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Providing Engineers the Technical Solutions Needed to Solve Operational Problems
Engineers are problem solvers. They design and oversee processes that fuel modern industry. At Directive, we have developed a comprehensive information technology strategy that supports engineers, regardless of the industry they work in. We can help build workplaces with the comprehensive tools and technology support required by professional tinkerers. Engineers need to be able to focus on what they are doing rather than worrying about whether their technology is reliable enough to get the job done.
The Technology Engineers Need
Our IT for Engineers Platform Provides Robust Technology
Engineering covers a lot of ground, but it is rooted in finding practical solutions for problems. This is why data management is so crucial to facilitate the needs of this job. Today’s technologies are designed for data collection with analysis in mind and can be of great benefit to engineers in the process of designing and implementing changes to process and to ensure the viability of the underlying strategies.
More Data, More Answers
The More Thorough the Analysis, The More Effective the Engineer
Both engineering and engineering technology share a foundation in mathematics, science, and physical design. Since engineers are responsible for the research needed to get a job done, the analysis of situations and data, the physical design, and the development of the projects they work on, there are quite a few tools that can make these tasks easier.
Our team of technicians have developed a strategy to help support engineers including the following technologies:
- Productivity suites - Some of the most utilized tools in engineering are found in the modern productivity suite. Whether it is a spreadsheet program to build databases, a word processor to write proposals, or a presentation tool to get their plans out in front of decision makers, the modern productivity suite is a must-have tool for all engineering teams.
- Project management - Since most of what an engineer does is structured as stand-alone projects, and they need many different types of resources to complete their projects, a comprehensive project management platform that allows them to schedule tasks, communicate and collaborate with teams of people, store and disseminate data, and more, is an essential tool for engineers.
- Business communications tools - Having the ability to quickly communicate with teams of people streamlines the engineering process.
- Engineering-specific tools - Engineers depend on industry-specific tools that need to be deployed efficiently and effectively to get the job done.
We Can Help!
If you are an engineering firm looking to get the latest technology , or your organization is looking to improve its technology profile to support your team of on-staff engineers, give the IT professionals at Directive a call at 607.433.2200. We can take the pressure off you by helping you deploy the technology to help solve your operational problems.
vCIO - Powerful Technology Strategies
Let Directive lead your technology initiatives with our vCIO services.
Directive's vCIO services present an angle that many smaller organizations lack, a dedicated technology officer. With technology being as large of an expense as it is, it is important that an organization’s technology budget is utilized effectively. For enterprise businesses, the role of the CIO is an executive-level position that carries with it a great deal of influence how these massive organizations spend their technology capital.
For smaller companies, these crucial decisions typically come down to the business owner. In many cases, however, the business owner is far too engaged in the day-to-day operations of their business to focus a lot of time and energy on managing its information systems and network. Our vCIO service dedicates the kind of knowledge and technical skill of an experienced IT administrator, with the business sense of a operations manager. This allows us to assist small and medium-sized business owners and managers in the promotion of productivity, while also helping properly utilize company capital.
Our team will do a comprehensive assessment of your organization’s technology and operations. Your vCIO consultant will then have a discussion so that you can outline your business goals. Your vCIO goes in understanding that the purpose of business technology is to improve productivity, and with that in mind, your vCIO can come up with a customized roadmap on how to utilize your technology budget more wisely. Some initiatives our vCIO service can help you with include:
- Cutting and shifting cost: The business-minded professional doesn’t want to be handed a plan for a complete overhaul of his organization’s computing infrastructure. Our vCIOs find innovative ways to cut costs for redundant or inefficient technology, while also finding ways to keep your organization from having to spend on huge upfront costs that can cripple your technology budget for the year.
- Increasing productivity: Our dedicated vCIOs find productive solutions to your businesses most pressing problems. We’ll get to know your business, and how to position technology to make it more productive and efficient.
- Communication: Our vCIO service is designed to help us meet your needs. Our dedicated consultants listen to what you have to say and provide sound and logic-based decisions to even the most stressful business problems. If technology can make your business better, our vCIOs will let you know.
