Business continuity
The long weekend IT checklist
Eight things worth checking before the office empties out — and the one almost everybody skips.
A failed backup on a Tuesday gets spotted. The same failure on the Friday before a long weekend gets spotted the following Wednesday, four days later. Nothing about the fault changed — only how long it ran unattended.
Late September packs a lot in: a public holiday in Victoria on Friday 25 September, the AFL Grand Final on the Saturday, and NSW school holidays from Monday 28 September. Offices are thinner than usual for a fortnight.
Eight things worth checking
- Confirm the backup actually ranNot that it’s scheduled — that last night’s job completed successfully. There is a meaningful difference, and it’s usually discovered at the worst possible moment.
- Test the restore, not just the backupRestore one file. If that works, you have a backup. If it doesn’t, you have a folder of hope. This takes five minutes and is the single most valuable item on this list.
- Set the after-hours messageWith a return date, not just “we’re closed.” People will wait if they know how long. They won’t wait for silence.
- Check where calls divertIf phones forward to a mobile, confirm it’s a mobile someone is actually carrying. See below — this is the one people get wrong.
- Verify the failover connectionIf you have 4G or 5G backup, has it been tested since the day it was installed? Most haven’t. Configured is not the same as working.
- Brief whoever is on callOne named person, one number, and a written list of what to do. Not “whoever picks up.”
- Freeze non-urgent changesDon’t push an update on the Thursday before four days of nobody watching it. It will wait until Tuesday.
- Remind finance about payment verificationLong weekends are prime time for invoice fraud, precisely because the person who would normally verify a bank detail change is away.
The one people skip
Number four catches more businesses than the rest combined. Calls divert to a mobile that belonged to someone who left in March, or to a handset sitting in a drawer at the office.
It costs nothing to check — ring the main number from your own phone and see where it lands. That’s the difference between a customer reaching you and a customer calling the next name on their list.
Why quiet periods are riskier, not safer
Attackers read the calendar too. Long weekends and holiday periods are when finance staff are away, approvals get rushed, and an unusual request is more likely to be actioned without the usual second look. It’s also when a compromise can run for days before anyone notices.
None of that requires a rostered person on site. It requires calls landing somewhere useful, systems that don’t need supervising, and one person who knows what to do if something goes wrong.
Want a second set of eyes before the long weekend?
Book a free business audit. We’ll review your backups, failover, call routing and after-hours setup, then tell you plainly what’s worth fixing first.
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