The BrightGauge Blog

On February 1, 2020, Autotask v1 is officially going into retirement. But don't worry! You will have access to our latest version. For that to happen, we need you to please take action before this datasource is gone. Again, on February 1, all Autotask partners will be required to use the latest version of our Autotask datasource, meaning that Autotask v1 will be deleted. We don't want any disruptions in your service to occur, so we'd like to help you move everything over ASAP. So, why are we doing this? Basically, the older version is being deprecated and we will no longer be supporting it. The newer version has been available since August 2018 and has many more features that we are sure you are going to love, including the availability of user defined fields (sweet!). Learn more here. Before February 1st, we need you to authenticate your connection in order to gain access to Autotask v2. You'll need to take a moment to ensure the following requirements are met: The Autotask user has an API User (API-Only) security level. This security level provides full system administration access to PSA modules, features and the data available via Autotask's Web Services API. It does all of this while limiting access to the Autotask UI itself. The Autotask user is assigned an API Tracking Identifier set to "BrightGauge Software - BrightGauge". Tracking identifiers are assigned on the Security tab of the API-only user's Resource Management page when adding a new API-only user, or editing an API-only user that does not yet have an identifier assigned. Select the "BrightGauge Software - BrightGauge" under the Integration Vendor menu. Confused? Please find detailed migration instructions here. Still confused? Submit a support ticket. We're always happy to help!

We are operating in a world where security risks are greater than ever before. The reality is that our information is vulnerable, but there are steps we can take to decrease our risk of attack. For the past couple of years, MSP 501 surveys have indicated that security-as-a-service or security offerings in general are the biggest growth area for MSPs, and that will continue to ring true. Whether or not you are offering security-as-a-service at your MSP, there are general security guidelines that every single MSP should be following right now to ensure the safety of their data and that of their clients. It starts from within. When you establish strong internal security protocols, that will carry over into making you a more trusted partner. So, whatever measures you put into practice should be shared with and required of every employee who joins your organization (just make it a part of your onboarding strategy!). Just ahead, we present 5 tips for securing your MSP: Use a password manager. A lot of websites require passwords of a certain length with a combination of 1 letter, 1 special character, etc. So, people tend to use the same passwords across the board. Bad idea. Instead, use a password manager, like 1Password. In fact, require it for all business activity and use strong, unique passwords for every separate site. Something like 1Password will store your passwords and generate them for you. This can help dramatically reduce the risk of password reuse in the event of a vendor security breach. Require 2-Factor Authentication. There’s really no excuse not to do this. Enable 2FA everywhere possible - especially on sites/apps you share with clients. When available, encourage the use of SSO (single sign-on) solutions as well. Encrypt, encrypt, encrypt. Across all devices, full disk encryption should be a requirement. This is an important measure to take to ensure that only those people who you want accessing a piece of information are able to access it. Just like 2FA, there’s no reason not to do this. Keep your customer’s data safe. It’s one thing to safeguard your own data, but ensuring your customer’s data is protected is incredibly important, too. You are a trusted vendor, after all. Make sure you have clear protocols and safeguards in place around any customer data and resources. When possible, store logs and audit trails for any privileged activity that might access private customer data. Word of advice: when building these systems, be cautious not to accidentally capture sensitive data in your audit logs. Stay informed. When in doubt, turn to the experts and constantly stay informed. We highly recommend and have referred our own employees to a set of excellent presentations on operational security published by PagerDuty. Anyone looking for additional guidance should definitely check it out: https://sudo.pagerduty.com/for_everyone/. The bottom line: don’t skimp on security. It’s just going to continue becoming more and more important every day. For a deeper dive into the topic of security, including how to sell security to your customers, join the upcoming ConnectWise webinar, ‘Key Tactics to Monetize Your Security Offering’, taking place on January 27th. Register now: https://www.connectwise.com/resources/webinar-monetize-your-security-offering.

A common challenge that MSPs face is how to run an efficient and productive service desk, as there's so much activity coming in and out of that department. From tickets that need to be serviced to long-term projects that have been agreed upon, there are plenty of moving parts (and technicians) to keep track of. What's your approach when it comes to staying on top of what your team members are working on? In the latest edition of our user showcase webinars, Mark Kjaer and Mark Beitel of WBM Technologies, Inc. share how they are using BrightGauge dashboards and reports to track each of their technician's performance and to stay on top of open projects and devices. Having real-time visibility into their machine stats, project status, and tech data has proven to be an effective way to align everyone on tasks that need to get done. Plus, the ability to create comprehensive reports within BrightGauge has allowed the WBM team to keep clients and team members alike informed on a monthly basis. Click below to watch the webinar and please contact us if you've got any questions!

