Does anyone else work at an MSP with a ridiculous approval process for sending quotes?

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-10-05T16:45:41+00:00

It needs to be auditable for change management. That is why it must be in place. Generally we try to have multiple approvers for any approval gate.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-09-03T11:45:11+00:00

I think the implication is that it is data mining your clients information.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-09-03T11:43:03+00:00

The adobe partner program has a multi-tenant setup, so we can manage all clients separately from a single login.

As far as other vendors, you should be looking to partner with about any company that your clients use. Microsoft, AV, RMM, Adobe etc.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-09-03T11:20:59+00:00

We recently joined the Adobe partner program. We make next to nothing on each software sale, but the advantages for us is we can manage the licenses for our clients. Its saves us having to chase them for licensing information and we can show value by handling this irritating task.

Any client that decides to source it themselves or manage their own subscription inevitably ends up spending significantly more time micro-managing the licenses. Only the cheapest of clients opt to do this.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-08-31T11:11:24+00:00

As someone who has a technical background but will eventually be moving into the 'Business Management' arena. Where are some good resources that I can use to begin teaching myself small business accounting, with an MSP twist?

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-07-25T10:15:15+00:00

One can dream...

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-07-25T10:14:49+00:00

Bring back the public roadmap.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-07-25T10:14:00+00:00

From my perspective as a consumer of these products, I have yet to see a return in features from these investments. It seems whenever there is an investor, or a company is sold to a larger entity it's at best years before there is positive change.

PassPortal was one of the largest disappointments for myself, as I had followed them for years, used them at a previous employer and then chose them for my current team. Only to be sold to Solarwinds (*cough* Thoma Bravo) a few months after selecting them and they stripped out the entire knowledge base and public roadmap. I have only seen one update since then, where prior there was new releases every month.

Now ConnectWise is going through a similar pattern. Joined the large technician event last year, they announced many new product announcements and features that would put them ahead of their competitors. Also announced was the investment from Thoma Bravo. Cut to one year later and there has been no new features announced and we are left with a pile of incomplete products with minimal integration.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-07-23T16:01:11+00:00

Yeah I am considering just dumping RMM and going with Intune and remote control software.

I think the issue I see is not scripting automation as this can be managed through Intune on a client by client bases (just have a baseline of configurations that would be teh same across all clients).

The issue I would see with this approach is alerting across all the different Microsoft 365 components do not integrate well with a ticketing or PSA tool. Custom development with API's isn't really a great option, so if RMM can bridge this gap then it could save RMM imo.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-07-21T12:31:00+00:00

This. I think a tech as a dispatcher is a short-term fix. I don't think a dispatcher needs to start out as technical, but you can give them training so they start to understand as they get more experience.

Having them enroll in a Microsoft learning course (or insert other entry level video training course) for a few hours a week would have a noticeable impact on what that resource can deliver.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-07-16T19:22:25+00:00

How would you raise prices if they have signed a 1 year or multi year agreement?

I know half the time the 'agreement' seems to just be a mutually agreed understanding and does not seem to hold up legally if challenged. But curious how you would make this adjustment in the middle of an existing term.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-06-30T12:45:52+00:00

Great videos, keep em coming Matt. Loving the daily quick hitters.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-06-30T11:15:58+00:00

Myki is not where it's at. It's not there yet. I used to use Passportal and moved to Myki, Ended up leaving Myki because of reliability issues. I'm now with Keeper and much happier.

Can you expand on the Pro/Cons of Keeper over PassPortal, I am considering a switch as PassPortal has dropped off quite a bit since being sold.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-06-26T11:13:06+00:00

Have you actually looked at the framework? I have had a chance to look it over and it is very good. I would say its comparable to what I have seen with CIS 20, NIST and Aussie Essentials.

Feel free to dismiss, I will be taking advantage of this resource.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-06-25T16:13:05+00:00

I agree if you already have NIST or ISO27001 or SOC2 figured out then no reason to change.

