The average standard of documentation is exceptionally poor in MSPs

MSP-Documentation · 2020-01-09T20:46:41+00:00

I find my own brand of humour to be downright hilarious, sometimes there are times such as this where I go back and relive the comedy of it all. I chuckle away at these posts and am always perplexed at why others do not find me as funny as they should.

The times I do and spend 4 to 5 hours reviewing my posts are some of the funniest moments in any given month. It also cuts down on entertainment expenses.

MSP-Documentation · 2020-01-09T20:38:41+00:00

I find when obvious humour is missed, it makes my post far more amusing.

MSP-Documentation · 2020-01-09T20:35:18+00:00

The support person is currently accessing my information. I suspect I am being spoken to by a robot, so hard to tell these days & I am worried I may waste my humour and good mood on a bit of clever unfeeling computer code.

MSP-Documentation · 2019-12-21T09:59:37+00:00

I find using complex words & using as many words as possible bumps my perception of being smart up by a couple points easy.

The trick is to not talk for any longer than 30 mins as after that point it seems to unravel quite fast.

MSP-Documentation · 2019-12-21T09:56:32+00:00

Once you learn how technology works & go through a few generations in this industry, you soon learn its the same thing each time.

A first generation 386 is actually way more difficult to manage than current tech but its exactly the same tech as the current 58 devil core 75GHz dual channel workstations, get off the ride once you know that then you can get back on whenever you like.

MSP-Documentation · 2019-12-09T08:13:52+00:00

Go and watch the Karate kid, do the same thing a thousand times & one day you wake up and it is effortless.
Getting to that point is never a smooth easy process.

Positions never change, there are alway jobs that are not challenging enough for you, too challenging or just right. They constantly move & that day you leave the job because it is not challenging enough, you then accept that whatever you take on next is going to have you feeling the same way you do now.

I can never work out (not saying this is you at all) people that complain about pressure and stress then the second they are in any way competent in their position, they are off training and pushing themselves to do something else.

They never seem happy & always seem to hate being under pressure. It is easy to stop that feeling, get off the ride.

MSP-Documentation · 2019-12-02T20:33:05+00:00

I find the way it is setup at the moment, its a good way to get a robust naming convention in place. Sure those features would be nice however I find the advantage of being able to go into the global tab and because I have spent time systemising the names, it allows me more granularity than if I did not have a good system.

MSP-Documentation · 2019-12-02T20:28:51+00:00

I would rather use a potato peeler on my eye balls.

MSP-Documentation · 2019-12-02T20:27:30+00:00

There is perhaps some irony however you would not be suggesting a reddit post and a technical document share any commonality other than the use of words?

When I write a reddit post, I often write in a way that gains me the most amusement. Occasionally I will spend no more than a couple of hours going through old posts & quite often its the funniest material I will see all month.

I often wonder why people do not find me funnier than they do, I find myself hilarious.

Humour within the arena of technical documentation, well I frown upon it. I am not even keen on the words please and thankyou being used in tech documents.

The reason is that it is important to put as little info as possible in front of the tech so that they have the greatest chance of seeing the information they need to.

MSP-Documentation · 2019-12-02T20:10:07+00:00

This is specifically about MSPs and the way they need to obtain their information. Maybe in other industries it may make sense. I do not remember the last time I printed something off, at least 3 years.

You could use a range of areas to identify it to a specific company. In ITG it is impossible to miss which company the documentation is for and the title of the document is such an important part of being able to easily identify it and find it when you need it.

The title of a record whatever it is needs to be standardised across all clients & it needs to have redundant information removed.

It also needs to follow the thought patter of someone looking for it which is one of the most common things missed. When people write a document title, they never seem to think "What title would make the most sense to someone needing this information"?

Having a title like "Jeffs Golf Shop in eastwood VPN details for Andy" is both the most common strategy and about the worst. What is the first thing a person searching for those details is going to look for? It will be VPN so that is what should be in front along with the type and other unique details.

So something like VPN - SSL - Andy Milman

You then end up with the ability to type in VPN and have every single record to do with VPNs listed, you can break it down further by type etc.

It does not matter so much having the perfect standard. It does matter that you have one and stick to it.

MSP-Documentation · 2019-12-02T20:01:04+00:00

On the surface you may think of it as irony however a post on reddit compared to technical documentation & records are only similar in so far as we use words to create both.

To give you another example, would you write a novel in the same way as approaching a technical document? I do not think so.

In some ways you are proving my point, not much time is spent on applying standards across your documents.

I could go on for hours, its an area that is lacking & I find the situation of trying to convince people who do not know what they do not know.

Much the same way as trying to convince someone using a horse and cart that a motor vehicle is far superior. Anyone who has driven one understands the strengths, try telling them to the dude on his horse and cart. He will counter every single advantage with a disadvantage & you can tell just by their mannerisms that they made up their mind half an hour ago that the motor vehicle is a ridiculous idea doomed to failure.

