Improving MSP Incident Alert Management

As the big game approaches this Sunday, I’ve been thinking about the NFL’s introduction of instant replay and how it makes the league much more enjoyable! Whether you’re rooting for the Patriots led by Tom Brady … or the Rams, you can’t deny that instant replay makes every Super Bowl much more efficient and adds more clarity to the game.

The same is the case with popular ticketing systems’ integration with incident alert management platforms like OnPage, a seamless collaboration that transforms tickets into intelligent alerts. This type of integration adds value to MSP businesses and streamlines their incident resolution practices. Let’s look at some examples featuring OnPage’s platform.

Before the OnPage Integration

Prior to the integration, MSPs felt there were even better ways to keep their clients happy and satisfied. In the case of Cygnus Systems, a Michigan-based IT support firm, it was relying on a lengthy ConnectWise Manage process to trigger a notification and ultimately, send it to an answering service before contacting a company engineer.

When an alert was missed, Cygnus’s answering service would wait 15 minutes before paging the same engineer again … and again. In total, it would take about 30 minutes from the initial alert trigger until there was a response—not good. Not only was billable time lost, but it also hindered client satisfaction due to long resolution times.  

As illustrated by the Cygnus case, ticketing systems are powerful, but they don’t provide the necessary alerting features to meet SLA requirements. Instead, MSPs find themselves taking slow, snail-like steps that feel like hours. Without automated incident alert management, it’s not uncommon for alerts to be missed due to three key problems:

1. Calls, text or pages to engineers are missed, especially after-hours
2. Answering service staff aren’t able to contact engineers in a timely manner
3. Alert messages sent via email get lost in cluttered inboxes

After the OnPage Integration

Fortunately, OnPage provides a solution that complements ticketing systems for complete incident alert management. That’s because OnPage’s Alert-Until-Read technology ensures that critical alerts are heard and addressed. The intrusive, audible pings last up to eight hours until acknowledged. With such a feature, critical alerts cut through the clutter and become easily distinguishable. Bye-bye missed alerts!

So, what ticketing services is OnPage compatible with? OnPage alerts are easily accessible through MSPs’ favorite ticketing systems including, Datto’s Autotask PSA, ServiceNow and ConnectWise Manage. With such an integration, tickets are converted into smart alerts for every incident, every time. For MSPs, this means that they’ll receive automated notifications on their smartphones via the OnPage secure app.

Also, the OnPage platform offers escalation policies, ensuring that if an engineer is unavailable, another on-call team member will be notified of an incident. Just like the ceremonial passing of the torch, all responsibilities will be forwarded to another person … whose activity is then tracked through OnPage’s real-time message statuses. With these statuses, IT managers know when critical alerts are received, addressed and resolved. Essentially, it’s a great way to get rid of all excuses and ensure that SLAs are met.

With these benefits in mind, organizations such as Cygnus, trust OnPage’s incident alert management platform for cost reductions and improved resolution performances. Such results were achieved by Cygnus, as it cut monthly costs by 75 percent with the OnPage-ConnectWise Manage integration. Additionally, the company was able to cut down response times from 30 minutes to just one minute!

In the case of Lehigh Valley Technology, an IT and security solutions company, its integration between Autotask and OnPage helped it speed up after-hours incident response times by a whopping 300 percent. Also, the company was able to reduce the cost of its 24×7 support, while ensuring that incidents were always resolved.

OnPage’s incident alert management platform ensures that critical alerts are never missed regardless of an engineer’s location. The platform also adds value to MSPs’ 24×7 support businesses, guaranteeing that they benefit from billable hours on nights and weekends. OnPage and ticketing systems: a dream integration that makes both MSPs and their clients happy.

For more information about OnPage’s integration with PSA/ticketing systems, please contact us or reach our sales department directly at [email protected].