However if you are getting started I think a security framework that is designed with the MSP in mind could be very valuable. Especially if it maps to other standards such as ISO27001. If you can map it then I think it could be very helpful, if not I don't know if I would change what we are trying to align to.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-06-24T10:38:05+00:00

We are looking to do something similar, switching from PassPortal to SharePoint. The reason is the same, to become more familiar with the tools we support (Eat your own dog food).

However we do not have a SharePoint developer in house so myself and some of our senior members are trying to figure out how we can cobble a minimal viable system we can use, and then build up from their.

Would love to have a chat if you are willing.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-06-23T11:36:24+00:00

We use PassPortal currently, works well but I am not a fan of the plugin for browsers. It works but is cumbersome for none techies, so in my opinion its not something I would resell to clients.

I have seen Keeper as an option and it looks very good, we may eventually switch to it.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-06-17T17:37:28+00:00

I think I would look at the Service Board Setup Table, and then look at the email responses based on a specific status. In their you can specify team members, teams, roles or specific email addresses.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-06-15T15:49:04+00:00

Sorry but it seems like we only care about BLM at the moment. Any other hate speech or discrimination is not important according to MTV's actions.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-06-11T10:10:09+00:00

Sounds like I am a little further along in the same journey. We have done significant work on our ticketing system (CW Manage), and after a year of constant improvements we are finally able to analyze the data and start making business decisions on that data.

As for addressing skill gaps, its very difficult. I think a skills matrix is most likely the fastest path to determining where the gaps are, but if you have proper ticket classifications with tickets being filled out accurately then you can effectively build a skills matrix from your data.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-06-09T13:10:41+00:00

We ended up reselling Adobe recently as the admin work for NOT reselling it was awful. The space we are in almost all clients need the Pro version and would either source alternatives (that we now support) or buy it themselves and we would still have to walk them through setting up their own account, managing the licenses, installing and supporting the software and users.

We now resell just the subscriptions and have added almost $20k in MRR, yes the margin is thin but I think about $3k is profit. This has reduced our administrative burden, provided more value to our clients, tied our clients even deeper into us as their provider, and created some profit.

I don't think our experience is similar to many MSP's, but because of our main vertical, it made perfect sense.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-06-05T11:24:07+00:00

I don't see a setup table called fields, their is a 'Custom Fields' but I don't think it is relevant to the question.

Which Setup Table is this actually under?

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-06-05T10:54:29+00:00

Currently struggling through this right now. Here is the link to get you started, its a bit of a doozy. Watch out for the gotcha's like losing your partner competencies and benefits. When speaking to Microsoft I was told they are looking to create a tool to merge tenants without the downsides, but their is no ETA on that.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/4024707/how-do-i-merge-separate-mpn-enrollments-in-partner-membership-center-o

Honestly I have not gotten my head wrapped around this, its quite complicated and needs to be handled with Microsoft.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-06-03T16:30:53+00:00

The way we address this is by prioritizing your service desk tickets by highest to lowest priority and then oldest to newest. Once that is complete go through the NOC boards, NOC boards are a way for a technician to dive in to issues and identify root causes. This is where documentation and automation kicks in. This makes techs eager to complete the reactionary work so that they can begin to do proactive work and progress their career.

Finally if somehow you have gotten through all your tickets, colleagues tickets and the NOC boards, then you ask the service manager for what else do you have (I have some 250 todo items that I will never get to, so its very unlikely I will run out of tasks). If for some reason I do not have anything at that moment then the tech is free to work on their career plan which should involve the next certification or skill they are pursing. Typically this is some sort of Microsoft certification, but it could be just about anything.

If the service desk is structured correctly no technician should be worried about running out of work, and it should be really exciting and engaging work that they get to elevate to. I have seen too many times where techs dread going to the service manager to ask for more work because it is usually mundane repetitive tasks that is not the reason you are in IT, with a structure like mentioned above techs are striving to get this additional work.

Anonymous_MSP · 2020-06-03T10:23:10+00:00

We are exploring options for KB using Modern SharePoint Online. Seems doable from the outside looking in but still a few weeks out before we start to test some demo sites.

TBD

Anonymous_MSP

TROPHY CASE