- Data management: Today’s businesses can use the data they collect in new and exciting ways. Our vCIOs can help you leverage modern analytics systems to help you learn about your business, your staff, your vendors, and most importantly, your customers.
If your business is looking for new and innovative ways to spend the capital that is earmarked for technology, our dedicated consultants and technicians have answers for you. Directive's vCIO service pays for itself by finding the problem-solving technology solutions your organization needs, at a price that you can manage. To learn more, contact us today at 607.433.2200.
Microsoft Office 365
Variable payment options give you the freedom to pay only for the software you need.
For small and midsized businesses, the Microsoft Office productivity suite is a staple in the software cupboard. Consider how much you have paid for each software license. How would you feel about spending a fraction of the cost for the entire Microsoft Office productivity suite, and with it, get some of the most revolutionary collaboration tools available?
Directive is proud to offer the Microsoft Office 365 cloud-based productivity suite to small and midsized businesses in the Upstate New York area. Per-user monthly billing, rather than the traditional per-machine rate, significantly reduces the amount your organization has to spend to get the same productivity suite that you are used to.
Access Your Microsoft Office Applications Anywhere
View and share files with everyone on your team from anywhere, on any device.
Microsoft Office 365 enables users to access documents from anywhere on a multitude of devices, like smartphones, tablets, and more. Do you have a PC at work with Windows 7 or 8 and need to do some work from home? Microsoft Office 365 is available wherever there is an Internet connection. At the office, at home, or on the move, Microsoft Office 365 offers world-class collaboration anywhere, at any time.
Every Office App is Now on the Cloud
Your favorite Microsoft Office Apps are available in the cloud.
The Microsoft Office productivity Suite features Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, OneNote, a team SharePoint site, as well as an online meeting place with HD video and screen sharing. Everything about Office 365 has been redesigned to provide elite usability, with quicker load times to improve workflow. By taking advantage of the cloud, the work you do on all of these applications is automatically saved and backed up, which provides you with peace of mind.
Benefit from Real-Time Collaboration
The cloud lets all team members comment and share projects to improve communication.
All entities of your business can benefit from adding cloud-based productivity features by Microsoft. Since team members can share, collaborate, and communicate on projects using cloud technology, they will see additional benefits from being able to work in the same project. Microsoft makes this possible thanks to an integration with Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync, which give you powerful communication options to go with the comprehensive productivity suite.
Microsoft's cloud solution is a secure way to store your files. Microsoft's Office servers have a 99.9% uptime, and when you store your files on Microsoft's secure cloud infrastructure, you are saving the expense of having to maintain your own.
For more information about the Microsoft Office 365 cloud-based productivity apps or other IT-related services that we can assist you with, call us at 607.433.2200.
Email Encryption Services - Protect your Email Communications
Email encryption is an important piece of the security puzzle when it comes to ensuring privacy and complying with industry regulations. Transmitting information through the internet can be dangerous. Information can be intercepted and end up in the wrong hands, leading to regulatory fines, negative PR, a loss of company intellectual property, lawsuits, and more for your business.
Ensure that your company’s email communication is in good shape with NOCOLOGY Email Encryption.
Why Protect your Emails
Email encryption involves encrypting, or disguising, the content of email messages in order to protect potentially sensitive information from being read by anyone other than intended recipients.
Sensitive information is flowing through your business’ inbox all the time. From SSNs to credit card numbers, a plethora of information is transmitted to and from your inbox either within the body of your email or through attachments. All of this information being shared puts your business at risk.
In 2017 alone, over 2.5 billion data breaches were publicly disclosed, up 86% from 2016. The cost of data breach can be monumentally high for companies, and is something you want to avoid dealing with if at all possible.
NOCOLOGY’s Email Encryption can help keep your data safe. Using three different options of encryption, it will ensure that every type of sensitive information that enters or leaves your inbox is safe.
Policy-Based Email Encryption
Directive’s email encryption service offers the ability for a you to encrypt outbound emails based on content, sender, and recipient. The full content scanning of messages and attachments enables your business to comply with industry regulations by automatically encrypting, rerouting, or block email messages containing financial (GLBA), healthcare (HIPAA), PHI, PII and profanity content. A company’s sender can also trigger an email to be encrypted as well as encrypting all emails destined for specific recipient email domains and email addresses.
