When a company opens a new office or branch, IT is often planned last, after the lease, the fit-out and the furniture. The trouble is that several IT items have long lead times. If they start late, staff arrive on opening day to find no internet or Wi-Fi that drops in every meeting room. This checklist is based on the office setups we deliver across the UAE.
8 to 12 weeks before opening
- Order the internet connection. Business fibre lines from du or Etisalat by e& can take weeks to install, depending on the building. Order early, and consider a second connection from a different provider as a backup.
- Get the floor plan to your IT partner. Cabling, data points, comms room location and Wi-Fi coverage should be planned before walls and ceilings are closed.
- Decide what stays at head office. Will the new site connect back to head office systems, or run on the cloud? This decides the network design and firewall requirements.
6 to 8 weeks before
- Structured cabling. Install and test Cat6 or Cat6A cabling to each desk, printer, access point, camera and screen. Ask for test results for every cable and labelled patch panels.
- Comms room or rack. Plan for ventilation, a dedicated power circuit and a UPS. A small office may only need a wall-mounted rack, but it still needs cooling.
- Order hardware. Switches, firewall, access points, PCs and printers. Some models have supply lead times, especially at quarter end.
3 to 4 weeks before
- Wi-Fi survey. Place access points based on a survey of the actual space, not on guesswork. Glass partitions and concrete cores change coverage a lot.
- Security systems. CCTV and access control need cabling and, depending on the location, approvals. In Dubai, CCTV installations are regulated by SIRA, so build that time into the plan.
- Phones and meeting rooms. IP phones, video conferencing and screens should be installed and tested with your actual collaboration tools.
The final two weeks
- Configure and test the firewall, VPN and links to head office.
- Prepare PCs and laptops with accounts, software and security settings before they arrive on desks.
- Test printing, scanning and badge access from a staff member's point of view.
- Document everything: network diagram, IP addresses, passwords stored securely, and who to call for support.
Opening day
Have an engineer on site for the first morning. Most problems on day one are small, like a printer that isn't mapped or a password that hasn't synced, and they are fixed in minutes when someone is there.
Common mistakes
- Ordering the internet line after the fit-out has started.
- Too few data points, leading to extension switches under desks.
- Wi-Fi access points placed where they were easy to install, not where people work.
- No UPS on the network equipment, so a short power cut takes the whole office offline.
- Nobody owning the documentation after the installers leave.
BluDATA can plan and deliver the whole package for a new site, from cabling and network to PCs, security and ongoing support.