Tech Binders: Your Organization's Tech Brains

When it comes to your organization's technology, there's an awful lot of stuff to remember. The more useful technology you incorporate into your organization's work, the more service providers, usernames, passwords, and other info you're going to have to keep in order.

If you've ever spent hours typing in every imaginable username and password combination with no success, or rifling through piles of bills trying to figure out who the heck your domain registrar is, you'll know how painful and time-consuming it can be when some of that info is lost or forgotten. You might think that you or someone else in your office has an A+ memory and can retain all of the organization's tech information in their own brains, but what happens if that person leaves the organization, or is simply unavailable when the next tech crisis comes up?

To help you avoid those kinds of headaches, LINC recommends that you create a tech binder that contains all of the necessary tech info and documentation for your organization. A tech binder is exactly what it sounds like — a binder that has your tech info written down and consolidated in one central and easily accessible location. A tech binder is a decidedly low-tech approach to keeping your important tech info in order, and that's good: that way, you can access your information even if the network's down, or the computers are all broken, or you can't access the Internet.

Your tech binder should be kept well-organized and divided up into sections with tabs to help you quickly find what you're looking for. It should also be kept up to date; every time tech info changes, you should update your tech binder immediately. It should be kept in a safe place in your office where people will know to look when they need it.

What should you put in your tech binder?

This is a list of the things that we think everyone should keep track of in their tech binders. There might be more that you want to store in yours, but at the minimum, try to gather this information and start your tech binder with it.

• Who is your Internet service provider? Write down their name, contact info (support Web site, phone number, and email address), and specific information about the plan or Internet service you've signed up for.
• What company do you use for Web hosting? Your Web host is also often your email host, so if anything goes wrong with either your Web site or email, they're someone you'll want to contact. Write down the Web host's name, contact info, and your login info for the Web hosting site or control panel.
• Who is your domain name registrar? You'll need to know this so you can keep track of when to renew your domain name, and in case you need to switch from one Web host to another. Write down the domain name registrar's name, contact info, and your login info for the domain name Web site.
• Write down specifics of your organization's internal network. What is the URL (Web address) and login info for your modem (cable or DSL) and router configuration? If you have wireless access in your office, what is the name and login info for your wireless network and your wireless router? What is the name of your network? Do you have a file server running? If so, what is it called and what is the login information? What software is your server running? What are the names of the other computers on your network, and what operating systems are they running? What are the printers called, and how do you access them?

That's the bare minimum, but there's a lot more that can and should go into a tech binder. We also recommend that you think about recording the following in yours:

• Login information for your database, individual workstations, and any tools or services that you access on the Web.
• Any technology plans or assessments.
• License and registration info, warranties, and manuals on hardware and software used in your organization.
• Troubleshooting notes — do you ever find yourself scratching your head and wondering how to solve a problem that you know you solved once two years ago? Consider keeping troubleshooting notes in your binder that record what the problem was and how you dealt with it. Then, if the problem occurs again, you can refer back to the tech binder, instead of reinventing the wheel (or asking your tech consultant to do so!).

An important note on writing down passwords: Passwords are probably the most commonly forgotten pieces of tech info. However, passwords are also supposed to be secure, so writing them down in your tech binder can be a security risk, since then, anyone who picks up the binder can easily read your passwords.

If that's a risk you'd rather not take, there are other alternatives. One is to use a standard organization-wide password, known by multiple people in your organization for all logins and accounts that you create. If you do choose to write down passwords, you could figure out a memorable system for scrambling or altering passwords before you write them, like inserting a random character into the password that you'll remember to remove when actually using it. Just be sure that you remember whatever system you do set up!

Remember that you should never write down passwords for sensitive or confidential information or accounts, like bank accounts.