How it Works
NOCOLOGY’s Email Encryption works seamlessly inbox to inbox. Depending on the type of message, it will be encrypted in one of three ways:
- Mark as Confidential: Messages can be marked as confidential of any message in Outlook by going to ‘More Options’ under the Options menu.
- Force Phrase Keyword: Predetermined phrases can be configured that will encrypt any email with that phrase in the subject line.
- Encryption Policy Tripping: Those with administrative access can configure policies that can detect personal information, such as social security numbers. That information will be detected and encrypted when found in the body of an email.
We take your data very seriously, even before you are a client.
This privacy policy describes how Directive collects, uses, and protects any information about you. We generally gather this data in one or more of the following ways:
You provide information to us directly, such as filling out an online form or sending us a message via our website.
Your computer or mobile device automatically sends us information through your Internet browser, such as your computer’s IP address or other technical information such as which web browser you are using and so on.
Our website keeps track of how you use our website or our services, such as which pages you visit, how frequently you visit, and so forth.
Directive may change this policy at any time by updating this page. This policy’s last update was May 25, 2018.
This policy does not cover websites and services we host for our customers. For these sites, the site owner/customer is responsible for publishing and maintaining their own privacy policy.
In terms of your use of this website, Directive (that’s us), act in the capacity of Data Controller. If you have any questions or concerns about the data we hold about you, you may contact us in the following ways:
Phone: 1-888-546-4384
Email: support@directive.com
Mailing Address: 330 Pony Farm Road
Suite #3
Oneonta, New York 13820
United States of America
Our Commitment to Data Privacy
As an IT solutions provider, maintaining and protecting private data is paramount, and a large part of our everyday focus. We are fully committed to protecting any data that is provided to us, including, but not limited to, personally identifiable information.
In order to operate efficiently for our prospects and clients, we need to gather data. This is a factor that allows us to serve our clients effectively. However, we only gather information that we feel is necessary to provide our services effectively or, to improve the experience of our prospects and clients.
We operate under the principles of ‘data minimization’ wherever possible, and only ask for the minimum amount of information required for us to provide our services effectively. We only retain and maintain data that we feel is necessary.
We aspire to be compliant with applicable data protection regulations, and whenever possible, to go above and beyond these standards to ensure the safest possible experience for those we engage with.
What We Mean by ‘Personal Data’
In this privacy policy, we will use the terms ‘data,’ ‘personal data,’ and ‘information’ interchangeably. All three terms refer to any information that allows us to identify you personally, and any information you choose to provide to us that fits that description. Examples of this include your name, email address, phone number, etc. We will always seek to gain your explicit consent to providing this information before we collect it from you, however this may not be the only legal basis on which we collect the data.
Other information we collect, such as your computer’s IP address or the general geographical location you are surfing from do not allow us to identify you directly, but we still consider this data under the umbrella of personal data when it comes to protecting your privacy and is treated as such.
Who We Share Data With
We only share data with those we absolutely need to, operating on a strict ‘need to know’ basis for all personal data that we work with. We only disclose personally-identifying information to people and organizations who have agreed, in writing, not to disclose it with others. Some of these people/organizations may be located outside of your home country. By using our website and services, you consent to the transfer of such information to them. The only people/organizations (data processors) that have been granted access to personal data are:
Employees of Directive including but not limited to staff that provide sales, marketing, or support services, as well as internal administration.
Our web hosting technology suppliers who provide the physical server infrastructure that our website(s) operate on. We ensure that our server resides physically in the USA and that no customer data is transferred to data centers outside of the USA by the host.
Third-party contractors assisting Directive with website development and marketing.
We hold additional Data Privacy Agreements with these companies as an additional layer of accountability in order to help ensure your data is secure.
We will not rent, trade, or sell your personally-identifying information to anyone.
In the case that we ever were to engage in any onward transfers of your data with a third-party data processor for a purpose other than which it was originally collected or authorized, we would provide you with an opt-out choice to limit the use and disclosure of your personal data.
