The firewall is blocking something and people cannot work. What happens next?

Check these three before anyone calls anyone, because they take two minutes and they decide who you should be calling.

• Is it everyone or one person? If one machine cannot reach it and the machine next to it can, the firewall is almost certainly not your problem. Look at that computer, its browser, or that user's account instead.
• Does it work on a phone with Wi-Fi turned off? This is the single most useful test there is. A phone on cellular is not behind your firewall. If the application works there and fails on the office network, the problem is inside your building. If it fails on both, the problem is at the vendor and no firewall change will help.
• Check the vendor's status page. Takes ten seconds and regularly ends the conversation. If their service is down, everyone everywhere has the same issue.

If it is the firewall, what you need next is somebody who can change a rule quickly and who understands what they are being asked to allow.

What happens here. People unable to work is a critical issue, which means our one hour response commitment, Monday to Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM Eastern. In practice most of these are resolved on the first call, because the person you reach can open the firewall configuration while you are still on the phone and has usually seen your network before. If it needs the vendor's requirements, we will deal with the vendor directly rather than relaying technical details through your office manager.

What to expect elsewhere, and how to find out before you need to know. We are not going to characterize anyone else's response times. What we would say is that this is a bad moment to discover them. If your network is managed by your internet provider, find out now what the committed turnaround is for exactly this scenario, get it in writing, and find out whether you have administrative access to make the change yourself if their answer is not fast enough.

One thing worth doing in advance either way. When you buy a new application or sign up a new vendor, ask them for their network requirements and send them to whoever manages your firewall before the install date rather than on it. Most of these emergencies were scheduled weeks earlier and nobody told the person who needed to know.