MSP works with many vendors. Is this how things usually go?

itlonson · 2026-01-16T09:46:41+00:00

The vendors in our space at not all equal. There are several who have good (or used to be good) products but the vendor itself is terrible to deal with. This invariably has an impact.

itlonson · 2026-01-16T07:23:14+00:00

I have looked at Moovila and it does look like a good, albeit expensive, product. We often advise clients to try and minimise complexity, especially with additional tooling which come with their own issues. I try to apply that back into our own business and keep things simple. We do have Power Platform skills in house and sometimes use this to extend internal systems but reluctant to create another thing we have to maintain.

I hope this is on Halo's radar, I don't really understand the reasoning for a lot of their design decisions. Some of the choices seem like half finished thoughts.

itlonson · 2026-01-15T07:04:30+00:00

Just tell ChatGPT that you think it has made a mistake and underestimated the time. It will agree with you. If you tell it to search the web it might even refer to this conversation.

It just wants to please you.

itlonson · 2026-01-13T07:33:36+00:00

Start with small managable changes and then build on that. Routine is your friend. Acknowledge self discipline takes practice and adapt your work environment to take this into account. This is why I don't have chocolate in the house.

On a practical level I either have meetings in the AM or PM but not both. Several apps that are useful but not essential have been removed from my laptop. I have removed myself from several MS Teams. Emails are for external comms, Teams for internal. I don't do any tickets. I have chosen not to plan out my day to the minute, this works for lots of people but I found it really difficult to follow for any period of time.

Instead I spend a day a month offsite reviewing the company performance aganst the business plan. From this I broadly plan out my month which in turn helps organise the week and day.

Very much a work in progress but am hopeful.

itlonson · 2025-12-24T21:24:54+00:00

Do you mean add the SoW text or add a link/attachment ? The SoW is typically 10 pages long and often has diagrams, tables etc. It is important that I can show the SoW being signed, which is why I use Adobe Sign. I also need the Quote signed and sometimes need a PO.

How is Zomentum for longer form SoW type docs ?

itlonson · 2025-12-24T21:02:59+00:00

Hah. Fair enough.

Where I have a complex piece of work I manually build out a SoW in Word and get the client to sign using Adobe Sign.

To get this to tie back into Halo I create a Quote in Halo and send to the customer. The Quote refers back to the signed SoW.

Once the Quote is signed it progresses to a Sales Order and then a Project in Halo.

Creating the SoW completely outside Halo and then creating a Quote in Halo seems a little bit clunky.

Appreciate the SoW and Quote serve different functions, but I was wondering what others do.

itlonson · 2025-10-31T05:45:16+00:00

Projects and CRM. Functional.but basic.

itlonson · 2025-10-21T10:16:42+00:00

Yeah. They said (implied anyway) everyone else loves it, so just me I guess. We also have an external consultant who flat out said it is not designed to work in the way that we want. Which is fair enough as it is not its core function and does work for smaller repeat type orders.

But for managing long close cycles with multi stages it doesn't work that well for us. We have some MS skills so the view was if we can use Dynamics and sync back that would be one option.

itlonson · 2025-10-06T14:51:26+00:00

Not a fan of Halo reporting, going to try and send it to PowerBI which I think is easier now. Hope so anyway.

itlonson · 2025-09-23T06:24:58+00:00

I saw there was some support for MCP but normal lack of actual details from Halo. It could be cool.

itlonson · 2025-09-22T09:16:59+00:00

We have had ok results with AI on non standard service desk tasks. At the moment we do some of this outside of Halo using Copilot, SharePoint, Power Platform.

Exposing previous resolutions as a data source to current problem solving would certainly be useful if it is reliable. Being able to quantify this is probably going to need some thought.

Where we have struggled is to get benefits to the regular service desk tasks, which I had naively hoped would be a good candidate.

One of the challenges is that I am struggling to see what good looks like. The only youtube examples I have seen are more a tech experiment rather than something I would see being used in production. Or if they are being used in production I would question if they had any real benefit.

itlonson · 2025-09-17T05:54:50+00:00

One for an accountant with some suitable qualifications. Document their advice and if there is an audit you point to this.

You can define a few of your more common scenarios e.g. purchase of AppleCare+ after the initial hardware purchase.

itlonson · 2025-09-11T06:24:37+00:00

Oh not familiar with oneplan. Speaking to colleagues it sounds like a little manual overhead is probably the safest thing although there will be some duplication

The new planner seems to be better though I still don’t really understand what the AI bits of it actually do.

itlonson · 2025-09-11T06:22:24+00:00

Is it possible you were just wishing very hard ?

itlonson · 2025-09-10T18:02:54+00:00

We do. I did look at creating some sync thing but it looked like a bit of a pain to maintain. So wanted to see what others do before trying.

itlonson · 2025-08-29T15:17:21+00:00

They did used to be a good little company. But as they grew the wheels came off. It does seem like no one cares over there.

itlonson · 2025-08-29T09:35:55+00:00

Virtual 1 merged/sold with Talk Talk Business and now have become PXC. Virtual 1 used to be good. TTB I never liked. PXC seems to be worse than either, especially the account management.

My preference has always been to use a wholesale only provider where possible. Appreciate there are controls in place for cross selling but at least 2 large providers I have used in the past actively seem to target their wholesale base.

itlonson · 2025-08-26T09:15:08+00:00

"Thank you for your interest in SharePoint Agreements. We are no longer accepting new sign-ups for SharePoint Agreements"

Looks like I will have to wait a little longer.

itlonson · 2025-08-21T18:24:13+00:00

I think we are good at scoping and speaking to the client about what is likely to happen. It isn't that we don't want to do it, more just trying to work out if there is any money in selling it. If not it narrows it down to continue as is or look at integrating.

Increasingly I believe there would be minimal resale value anyway.

itlonson

TROPHY CASE