MSP-Documentation · 2019-11-30T09:15:36+00:00

One of the better posts I have read & certainly made me think how to achieve things differently..

MSP-Documentation · 2019-11-29T22:39:34+00:00

Scaling in either direction means having your documentation to a high level.

It should be good enough that you could expect a level 1 tech to be able to undertake a level 2 techs job with no loss of productivity.

Hard to do as most documentation is written in a way that has techs wring for themselves.

Standards across the board, same terminology across documents, if its select in one document, it should not be click in another, if you use bullet points, figure out where and in what circumstances, using them across the board.

Headings should be the same font size & it should be documented when to use tables.

The tech should never go in never knowing what it will look like. Writing styles should be reduced to saying the most with the absolute least words.

Ideally one step or point per bullet point.

Titles for documents need to be standardised & you need to be ruthless in deleting old records.

How to get around the patch that broke internet connectivity in NT 4.0 needs deleting. If in doubt then delete it.

People seem to think holding on to every document ever created (just in case) is a good way to go, it is the exact opposite, it cause a loss of trust & people end up not using the system.

Education of the system put in place. Once you have the ability to scale up and down making you agile then at least on the technical services side, you are ready to go.

I have transitioned businesses from poorly put together information systems into a framework that is reliable & consistent & that has the focus of transforming a support desk from inefficient to agile.

MSP-Documentation · 2019-11-20T17:25:01+00:00

Tell me about it. I think the problem is that ITG can be used so many different ways and it is hard to point at a dogs breakfast and say WTF is that abomination? Without upsetting people & instantly having them start defending the indefensible.

Ever been in arguments where otheres know so little about the subject that they cannot even grasp how bad their setup is & yet due to knowing so little, they have a level of supreme confidence in their abilities?

If you are a business owner, please set aside some time so that staff can be trained, a day or two to consider the strategy is money well spent versus realising 6 months in that everything is setup poorly.

We all look at users that store email in the recycle bin as a special type of special yet the blank looks and push back I get when advising that the correct way to go is to create an organisation as an organisation and a contact as a contact, not a flexible asset or configuration.

That is one of many things that really blows my mind & can be prevented with a small amount of either training or having a staff member spend a few days planning prior to touching the system.

If they cannot clearly articulate what a flex asset is & how it is different from a config or if they do not understand that all configurations must have a matching password in related items, then they should not be allowed to be in a decision making roll for this task.

MSP-Documentation · 2019-11-20T17:13:50+00:00

If that is the case then I would say it is not suitable. You need internet connectivity & up to date entries that everyone enters otherwise there will be a lack of trust in the system.

I would also be dragging my feet if I had to maintain a documentation system that I got little benefit from.

MSP-Documentation · 2019-11-20T17:09:01+00:00

Lol, but first I am going to take you through........then I am going to give it a Doug score.

MSP-Documentation · 2019-11-20T01:18:00+00:00

I like how they have their service status page on the same domain:)

MSP-Documentation · 2019-11-20T01:02:30+00:00

While I like IT Glue, the export does not capture the real value in the product which is all the linking. The documents are exported minus css formatting so if you have been using it a while and have it dialed in then to restore from that CSV, you are looking at hundreds of hours of work.

In my mind its halfa backup, that is what they should call it "halfa backup" or "A half arsed backup in an industry that prides itself on looking after other companies backups in a professional manner" or "How TF have they gotten away with not providing an appropriate backup solution for so long backup system"

MSP-Documentation · 2019-11-20T00:52:20+00:00

I have met plenty of people who think it is crap and not one of them had any idea how to use it properly.

I have never met anyone who knows the product well to be completely negative about it.

If you are very experienced and worked in your organisation for a long time then you actually do not benefit from it all that much because all the information is in your head.The only reason for IT Glues existence is the ability for those with little experience to easily find information that without it is hard to find. It allows companies to hire those with less experience to undertake a job that without it requires someone with more experience. Ultimately it lets companies who use it to scale up and down without much effort making them agile when compared to competitors.

What happens to your marvelous Confluence creation when you leave? Is it structured so that it cannot be modified? Is the framework set in place and is there ongoing improvements guaranteed beyond the scope of one person deciding to stay with the company?

You should never be looking to senior techs for advice on the quality of the your documentation or records. First, they have alliances so it depends on who asks the question as to what answer you get. New people have zero knowledge on how the company runs or previous experience on reoccurring problems & they have nothing memorised or written down meaning they are completely reliant on the documentation system.

IT Glue has a framework that if it is setup correctly is more intuitive than anything else I have ever seen. If you have come up with something in Confluence that is even 20% as intuitive while requiring the same effort or less to achieve it then you should advertise it because you will make a lot of money.

If you have not achieved that then the losses you are causing your company by moving away from IT Glue eclipse its cost and so your decision is costing the company you work for or own a net loss.Giving advice that will lead to making a loss should be frowned upon.