Directive may be required to disclose the personal data of an individual in the event of a lawful request by public authorities, including but not limited to meeting national security or law enforcement requirements.
How Your Data Is Protected
We protect your data in a number of ways:
- Access control: We strictly limit access to personal data. Access is controlled by individual user accounts.
- Data encryption: The website is secured with Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption, which means that all traffic to and from the website is encrypted. Our administrative access is also encrypted and password protected.
- Dedicated security software: We have multiple layers of security software at both the server level and the website level in order to protect our website from malicious attacks. This software is responsible for limiting login attempts to our site and blocking potentially malicious attempts to access personal data.
- Internal IT security: We provide multiple layers of security for our internal IT to prevent the theft, corruption, and misuse of personal data, including but not limited to firewalls, encryption, and strict user access. Our staff is trained to handle all data as expected and any leniency is not tolerated.
- Content Delivery Network: We utilize a Content Delivery Network (CDN) in order to increase the performance of our website and to prevent malicious threats and attacks. Cloudflare may only collect technical data such as IP addresses and is not given access to personally identifiable information. This data is used to prevent malicious attacks from known abusive IP addresses.
- Transaction Gateway: In the event that we process monetary transactions, we process them through a gateway provider and do not store or process the data through the web server.
- PCI Compliance: In the event that we process monetary transactions, we ensure that we follow strict PCI compliances to ensure that your information is processed, stored, and transmitted through a secure environment.
Data Retention
We retain your personally identifiable information for as long as you maintain an account with us as a client or as otherwise necessary to provide you our services. We will also retain your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.
When we determine we no longer need to hold and maintain your personal data for the purposes described, we will delete it from our systems.
Users Under 18 Years of Age
We do not knowingly collect personal data online from individuals who are under the age of 18 without parental consent. If you become aware that an individual under 18 years of age has provided us with personal information without parental consent, please contact us. If we become aware that an individual under the age of 18 has provided us with personal data without parental consent, we will take steps to remove the data as permitted by law.
Access to Your Personal Data
If you have directly provided personal information to us (such as completing an online form, or by contacting us directly over the phone or email), you have a number of rights over the personally identifiable information that we hold:
- You have the right to obtain from us confirmation about whether any such data is being held.
- You have the right to require that we provide you with whatever data we are holding/processing about you, including the right for that data to be transferred to another data controller.
- Even if you have consented to us processing your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that permission at any time.
- You have the right to require us to rectify any incomplete or incorrect information held about you.
- You have the right to require us to erase the data held about you (the ‘right to be forgotten’).
In the situation where we collect personal data automatically (such as from your internet browser or via internet cookies or other similar technologies):
You have the right to object to the legal basis upon which we are collecting this data, and we have an obligation to consider and respond to that objection.
You have the right to request the prevention of further processing of your data while your objection is considered.
You have the right to make a complaint to the relevant data protection authority.
Links to Other Websites
Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third-party products or services on our site. We may also mention third-party websites and entities in our content (such as our blog). These third-party websites will have separate and independent privacy policies. We have no responsibility or liability for the content or activities of these sites.
Types of Personal Data We May Collect, and How We Collect It
Website Forms (Contact, Support Requests, Registrations, Blog Comments, Etc.)
We have various forms on the website that enable you to contact us, request support, inquire about products/services, or register for events and offerings. We ask for a number of pieces of personal information, such as your name, email address, and other contact details. For obvious reasons, this information is required for us to respond to your request.
Depending on the nature of the form, we may ask for other information that will further help us serve you (such as asking what services you are interested in, the size of your business, etc.)
Account Logins
Some features of our website require login access, and thus require a user account to be created. This user account allows you to log in to the website. Individual users are granted different permissions through our access control, and different functionality is available depending on the user. For example, if you register to get access to a free document, it creates a login account so you can log in and access that document again later. Some functionality also includes administrating or contributing towards the website content (such as a blog author).
Our clients also have the ability to log in to our website to access our customer portal, which allows the viewing and creation of support tickets, view invoices, and communicate with our team concerning the products and services we provide, and the service agreements they have purchased.
