QuickSteps - Enhance Your Work Speed

Esther

QuickSteps are one of the most astonishing while under-valued features within a TeamViewer session.

Since I started using them frequently, I got twice as effective as I used to be. And now I want to convince you to use QuickSteps, too.

But let me start with a question: 

❓ Can you tell me how to navigate the Command Prompt, the Task Manager or System on a remote Windows device within 3 seconds? Or how to find the Computer Management, Control Panel, Device Management, Programs & Features, Switch User, and Update & Security? 

And what about navigating on a Mac? How easy is it for you to open the following functionalities?

• Activity Monitor,
• App Store,
• Applications,
• Login Window,
• Privacy and Security
• System Preferences
• Terminal or
• User & Groups

I´ll go first

I think I could quickly show you where to switch users or how to open the Task Manager on Windows, but for the others, I´d need a try... or two.

And therefore - if you´re anything like me: The QuickSteps will become your best friend because they´ll ease your work up with semi-automation.

For sure, I know that many of you work in the deepest depths of Windows or macOS day in and day out. Nevertheless, maybe the QuickSteps are also a valuable enhancement for your daily work. 

⚙ Especially in cases when you are a Windows Pro but you suddenly need to connect to a Mac or the other way around: You are a Pro for all-thing macOS but Windows is kind of strange to you and you´re unsure where to find all the operating system functionality quickly.

Whatever your reasons might be, allow me to introduce the QuickSteps to you!

What are QuickSteps?

QuickSteps are In-Session features that allow you to directly enter the operating system functionality mentioned above via the Remote Tool Bar.

👉 They let you open up the desired functionality on the remote device with only two clicks.

When you´re working from a Mac, your first click goes to the little-person-running icon on the right:

And the second click goes on the setting or page you want to open on the remote device. Voilá.

We designed the QuickSteps to help you speed things up during a connection.

And we made sure to add some of the most frequently visited areas of remote devices - with the goal in mind to enhance your work efficiency and to automate steps where possible.

The screenshots above are for sessions from a Mac to a Windows, but you´ll find the same features in a session from your Windows computer. On Windows, you´ll need to browse to Actions (1) and left to the Scripts you see the available QuickSteps (2).

Here is an example how it looks like when connecting to a Mac from Windows:

⚠ Important to note is, that the QuickSteps differ when connecting to a Mac or Windows and it is showing the corresponding functionalities of the remote device. Genius!

Speed and efficiency

Admittingly, after all, it is not about how well you know where to make a setting but how well you do the job overall. 

If you know all operating system functionality on a computer by heart - that´s great, but you´ll certainly also prove your competence if you know how to perform your job fast and well.

Automation and semi-automation are tools that help you to be faster while simultaneously increasing accuracy.

Generally speaking, I´d say: Using the help offered and the tools provided is suitable and should always be recommended. Automations are our friends in (business) life and help us become more efficient.

For me, the clear benefit of QuickSteps is that I can access certain operating system functionality directly via the toolbar without the need to search or click through long navigation paths. Instead, just two quick clicks and I am there.

cquirke

Thanks, this is really helpful!

I work for private (unmanaged) end-users, which means there's no set way of doing things, as there would be for narrower-focus support (locked-down corporate-imaged systems, single-vendor responsibility, etc.).

The small scale of what I do, means I'm under-skilled in the mass-scalable approach as typified by system imaging, etc. so I tend to do everything "by hand", which is slow.

Much of the time is spent doing screen grabs, documenting what I do via in-session chat, reading and responding to the user there, asking user to demo stuff or doing a how-to demo for the user, etc.

In-session chat is great, but fragile; TeamViewer throws it away whenever the session ends for any reason. This is a fatal flaw, IMO, which I'm trying to advocate to fix where appropriate to do so (relevant existing forum threads etc.). Having to rt-click, Slecet All, Copy, switch away and paste into Notepad all the time, for fear of losing all logging and time tracking, is a productivity tar-pit - as is having to repeat folder navigation and save file name for every screen grab. It would be nice if that were streamlined, too, e.g. an automated naming facility such as {path}\"text"+TimeDate+"text".txt, to keep each session named per-context, etc. Then one could just click one button to screen-grab once the initial naming and pathing has been done - could also be pre-populated on a per-client or per-date basis, etc.

As you say, automations (along with error messages) are your friends - but this doesn't only apply to rummaging at the far end of the session :-)