Off the top of your head, do you know how much cash your organization has on hand? What was your gross profit last month? What’s your projected MRR this month? If you don’t know these numbers right off the bat, how quickly can you get to them? Ideally, you can get this data immediately. Keeping a watchful eye on your finance KPIs is a critical practice that informs pretty much all business decisions. If you’re not in the habit of doing this or aren’t sure of the best way to keep tabs on this data, don’t fret. It’s pretty simple to implement. Why is it so important to track financial KPIs? Aside from the obvious - knowing whether or not your business is profitable - tracking financial KPIs impacts day-to-day decisions that spill over into the long-term. A (good) challenge that many MSPs are facing today is merging with or acquiring another company. Oftentimes when this happens, leadership teams are suddenly tasked with managing a growing organization. How can MSPs efficiently grow and scale in this market? It’s all about letting data do the talking. Tracking financial performance and patterns means that decisions are rooted in truth. Hard data can’t be manipulated and numbers don’t lie, so decision-makers can rest assured that they are taking the smartest actions. Financial data can help when determining how many members to add to a team, where to set sales commissions, what tools or software to add to an existing stack, or especially when projecting goals for a coming quarter or year. Owners and managers also use financial KPIs to figure out what area of the business to focus on. For instance, if revenue is dwindling because of a slow uptick in new clients, a heavy investment can be made in a sales and marketing team. Or, going back to M&A’s, if you’re expecting to take on a significant amount of new clients, it may make sense to focus investments on a more robust service team. Whether deemed large or small, it’s pretty much a guarantee that all decisions are driven by financial data. Another reason to always have an eye on finances: key stakeholders and investors care a whole lot about this type of information, so it’s best to have it on hand anytime a question is asked or a report is needed. Keeping tabs on finances with the right tools You’re most likely using a tool like QuickBooks to handle and manage your finances. It’s a very popular and reliable tool in the industry. But, depending on the needs of your MSP, you’re probably using other tools like a PSA or RMM on a daily basis. What ends up happening is that you spend the day toggling between windows to consume the data that’s important to you. A smarter and faster way to be data-driven is to keep all your metrics in one central place, like a dashboard that gives you a bird’s eye view of your business. That’s exactly what BrightGauge does. You can create specific dashboards for the areas of business you want to track and then have them on display throughout your office, giving you and other team members constant visibility into your KPIs. In the case of finances, being able to glance at one dashboard to quickly understand the state of your business puts you in a prime position to be proactive, make decisions that lead to success, and manage incoming and outgoing cash in an optimal way. Knowing where and how to get started You’ve got the right tools in place and are adamant about making financial KPIs a priority, but how do you get started? First, know that we offer a lot of resources to guide you. Our integrations come pre-loaded with default gauges, dashboards, and reports to get you off on the right foot. With QuickBooks specifically, you’ll get gauges like Accounts Receivable Aging Summary, Amount on Invoices Sent This Week, Cash Balance, EBITDA Performance, Net Profit, and more. Pre-built QuickBooks dashboards include COGS, Expenses, and Revenues Details as well as a Financial Overview dashboard. In addition to these templates, we have webinars, blog posts, and more that share what your peers are doing with BrightGauge. But what it comes down to is deciding what’s most important to your business and your bottom line. What are your main goals that will define success for you? Start there, choose KPIs that align with your company goals, and put those metrics on one dashboard. As an example, a BrightGauge customer recently gave us a look at a Leadership KPI dashboard that is shared with the executive team on a regular basis. It’s a high-level financial overview of performance in various departments, recurring revenue, and gross profit. See that dashboard below or click here: Because all these metrics are tracked every day, team members are able to communicate about this data at a moment’s notice, keeping everyone accountable and aligned to goals. As a BrightGauge customer, you’ll never be left to figure things out on your own. Our support and success teams are always available to help you out. Want to learn more or see BrightGauge in action? Contact us today and we’ll be happy to take you through a one-on-one demo.

Did you catch our recent webinar with Ian Richardson of Doberman Technologies where he discusses how he uses BrightGauge to set his MSP up for success? During the chat, Ian shared that one of his go-to dashboards is one that tracks his team’s capacity for new projects. The dashboard shows the capacity each tech has in his or her schedule to take on projects, based on hours that have been scheduled for the current month and the next 3 months. Each tech has a predetermined max capacity, which is based on work roles. View this dashboard here. This critical dashboard is used for expectation management, both internally and with clients. It helps the Doberman Technologies teams make informed decisions about when projects can realistically be delivered and it helps them decide which projects to take on and when. Scheduling projects around known capacities also ensures that each team member has enough time for unexpected crisis items and for more long-term projects. For Doberman Technologies, this has been a really efficient way to grow their business and keep workload at a manageable pace and it's applicable to all teams across the board. Many of you showed interest in replicating this dashboard for yourselves, and we’re happy to share it with you now: Link to Team Capacity Dashboard Link to Dashboard Recreation Key Please feel free to reach out to success@brightgauge.com with any questions you have!