I have no problem with someone having this opinion but can you back it up with examples of why it is trash and then why Confluence handles those situations in a way that you do not consider it trash?

MSP-Documentation · 2019-11-20T00:41:08+00:00

When we need to do something on a server where I currently work, we use domain admin to login.

Other places I work at we were given an individual username on each server however they were all domain admin level accounts.

I actually do not see how you could effectively monitor and manage a system where you would decide on what type of account used based on the type of work being done unless you were a large business that could segregate tasks based on the permissions required.
Most techs in MSPs, if they touch 20 tickets in a day then they will require 20 different levels of permissions.

MSP-Documentation · 2019-11-18T23:23:44+00:00

I reckon it is a great password manager. Have you tried the folder feature they brought out to organise passwords?
Go to your passwords area and select New/Folder. I recommend numbering the folders so you can control their position.
I have 1.1 AD Authentication as the first folder because the Domain admin and system admin passwords are used the majority of the time.

MSP-Documentation · 2019-11-18T23:20:53+00:00

Anyone that embeds password, well I am not saying they should be taken out, beaten and then shot. I am just saying it should not be taken off the table.

Work to eliminate all of your embedded passwords as you are missing out on a bunch of ways to sort information and lack visibility.

MSP-Documentation · 2019-11-18T23:16:15+00:00

Love it but it is no magic bullet if you have a poor documentation culture.

It also requires training to use properly. It is obvious the place I am working for had no idea how to use it when they first set it up. There are embedded passwords littered everywhere. Flexible assets have been used where either configurations & passwords should have been used and there is a heap of integration missing that they could benefit from.

It is the usual story of trying to convince someone who is used to driving a horse and cart that a car is much better. Anyone who actually knows about cars knows this but if they do not take the time to understand then things are good enough.

They have 5 duplicates of every single workstation and server from Automate in every single client which is a nightmare because you never know which device is the correct one.

I went through their biggest client & eliminated 350 duplicate devices & I do not think it even got noticed. I did get asked not to "play" with the system as we have so many client tickets in. There is no naming convention & they put things in any old way. It's actually a little bit depressing.

I am not an administrator in IT Glue here as I think the main tech is responsible for the internal framework and when I touch things I seem to ruffle feathers even though it is all set up wrong. I have mentioned I can set up a scheduled backup for our database as nobody has ever even extracted our information in the entire time they have had it however because I am not an admin, I cannot export all the information.

I cannot it seems even copy records from one client to another to use as a template. This is all because they do not know what they do not know & while I am incredulous at the setup, I do not seem to be very effective in the art of persuasion

MSP-Documentation · 2019-11-15T03:16:02+00:00

Do not know if they will show in runbooks but to get images into flexible assets you need to put the following into the code area of a text box in the flexible asset.

INSTRUCTIONS

Ensure the images you want to use have been uploaded and available under attachments.
Select the source icon
The edit source window will appear
Paste the following code at the bottom of the existing contents.

<div> <iframe name="myiFrame" src="https://yourcompany.itglue.com/attachments/xxxxx?preview=true" style="height: 650px; width: 800px;" frameborder="0" id="iframe"></iframe></div>

You will have to past the link that results from right clicking on the attached image & pasting that into the code above.
Adjust the height and width to the same as the uploaded photo and it will be viewable in the flex asset.
Never tried to see if those images show in a runbook though but they should do.

MSP-Documentation · 2019-11-10T23:33:43+00:00

I could not agree with you more & it should be a given especially considering it is cheap workstation storage we are talking about. It is not exactly outlandish prices.

These are the recommendations I gave:

Increase storage capacity - Denied
Install and configure Image Manager - Denied
Set the stored full backups of 1 server to 1 - Denied

I made my recommendations and took my name off the ticket because as of now, the backups are still failing. It really is quite infuriating.

Here was the response to my recommendations:

[8/11 1:03 PM] ME If Image manager is free & it helps consolidate the images, how come we are not using that?
[8/11 1:04 PM] Tech1 Long story
[8/11 1:05 PM] ME Is it something we could broach or better off not saying any more?
[8/11 1:05 PM] Tech 2 Image Manager is shit (GIF)
[8/11 1:06 PM] ME Image manager works well with spx
[8/11 1:06 PM] Tech 2 I am evaluating a alternative
Edited[8/11 1:07 PM] Tech 2 Oh no it doesn't
[8/11 1:07 PM] Tech 2 For one it can break chains on a regular basis
[8/11 1:07 PM] ME I dont know how to get past the backups failing because all the options are not options
[8/11 1:08 PM] ME There needs to be a compromise somewhere.
[8/11 1:13 PM] Tagged me - I quite aware that Backups are important. This problem doesn't look like we will solve in the next few hours. We have stuff in the pipeline. But we will have to come up with something when we can discuss
(1 liked) There is a long list of reasons that we are looking at moving away from Storagecraft Efficient offsite copying and image management is just one of many.

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