Is it all about the tools?

As a follow up to my previous post on tools…Is it really all about the tools?  I read an interesting blog yesterday on Shockey Monkey.  Thanks Vlad for the t-shirt, btw.  I got one in NOLA last week at the SBS Migration conference.

Ok, so, to my point.  Vlad blogged about a new feature he’s added to Shockey Monkey called “Shockey Monkey Slimy Vendor SuperPower (SMSVSP): MultiUpdate.”  Please read his blog.  What intrigued me most was the very little time it took to add this feature to his product.  That tells me two things: 1) Vlad listens to his partners; and 2) His design is flexible enough to add features like that very quickly.

So what’s the big deal about this feature?  I’ll tell you.  My staff supports a few thousand devices under our Virtual Service Desk.  Yeah, we’re still small, but we work inside our partner’s ticketing systems.  Our partners use either Autotask or ConnectWise, and here’s my point.  Autotask has had a multi-update feature for over three years.  ConnectWise doesn’t do it.  Shockey Monkey does it now.  So what, and big deal.  Right?

Well, let’s take this a step further.  Integrate your ticketing tool with your RMM tool.  Our partners use either Level Platforms or Kaseya.   LPI is smart enough to know when it’s already generated an alert for a particular event and will not alert on that event again until the original one is closed.  Kaseya isn’t that smart.  The end result is that if our RMM tool generates a bunch of tickets for the same event, then my staff has to spend time closing all of the duplicate tickets and referencing the original ticket.  Not such a big deal if you’re only supporting a few hundred devices, but it is a big deal when you’re supporting thousands of devices.

Guess why my staff loves Autotask?  Because regardless of how “smart” the RMM tool is they can select all duplicate tickets, add a note once and update all those tickets in a single activity.  This saves a LOT of time, and increases my bottom line.  Another little (but big) thing my staff loves about Autotask is that you can hover your mouse over a ticket, and a little pop up shows you what the ticket details are.   Doesn’t sound like that big of a deal does it?  When you have a few hundred tickets to look at and you need to determine which ones get your attention first, then the pop up REALLY helps vs. having to take the time to open each and every ticket to see which ones are duplicates and which ones are critical.  Again, this saves a LOT of time, and increases my bottom line.

The end result is that when you are striving for efficiency, your tools do make a difference and efficiency is the KEY to a profitable Managed Services business model.  Are your tools helping or hindering your profitability?  ~Amy