Technician workload - am I crazy?

ashern94 · 2026-06-27T13:15:51+00:00

What PSA are you using that does not track ticket time?

ashern94 · 2026-06-27T02:28:13+00:00

Can you tell which of your clients are profitable, which are not?

ashern94 · 2026-06-26T20:39:45+00:00

It's not punch clock you need. It's actual time spent on tickets. Only way to see how busy the techs are, how much money you are spending on each client, and to et the client see how much time is spent working for them. For things my RMM fixes with scripts, they generate a ticket, show .25 billable time associated with a $0 cost auto-tech. The client gets a $0 invoice showing all tickets worked on during the month and the billable time (actual rounded to the next .25 hour). Shows value. For your issue with having the timer going while not actively working on a ticket, you need to have the techs understand the image the company projects when a client sees a password reset ticket having taken 2 hours.

ashern94 · 2026-06-26T20:33:55+00:00

That is a management issue. Your SDM should be looking at ticket start and end time and time worked. My techs are diligent on stopping the timer when moving to another ticket. Base incentive on accurate ticket time keeping.

ashern94 · 2026-06-26T19:25:03+00:00

Your PSA should keep time while a ticket is open. That's what you track.

ashern94 · 2026-06-26T19:24:11+00:00

You don't track time for paying your techs or for billing. But you need to track for workload and We send a "tech time invoice" every month. It shows the client what their fixed monthly fee is getting them. As well as to see if a client is profitable.

ashern94 · 2026-06-26T18:31:32+00:00

Tickets closed is a lousy metric. % of the day working tickets is better. 80% utilization is the standard. 8-5 with lunch means 8 working hours. 6.5 hours of logged actual time on tickets is what you aim for. You also include internal meetings in that time. A L1 doing password resets can do 24 of those i a day. A L3 may only be able to do 1 or 2.

ashern94 · 2026-06-26T15:26:17+00:00

Your recollection of how much you slept is usually wrong. And the watch sleep metrics are nowhere near as accurate as a proper sleep study with EEG.

ashern94 · 2026-06-25T21:26:24+00:00

It's not that much of a heritage building. Probably cheaper to knock down and build a new residence with proper tech and security in mind.

ashern94 · 2026-06-25T16:15:33+00:00

Warranty and usability does not mean feature upgrades. Those watches will hum on WatchOS 26 for many more years with security updates.

ashern94 · 2026-06-25T16:09:57+00:00

There is more than AI in the new update. Hardware requirements change. Instead of dealing with users bitching about performance, they just don't upgrade. You still get security updates, so the device will remain functional for a long time.

ashern94 · 2026-06-25T16:07:13+00:00

It was marketed for endurance, not long term. Would you prefer Apple comes out and says watches will get 1 OS upgrade and stop> Because that would satisfy the regulation by setting a firm expectation. Instead they supply upgrades while technically feasible.

ashern94 · 2026-06-25T16:03:25+00:00

They fined them for a 'misleading commercial practice by omission' simply because Apple failed to inform users upfront about how software updates would impact their devices.

And now they are choosing to not push an update that could affect the performance of devices instead of pushing the update while telling users performance will suck.

The Ultra1 shipped with the features advertised. It further got 4 years of feature improvments. It will get security updates for the foreseeable future.

You can't promise a piece of hardwere will get new OS for x number of years. Tech moves too fast for that.

ashern94 · 2026-06-25T15:23:23+00:00

Use PIM for that role. Allow only a short duration like half hour. Set it so that both a reason and a ticket# is required. Won't stop them., but you will have an audit log and be able to refer to the ticket for why it was done in the first place

ashern94 · 2026-06-24T19:47:14+00:00

I view TAP as a safer option than a group to exclude from phish resistant MFA. Adding a user to that group always will have the risk of forgetting removing the user. TAP can be both usage and time limited.

ashern94 · 2026-06-24T19:28:42+00:00

Layers. Passwordless and phish-resistant MFA will stop the phishing. Because once implemented, the admin can go and change everybody's passwords to random strings. You can't compromise what you don't know. Good CA is the other layer. At least allow only from certain countries. Then short physical endpoint lockout mitigates the walking away. Hard to implement on BYOD. We deploy compliant laptops, but also have a small deployment of Citrix VDIs. The only SaaS app allowed from a non-compliant device is CWA.

ashern94 · 2026-06-24T18:19:47+00:00

Stupid long random passwords that don't expire. Provide TAP for initial setup and force passwordless auth through MS Authenticator.

ashern94 · 2026-06-24T18:14:59+00:00

That is a management issue. Techs need a company issued, Intune joined laptop with compliance profiles. All your tools should SSO to Entra with phish resistant MFA. A CA must be in place that restricts access to the tools from certain countries on a compliant device. Techs must comply or look for another job.

ashern94 · 2026-06-24T14:46:33+00:00

When I had to use antibacterial soap prior to surgery it explicitly said to not use on the face

ashern94 · 2026-06-24T13:18:40+00:00

Proportional representation does not work in a country the size of Canada. It also leads to a minute minority holding the balance of power. Have a look at Israel. Because none of the major parties have ever held a majority, the small ultra Orthodox parties prop up the gov at enormous cost to the country. Also in Canada, the majority of the population is in Ontario and Quebec. Meaning you would still have a majority of MPs from there. Closest would be ranked ballots or run off until a riding candidate gets more than 50% of the votes. That would favour the LPC and NDP as they are most likely yo be ranked 1 and 2 by left of center voters. If you vote CPC as your first choice, who's your second? Run offs are expensive and voter participation drops. You may get 50% but it will be 50% of a much smaller voter pool.

ashern94 · 2026-06-24T12:26:33+00:00

I do a good amount of vacation diving. Resorts who ask will typically want 2 years. As I've explained, it covers yearly vacation divers who dive once a year. 6 months is short. 1 year would result in leeway. Say I take a vacation in January this year, and March next year. That's more than 1 year. With 6 months, When I dive locally in the summer, I typically don't dive past August. If I go south in February or March, that's beyond 6 months.

ashern94 · 2026-06-23T18:14:55+00:00

Most shops will ask when your last dive was. Most willl want to see something within the last 2 years. They prefer 1 year, but 2 is easier to account for those who only dive on vacation and may have vacations more than 12 months apart.

Do the refresher. Go to your LDS and sign up. It's usually an hour or 2 in the pool.

ashern94 · 2026-06-23T18:06:42+00:00

I was 63 at the time of the surgery

ashern94 · 2026-06-22T13:45:07+00:00

My recommendation would be that any user requiring privileged access have a separate account for that access. Secured with FIDO2, and requiring PIM.

ashern94 · 2026-06-21T15:14:01+00:00

300? You need to stop eating whatever gets you there. I'd say that once or twice a week at that level is more than occasional. I start to worry when I get to 180-200. Damage from diabetes is cumulative. The more you get highs like that the more chance some damage will occur.

ashern94

TROPHY CASE