I started a solo IT role about a month ago after the previous IT employee retired. I was given access to his old email and files, but the planned handoff never happened. My CEO is also leaving at the end of the month, and although she handled some user onboarding and offboarding, she is not technical and does not know much about the environment.
The documentation I have is outdated and refers to the organization's former office. There is no ticketing system, SOP library, knowledge base, or reliable inventory. I have already run into issues identifying the vendors for our fax machine and phone lines, and the phone system itself has undocumented configuration and recurring problems. I also do not know our user-group structure, firewall and wireless access-point inventory, network layouts, or the history behind many technical decisions.
I have started creating a private SharePoint site and sorting through files manually. I am also experimenting with Microsoft Copilot to search OneDrive, but the results have been inconsistent. We are a nonprofit that recently lost $500,000 in funding, so the budget is very limited. I may eventually recommend hiring another helpdesk employee, but for now I need a practical way to discover and document the environment, protect the organization from major risks, and gradually automate repetitive work.
What should I prioritize first, and what low-cost tools or processes would help me understand and stabilize the environment on my own?
5 Answers
Treat the current setup as a discovery project and assume some parts may eventually need rebuilding. Inventory devices and network equipment with an affordable scanner or discovery tool, then document a basic topology and ownership for each service. If you are primarily using Microsoft 365, investigate nonprofit pricing and whether Intune, Autopilot, and cloud-managed services can replace fragile local processes. Automate only after you understand the workflow, and keep configurations and scripts backed up in version control.
Finance and department leads are likely to be your best discovery tools. Review invoices, credit-card statements, renewals, and recurring payments to build a vendor and licensing list. Talk with each team about the systems they use every day, what breaks most often, and what they cannot work without. Walk through every building and record network closets, WAN entry points, switches, firewalls, wireless equipment, servers, printers, and cabling. That process will reveal far more than searching old files.
Set expectations with the incoming CEO now. Explain that this is an undocumented inherited environment, outline the risks, and request a realistic budget, time allocation, and approval to bring in help when needed. Keep a running log of discoveries, incidents, decisions, and completed work. That protects you from being held responsible for unknown problems and gives the new leadership a clear picture of what another IT hire or outside support would accomplish.
Start with risk and business continuity rather than trying to document everything immediately. Verify that backups actually exist and can be restored, confirm who has administrative access, review account recovery methods and MFA, and identify anything that could cause a serious outage or security incident. Then create a simple prioritized list and have management approve it. A basic spreadsheet or OneNote page is enough at first; the important thing is agreeing on what gets handled first.
You do not have to solve this entirely alone. A local managed service provider could perform a one-time environment and security assessment, while nonprofit technology organizations may offer discounted consulting, software, or hardware. Also look into nonprofit licensing programs and peer groups for technology staff. Even a limited engagement focused on backups, identity, network security, and vendor identification could save you months.
That makes sense. I have been focused on collecting documents, but I need to establish priorities and confirm that backups, admin access, and recovery procedures actually work before spending time on lower-impact cleanup.