All form submissions create a basic user account. Once a form is submitted, users can access the portal to view their inquiry or message and make further requests.
The purpose of these user account logins is to keep your personal data behind a login that requires a password, and to protect the integrity of our website and its visitors.
Data collected for these logins consists of your email address (which in most cases, doubles as your username), and your name at minimal. Passwords are reset through a temporary link that is emailed to the user on request.
If you do not register for an account, submit any forms, or engage us to become a client, no such data will be collected in this regard.
Technical Data
Our system will log a record of your visit in our server logs when you visit our website. Typically, this record will include the IP address associated with your device and the internet browser and version of that browser you are using.
Keeping server logs is a very common practice. These logs are used to monitor the technical resources and activity on the server that hosts the website, as well as to detect and attempt to prevent fraudulent activity such as Distributed Denial of Service attacks. This data is sometimes used to diagnose technical issues and identify patterns of behavior, for instance, identifying repeated malicious attempts to log into the website or access a file.
We also note IP addresses when forms are submitted to detect malicious and fraudulent activity and attempt to prevent spam submissions.
We utilize a Content Delivery Network (CDN) in order to increase the performance of our website and to prevent malicious threats and attacks. The CDN may only collect technical data such as IP addresses and is not given access to personally identifiable information. This data is used to prevent malicious attacks from known abusive IP addresses.
IP addresses do not allow us to identify you personally, and in many cases, your IP address will routinely change as it is dynamically allocated by your internet service provider. We do not use our server access logs to determine an identifiable individual. We do not consider the IP address data we collect in our server logs within the scope of personally identifiable information, and do not seek your consent to collect it.
Third Party or Publicly-Available Data
We may obtain certain data about you from third-party sources in order to improve our services and customize our website and marketing experiences for you. We may combine this data with the data you provide us in order to enhance your experience and improve our services.
Online and Offline Communication
When you communicate with us to inquire about our products and services, or otherwise utilize our products and services, we may collect personally identifiable information in order to communicate with you about our products and services. This information includes, but is not limited to, your name, email address, and phone number.
Storage of Personal Data
Directive and our associated services and systems are stored in the United States. If you are located outside of the United States, please be aware that the personally identifiable information we gather and process will be stored in the United States, a jurisdiction in which the data protection and privacy laws may not offer the same level of protection as those in the country where you reside or are a citizen.
By using our services and/or submitting your personal data to us, you agree to the transfer, storage, and/or processing of this data in the United States.
Cookies & Similar Web Tracking Technologies
Our website utilizes cookies and other technologies to better understand how users are using our website and services. This technology can be an essential part of providing certain online functionality. Cookies are small files placed on your device that allow us to tell when you have visited a particular page or performed a particular action (such as submitting a form or clicking something).
Most websites utilize cookies and other tracking technologies to provide useful insight on how the website is being used. They allow us to improve the personalization of your experience over time. There are several types of cookies:
Session cookies: These cookies expire at the end of your browsing session and allow us to link your actions during a particular browsing session.
- Persistent cookies: Persistent cookies are stored on your device between browsing sessions and allow us to remember your preferences or actions across multiple sites.
- First-party cookies: These cookies are set by the specific site you are visiting.
- Third-party cookies: Third-party cookies are set by a site other than the one you are visiting.
As a user, you can influence how cookies are used on your device. Most internet browsers (such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, Internet Explorer, etc.) allow you to adjust preferences for whether to allow or block website cookies. You may also remove any cookies that have already been set. We advise you to take the necessary steps from within your web browser’s settings to block all cookies from this site if you wish to avoid the use of cookies from our website.
Cookies used for analytics may use non-personal data that is not directly linked to you. We use analytics technologies to improve our site and services.
Web Beacons
We may use small graphic images (also known as “pixel tags” or “clear GIFs”) that we use in conjunction with cookies to identify the behavior of users on our site.
