Happy Canada Day 2018

We’ll Be Celebrating – But Our Help Desk Will Still Be Here For You And Your Staff

On July 1^st, we as Canadians, honour the formation of the union we call home. Whether enjoying the holiday at a cottage; watching a fireworks celebration in the city; working hard in the office or shop; or marching in a local community parade; we all celebrate our great nation together as one.

Here’s to our beautiful lakes, our majestic mountains, and everything that makes Canada the greatest place to live!

For anyone who’s not Canadian, here’s what Canada Day is all about.

On July 1, 1867, Canada became a self-governing dominion of Great Britain and a federation of four provinces:

1. Nova Scotia
2. New Brunswick
3. Ontario
4. Quebec

These four provinces were created from the former British colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Province of Canada. The Province of Canada was divided into Quebec and Ontario.

Canada’s boundaries have been extended since 1867. Today, Canada consists of ten provinces and three territories.

The Ten Provinces Of Canada Are:

1. Alberta
2. British Columbia
3. Manitoba
4. New Brunswick
5. Newfoundland and Labrador
6. Nova Scotia
7. Ontario
8. Prince Edward Island
9. Quebec
10. Saskatchewan

Canada’s Three Territories Are:

1. Northwest Territories
2. Nunavut
3. Yukon

On June 20, 1868, Canada’s Governor General proclaimed that Canadians should celebrate the anniversary of the confederation. In 1879, the date of July 1^st was designated a holiday known as Dominion Day. However, official celebrations didn’t take place until the 50th anniversary in 1917 and the 60th anniversary in 1927.

After World War II, Dominion Day was celebrated more often with organized events. And, after the 100^th anniversary of the confederation in 1967, Dominion Day events became more widespread. July 1st became known as Canada Day, and officially known as this from 1983 onwards. Since 2006, Canada Day celebrations have also been held in the UK at London’s Trafalgar Square.

For our Help Desk employees, Canada Day is just another workday. We plan to celebrate Canada Day just like the rest of our countrymen (and women!). But we do this by being here if you have any technical issues.

Our Help Desk is your front-line support for submitting incidents and service requests.

We say that we operate 24/7/365 and we mean it – Canada Day, Christmas, Boxing Day, Victoria Day, Easter – no matter the holiday or day of the week.

You’ll have direct access to the IT professionals who can help you onsite and provide the advice, guidance, and rapid restoration of services you need to keep your business running. 

When you call, one of our agents will log your request into our IT service management system and either resolve it for your then or escalate it to the next level of support.

You have the option of reporting an incident or service request by email or contacting us by phone. When you do, this will generate a “ticket” in our IT service management system.

Once the ticket is created, you’ll automatically receive an email receipt confirmation with your ticket or reference number. This confirmation tells you that your request has been logged at our Help Desk and that it’s been assigned to a tech specialist who knows your business and is experienced in your particular IT issue.

Here’s what we ask that you provide when submitting a request to our Help Desk:

• Your name, business name, phone number, and email address.
• A detailed description of the problem or concern.
• Whether the issue you’re experiencing affects only one user, many users, your entire office, or multiple offices.
• The impact your issue has on your business, including whether any critical applications have been affected.
• Anything you or your staff have done to try to resolve the issue before contacting us.

Prioritizing Tickets

It also helps if you prioritize your need. Here’s an example of what we mean:

• Non-Urgent: Your problem is minimal and doesn’t impact your ability to work. It’s something that could wait to be addressed within the next week. (For example, you’d like us to provide a new piece of computer equipment for you.)
• Normal: The IT issue has some impact on your day-to-day operations. However, you could wait for two days for it to be addressed. (For example, you’d like us to help you find a better way to use an application or replace it with a different one.)
• Urgent: The issue you face has significant impact on one user’s ability to work. You need help sometime during the workday.
• Emergency: This issue has significant team-wide impact on your staff’s ability to work. Multiple employees are affected. You need help as soon as possible, no matter if it’s after hours, over the weekend, or on a holiday (like Canada Day). This is for things like outages and downtime.

Please do your best not to prioritize something as “Urgent” or “Emergency” when it’s not. This helps us to get to those really urgent requests much faster.

We want you to know that you and your staff can enjoy Canada Day with the peace of mind that our Help Desk is always here for you. Happy Canada Day everyone!