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IT Systems Troubleshooting for Restaurants

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If you have read the foregoing articles in this section you will have got some ideas as to how to approach the IT setup of your new restaurant. These are more or less in the sequence that the work is usually done. Getting the Internet connectivity service provision planned and ordered early in the planning process is a must. Next when the interior design is sorted you will be looking at specifying where you will be putting all the IT devices. You will then need to plan the Ethernet cabling infrastructure that is required. Remembering to put in a little extra for future expansion and any future cabling failures. This needs to be done early in the first fix phase of the interior renovation of your new site.

Nearer the time of the opening, the IT cabinet will get prepared. The Ethernet patch bar will be terminated. The device end Ethernet faceplates will be terminated and labelled. Then all the cable runs will be tested ready for installing IT equipment. The Ethernet devices, routers, switches, wireless access points etc will then be installed and the networks configured. EPOS devices, management computers, credit card machines and bookings systems will then be setup on your network. Customer and staff Wifi can also be securely setup at this point.

Once everything is up, running efficiently and has been fully tested you will want to make sure that you have documented all your IT setup. This is a key stage to ensuring that future trouble shooting is as painless as possible. You are now ready to open the restaurant and start giving excellent service to your customers. All your new IT equipment is working fine. With luck, you will not have many issues for a long while thanks to all your careful planning and careful choosing of reliable, cost effective IT equipment.

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Tool pouch for cabling repairs

The above said, at some point things will likely go wrong. It is unrealistic to think your IT infrastructure will always work perfectly. From time to time, things will not function as expected. Try to keep calm and work out what is going wrong. Have you lost Internet connectivity everywhere? Is it just the WiFi devices that are failing? Is the EPOS WiFi ok but your customers cannot access the Internet via your WiFi? Is it just one printer that is not working? It is not always easy to work out what is happening, but if you can work out some logic about what is not working, it will be easier to trouble shoot. It will also help you to know what to do next. If you think you can sort the problem yourself, great. If not, you will need to decide what IT service provider you should contact.

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MWDC Service Provision

"Deciding what IT service provider to talk to is not always easy. That said, if you have free support with any of your IT service provider contracts, this is likely a good place to start. Most EPOS service providers have free support in your monthly service fees. They will usually be able to work out if the fault is within their remit or not. Most Internet Service Providers also offer support, although this is often not that helpful. If this is not working and you have not fixed the issue, then contact me and describe your problem. I will try to assist by phone or remote access. If this does not work, I will make a site visit and do some testing to ascertain where the issue is really stemming from."