Website Analytics
We utilize Google Analytics to provide useful insights on our website traffic and to understand what people do when on our website. When anyone visits our website, information such as which pages they look at, how long they spend on the site, and what drove them to our website, etc.) is sent to Google Analytics (which is controlled by Google). This information is anonymous and does not contain any personally identifiable information.
There is no way for to identify an individual from the data. The data consists of data from any and all traffic on the website.
This analytics data is not personal data, and we do not specifically ask for your prior content.
Google Services
We also use several other Google services on our website. These services include:
- Google Recaptcha: Certain web forms, registrations, and logins may utilize Google’s Recaptcha service. Recaptcha is a solution that makes users type in randomly scrambled characters or click an ‘I Am Not A Robot’ checkbox when submitting information to the website. This security measure prevents the abuse of our forms by spammers and automated programs.
- Google Fonts: Google Fonts is a service that allows websites to utilize a library of web fonts beyond the standard set of fonts included within most web browsers and devices. This enables us to convey our content to you in a consistent fashion across the many devices and web browsers out there.
- Google Maps: We may display dynamic geographic maps on our website to show our location(s).
These Google services cause our website to make a connection between one or more Google servers, and may result in Google placing cookies on your device.
Facebook and Social Media
Like many businesses, we use social media as a form of marketing and communication to our clients and prospects. Our site may use social media cookies from Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Facebook places cookies in your browser, and we may use these cookies to understand the effectiveness of social media campaigns that we operate.
If you are logged into Facebook when you view our site, Facebook will know when you visit us. Facebook does not provide us with access to your personal data that, as you have consented to share it with Facebook, and not us. We do, however, get to see anonymous data about the number of people who interact with our Facebook advertising and other social media activity.
Because these cookies depend on you being logged into Facebook when you view our website, we do not specifically ask for your prior consent. If you are not logged into Facebook when you view our site, it is not possible for us to gather any personal information about you based on Facebook’s cookies.
Facebook may utilize cookies, web beacons, and other technologies to collect or receive information from websites you visit.
To review Facebook’s privacy policy: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/
How to opt-out of Facebook interest-based advertising on your browser or mobile device: https://www.facebook.com/help/568137493302217
About Ads: http://www.aboutads.info/choices
Your Online Choices: http://www.youronlinechoices.eu/
You can always use your browser’s ‘private’ or ‘incognito’ mode to browse websites anonymously.
If you disable marketing cookies on this site, it does not mean that you will not see our ads, it just means that they will not be personalized based on your Facebook activity.
Your California Privacy Rights (U.S. Only)
Under Section 1798.83 of the California Code, residents of California have the right to request from a business, with whom the California resident has an established business relationship, certain information with respect to the types of Personal Data the business shares with third parties for those third parties’ direct marketing purposes, and the identities of the third parties with whom the business has shared such data during the immediately preceding calendar year. To exercise your rights, you may make one request each year by emailing us support@directive.com with “Request for California Privacy information” on the subject line and in the body of your message. Be sure to provide in the request sufficient information to properly identify you and/or the members of your family.
What We Do With The Data We Gather
As mentioned, we use the data we collect to improve our services and user experience. We also collect and maintain personally identifiable information from our customers (and prospective customers) to deliver a personalized level of service. We also utilize this data for sales, marketing, and advertising purposes. The processing of this data is necessary to achieve the legitimate interests of the organization, and relates to the legitimate interests of our business, provided that the interests and/or fundamental rights of the subject of the data do not override our own.
We may ask for your consent to contact you by telephone, SMS, postal mail, and/or email about offers, products, promotions, developments, or other services which we think may be of interest to you and for other marketing purposes.
We are adamant about never sending spam, and our marketing emails, which may include our newsletter, service highlights, and other bulk correspondence includes an opt-out or unsubscribe option. Correspondence directly addressing our clients and prospects and those we do business with (such as support, sales, and other direct forms of correspondence) won’t include this.
You may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us at support@directive.com, provided that we are not required by applicable law or professional standards to retain such information.
If there are any questions regarding this privacy policy, you may contact us using the information below:
Phone: 1-888-546-4384
Email: support@directive.com
Mailing Address: 330 Pony Farm Road
Suite #3
Oneonta, New York 13820
United States of America