3 essential MSP tools to get today!

Working in the managed services industry has probably left you with an impressive collection of tools filling up your “toolkit”. But if you have more tools than clients then it’s time for a review of the tools you need and the tools that add dead weight to your MSP toolkit.

We asked our MSP customer base what their favorite tools were and how they help them serve clients. We focused our questions on favorite tools in the following categories:

PSA tools
RMM tools
Alert management tools
Communication tools and Mobile Device Management tools.

MSP Toolkit essential 1: PSA TOOL – CONNECTWISE MANAGE

Using solutions that integrate with a central system is key to making a business run efficiently while simultaneously maximizing profit and opportunity. MSPs looking to increase their efficiency should leverage a PSA tool, such as ConnectWise, to ensure they are on track with everything from solution management to labor costs. Ideally, every managed services solution the MSP offers, from BDR to file sync, should integrate with this PSA tool to increase the MSP’s efficiency.

Advanced Network Products (ANP) an OnPage MSP customer said that their engineers were able to leverage tools like ConnectWise to set a wide range of conditions to alert them through OnPage’s Incident Alert Management platform which allowed them to closely monitor their clients’ infrastructure.

ConnectWise has become a standard in the IT industry with over 300 API integration partners. As a result, 2 out to 3 top MSPs choose ConnectWise Manage

MSP Toolkit essential 2: RMM TOOL – CONNECTWISE AUTOMATE

ConnectWise Automate, formerly LabTech, is a leading global provider of remote monitoring, management (RMM), and automation software for today’s IT service providers. Whether you’re an experienced IT managed service provider (MSP) or an hourly rate one-man shop, Automate claims to significantly improve your operational productivity and efficiency by leveraging the power of IT automation.

In recent years the RMM/PSA ecosystem is in the midst of consolidation and the competition is getting fiercer by the day. Managed services were initially built on RMM tools. Then, they needed a PSA to better manage client operations and now MSPs need seemingly dozens of tools to address the evolving needs of the clients they serve. However, over the last few years the vendor community has started to consolidate with PSA vendors acquiring RMM capabilities and vice versa.

Vendors have created “platforms,” instead of specific one-off applications in the quest to provide MSPs with a “one stop shop” for all of their needs. MSPmentor.com selected ConnectWise as one of 4 vendors who integrated RMM/PSA suites.

MSP Toolkit essential 3: ALERT MANAGEMENT TOOL – ONPAGE

MSPs who handle after hours teams have come to OnPage to solve their issue of missing alerts. Advanced Network Products (ANP) failed to handle incidents within the period defined by their SLA because their engineers missed the alert. The process was not automated and this proved frustrating for engineers who were next in line to deal with the incidents as they didn’t receive the information in a timely manner to solve the incident.

According to Mike Silverman, CIO of ANP:

“We have had issues before OnPage where a ticket gets created and it needs to get escalated and it was not getting escalated for a couple of hours because the operation center tech ignored it. And when the person finally gets it there usually was a 2 hour delay.”

OnPage solved all these issues with an industry leading Mobile Critical Messaging and Incident Alert Management System. Built around the incident resolution lifecycle, the platform enables organizations to get the most out of their digital investments, ensuring that sensors and monitoring systems have a reliable means to escalate abnormality detection alerts to the right person immediately.