Why we built our own app
When something goes wrong with a computer, the first five minutes are often the most frustrating. Where's the support number? Which computer is this? What version of Windows is it running? Is it just me, or is Microsoft 365 down for everyone?
We wanted to remove all of that. So we built MFC Quick Access, a small app that sits next to the clock on your computer and puts everything you need from us one click away. Look for the green MFC icon in the bottom right of your screen, click it, and you're in.
It isn't a product we bought in and rebadged. We designed and built it ourselves, around the questions our clients actually ask and the information our service desk actually needs.
What it does
Raise a support ticket in a sentence
Describe the problem in your own words and click Send ticket. The app adds your computer's name, operating system, free disk space and other useful details for you, so our engineers start with the facts rather than a round of questions. You can attach a picture of your screen, and you get a ticket number straight away.
As you type, it suggests help articles that might fix the problem on the spot. It never stops you sending the ticket.
Chat with us live
Chat with us opens a live chat with our service desk. The menu shows whether we're online now before you click. For anything sensitive, such as a password reset or a change to someone's access, you can sign in with your work account inside the chat to confirm it's really you.
Find answers yourself
Search help articles searches our Knowledge Base: adding a printer, setting up email on a phone, resetting a password and plenty more. If an article doesn't solve it, one click turns your search into a ticket.
Report something suspicious
An email that doesn't feel right, an unexpected sign-in request, a strange pop-up: Report something suspicious sits at the very top of the menu, so it's the easiest thing to find. Reports go straight to our team as security tickets. If someone has already clicked a link or entered a password, the app tells them to call us as well, because minutes matter.
Check my PC
A quick health check that looks at free disk space, when the computer was last restarted, Windows updates, antivirus, firewall and battery. Each result is green, amber or grey, and anything amber comes with a plain-English tip. It only looks and never changes anything, and the results can be attached to a ticket.
Quick fixes
On Windows, one-click fixes for the problems we see most often: resetting the internet connection, clearing the Teams cache, fixing OneDrive and Outlook, and freeing up disk space.
And the everyday essentials
- Contact MFC: call, email or WhatsApp us, or let us connect to your computer when we're helping you.
- Service status: one line tells you whether our services and the ones you rely on, such as Microsoft 365, are running normally.
- Restart reminder: computers that go weeks without a restart are behind on updates and prone to odd faults. If yours is overdue, the icon turns red and a reminder offers to restart now or snooze for one or four hours.
- Important notices: planned maintenance and other news from us appear on screen, so nobody misses them.
- Tell us how we did: when a ticket raised from the app is closed, a quick thumbs up or down lets you tell us how it went. Every answer is read.
Built by MFC, for our clients
Because we built MFC Quick Access ourselves, it fits the way we work rather than the other way round.
- It's connected to our service desk. Tickets, chats and security reports land with our team with the details they need, and we know which client and which computer they came from.
- It changes when you need it to. Menu links, notices and features are managed centrally, so we can switch something on, change some wording or warn you about planned work without asking anyone to install anything.
- It keeps itself up to date. New versions install quietly in the background on Windows, released to a small group first and then to everyone, and every download is checked before it's installed. Anyone can choose This computer, then Check for updates, to see which version they have.
- It's shaped by feedback. Every feature in it started as a question a client asked us or a call that took longer than it should have. The ratings you give us feed straight into what we build next.
It runs on Windows, on both Intel/AMD and ARM computers, and a Mac version is coming shortly.
What about privacy and security?
MFC Quick Access doesn't read your files, emails or browsing history.
When you raise a ticket or start a chat, it sends basic details about the computer, such as its name, operating system and free disk space, so we can help faster. It also checks in with us from time to time with the computer's name, who is signed in and the app version, so we know it's installed and up to date. Screenshots and health check results are only sent with a ticket when you choose to include them.
The app is digitally signed, so Windows can confirm it really comes from us.
How to get it
Already an MFC client? We're rolling MFC Quick Access out to the Windows computers we manage, so there's nothing you need to do: the green MFC icon will simply appear by the clock. A Mac version is coming shortly.
Not a client yet? MFC Quick Access is included for every business on our managed IT support. If you'd like support that's this easy to reach, get in touch and we'll show you how it works.