Within your organization, are there multiple departments, each housing multiple teams? How are you organizing your BrightGauge dashboards, reports, and gauges so that team members can easily find their respective data? Even with smaller organizations, implementing a proper naming convention to be used throughout BrightGauge can lead to quicker access and easier navigation of your data (think cluttered vs. uncluttered workspaces). In this edition of our user showcase webinars, Daniel Pop, Application Support Manager at Milner, Inc., shares his approach to a cohesive naming system within BrightGauge and talks about how staying organized feeds into managing teams, providing feedback, and monitoring who is under- or over-achieving. This clever, yet simple way to organize data has proven effective for Daniel and teams and has allowed them to seamlessly use every aspect of BrightGauge in their day-to-day. Click below to watch the webinar and if you've got questions, please don't hesitate to contact us!

We’re excited to welcome Katarina Ondrejovicova to the team as a Customer Success Specialist! Join us in learning more about the newest member of our growing BrightGauge family… In the beginning Katarina is the first BrightGauger to come to us from Europe - she was born and raised in the country of Slovakia. Katarina graduated from Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, which is the second largest city after Prague and is widely known for Moto GP. While in university, Katarina was lucky enough to study abroad in southern Spain, which helped to fuel her love of travel. She started off her career working for IBM, where she was tasked with improving the overall service level quality for their Sony account. About 5 years ago, Katarina moved to the US and worked for Itopia, a software company that partnered with Google Cloud to create a cloud automation tool for remote desktop provisioning and management. There, she was in charge of Customer Success and managing the support team. With that great experience, we were lucky to find Katarina and welcome her to BrightGauge. Joining BrightGauge Katarina was first intrigued by our software itself. Plus, in her words, “the company culture that respects individuality, promotes a stress free environment, and supports collaboration” helped to seal the deal. She’s really motivated to be part of the Customer Success team, especially because in her role she will work with both customers and internal teams like sales, support, marketing, and product. She’s excited about working across the board to improve our customer experience. We can’t wait to see what Katarina brings to the table. Out of office When Katarina has the time, she loves to travel and explore new places and cultures. Her love of photography means that her travels are well-documented, thanks to her Sony Alpha camera. Katarina strives to keep a zen state of mind through yoga, meditation, biking, and beach time. And she’s always down for some live music. Fun fact: Katarina speaks Slovak, Czech, English, and Spanish! What will she learn next?

We frequently get asked how to choose the right metrics to report on, whether for client reports or internal ones. Ideally, any report you send out will be easily consumable yet impactful, so you want to be careful not to weigh it down with way too many metrics. Go for metrics that are direct and that clearly get your message across. When it comes to BrightGauge, a lot of our customers tell us how useful it is to see how their peers are using the app, so this month we’re highlighting Weston Technology Solutions’ internal Agreement Performance Report. Weston Tech has been in business for over 25 years and at the core of their managed IT solutions is a passion for being a true partner - not just a vendor - to their clients. Brock McFarlane, CEO and Founder of Weston, shared that their team works off of fixed-fee agreements, a departure from the hourly agreements they previously used. For Weston, fixed-fee contracts allow team members to be more valuable and efficient with time, but reporting on these contracts can get tricky since it’s not based on hour-by-hour work. What Brock has found is that looking at Gross Margin is a truer representation of how a contract is doing versus just how many hours were billed. Identifying their most important metric - Gross Margin - laid the foundation for how Brock and team would build reports moving forward. Brock also includes Hours by Tech within the reports, as any red flags in those hours can paint a picture as to why a margin percentage may be too low or too high. Reporting on a client’s margin percentage can pinpoint where inefficiencies lie - perhaps a tool a client is using is giving more trouble than it’s worth - so that they can operate at an optimal level. Also, by managing Gross Margin, Brock is sometimes able to avoid raising contract prices in the future, which his clients love and is a big reason why they repeatedly invest in Weston. This is a perfect example as to why consistent reporting is hugely important. We’ve recreated Weston’s Agreement Performance Report for your reference: Think this report would be useful for your team or want some more info? Check out our Report Key to recreate it yourself or feel free to reach out to success@brightgauge.com and we’ll be happy to help. Thank you to Brock and Weston Tech for sharing your insights! Link to Public Report Link to Report Recreation Key

