least 50% reduction in cost of Application training
• Reduction in wait time (resolve issues within 3 minutes) using Anakage cobots

EXPERIENCE SERVICE DESK AUTOMATION WITH ANAKAGE FOR YOUR IT SERVICE DESK AND DISCOVER WHAT ANAKAGE CAN DO FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION.

The post Automating Your Service Desk – Anakage Technologies first appeared on NAZING written by Olivia Bradley