In the last few months, we’ve added several new datasources to our stack, and here’s what you need to know! Now available to our customers: Liongard Roar, Solarwinds N-Central (previously N-Able), Simplesat, and PRTG. Keep reading for details on these integrations, which you can connect to at any time. Liongard Roar Liongard Roar is a documentation system that was specifically built for MSPs. Having important docs and processes documented is great for establishing accountability and understanding what actions took place when. For customers using Liongard Roar, integrating with BrightGauge provides a lot of flexibility in terms of the metrics and KPIs you can pull. There are several datasets customers can report on, including users, environments, agents, detections, timeline, and metrics. Within the metrics dataset, users can easily create custom metrics and report on Office 365 and Active Directory data. Lots of you have been asking for this, so we’re thrilled to make it available. The Liongard Roar integration comes with 56 default KPIs, two pre-built dashboards, and two report templates, conveniently categorized by Office 365 or Active Directory. To add Liongard Roar to your account, please follow the steps outlined in our support document. Solarwinds N-Central Formerly known as N-Able, we’re happy to report that Solarwinds N-Central is live. This RMM platform allows users to keep an eye on pertinent machine metrics. Paired with BrightGauge, users get real-time visibility into those metrics and are alerted to issues before they become any bigger. Plus, customizable, automated reports help customers prove their value to clients and show why they are trusted partners. Customers using the N-Central integration in BrightGauge are going to get 83 default KPIs right off the bat, pertaining to Devices, Servers, and Workstations. The integration also comes with 2 pre-built Machine Monitoring dashboards, and 2 Machine Monitoring report templates. This support doc guides you through the quick process of adding N-Central to your BrightGauge. Simplesat We’re excited to introduce yet another CSAT tool to our stack, as CSAT is at the forefront of metrics that business owners want to stay on top of. Simplesat was designed for small to medium sized MSPs and tech companies, and is a simple way to embed CSAT surveys into email signatures or helpdesks. Integrating BrightGauge + Simplesat allows you to see customer information, specifically how they rated, scored, and answered Simplesat questions. The ever important Net Promoter Score (NPS) is one of 19 default KPIs that are automatically included in this integration. There are also 2 built-out dashboards and reports each, one for CSAT scores and one for NPS. Follow these steps to add Simplesat to your BrightGauge account. PRTG Finally, we recently rolled out an integration with PRTG, a network monitoring tool. When you connect it with BrightGauge, you can easily keep track of metrics like sensor data, stale tickets, uptime, and active/inactive devices. The PRTG + BrightGauge integration comes with 27 default KPIs, one pre-built dashboard, and one report template. The kind of visibility you get with BrightGauge + PRTG allows you to stay proactive and keep the networks you monitor up and running. Adding this datasource to your account is easy - just follow these quick steps. For questions about any of our datasources or to chat with somebody about your BrightGauge account, contact us today. We’re always happy to talk shop!

We’re excited to welcome Jorge Rusiel to the team as a Senior Software Developer! Join us in learning more about the newest member of our growing BrightGauge family… In the beginning While so many members of our BrightGauge family hail from these South Florida parts, Jorge was born a bit further south. In Cuba, to be exact! He comes from Santiago de Cuba, which is the second largest city in the country. Jorge earned his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Central University Marta Abreu de Las Villas in Cuba before jumping on the opportunity to move to Spain and obtain his Ph.D. from the Department of Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence at the University of the Basque Country. His Ph.D. research included the application of advanced image processing and statistical methods to computer-generated 3D models of the brain. Taking this research, Jorge moved to Boston, Massachusetts to work as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Radiology at Mass General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. His work included the development of an open source library used in longitudinal data analysis. Most recently, he worked as a Software Engineer - his true passion - at the Department of Radiology at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, where he was the lead engineer in the design and development of an important scientific software platform. Fortunately for us, Jorge has brought his incredible wealth of knowledge to BrightGauge. Joining BrightGauge Jorge feels that BrightGauge will have a number of exciting technical challenges in the years to come and looking forward to being on the forefront of it all, whether this means integrating AI into the product or simply improving the software platform architecture. Our BrightGauge culture is just the cherry on top. “I’m excited to use my broad background to scale BrightGauge’s SaaS platform,” says Jorge. “This includes designing and implementing new REST APIs, writing high quality software that improves the existing platform, and implementing optimized workflows.” We’re confident that with Jorge on our team, the future of our product is very bright (pun intended). Out of office When Jorge isn’t living out his passion as an engineer, he’s spending time with family and friends by going running, salsa dancing, hitting the beach, and playing brain-intensive card games. Welcome to the fam, Jorge!