Back to BrightGauge's main site
Blog Logo-2.svg

The BrightGauge Blog

Integrations, Product   |   Read

New Integration: Veeam

Great news! We now integrate with Veeam Availability Console. Many of our users have requested this capability, and we’re happy to announce that this datasource is now available to connect with. ...
Great news! We now integrate with Veeam Availability Console. Many of our users have requested this capability, and we’re happy to announce that this datasource is now available to connect with. Veeam Availability Console (VAC) is a cloud-enabled platform for centralized management and monitoring of data protection operations and services. The solution is intended for physical and virtual environments protected with Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows and Veeam Backup & Replication. When you integrate BrightGauge + VAC, you’ll be able to maintain constant visibility into your entire backup infrastructure, so you can be sure that everything is running properly. How to connect to Veeam Availability Console It’s really easy to connect with any of the datasources in our stack. From your BrightGauge overview page, click on DATA to get the dropdown menu, then select Datasources. Find Veeam Availability Console, follow the prompts to get connected, and you should be all set. If you’re looking for more help, please read our Veeam Availability Console support doc. Are you new to BrightGauge? We’ll happily walk you through a live one-on-one demo! Just contact our sales team today. What do I get out of the box? Whenever we add a new datasource to our stack, we take the time to figure out which metrics would matter most to our users and we set out to pre-build gauges, dashboards, and reports that are automatically available with each datasource. We do this because we want you to be able to access your data immediately. With VAC, you’re going to get 11 default gauges, 1 dashboard, and 1 report template to get you started. Gauges The pre-built VAC gauges you’ll get include Backup Quotas, Backup Repository Details, Backup Space Per Repository, Job Details, Jobs Run - Current Week, Jobs by Status, Repositories by Health State, Repository Errors, Repository Ok, and Repository Warnings. Dashboards Your pre-built dashboard is going to give you a bird’s eye view of your repository health states, backup details, and jobs by status. Reports The pre-built VAC report template makes it easy to share repository, jobs, and backup details with your clients or your internal teams. If at any time you have questions about your Veeam Availability Console integration, please submit a support ticket or contact us and we’ll be happy to lend you a hand.
request-a-brightgauge-demo
Product   |   Read

How We Use BrightGauge to Track Our Coffee Obsession (Seriously)

At BrightGauge, there’s no confusion about our love for coffee. Whether we’re enjoying our 3pm colada in the office or taking a group field trip to any one of several different coffee shops around town - we’re going to consume the liquid energy in some way every single day. So, one Friday during our group happy hour session, someone asked “how much coffee do you think we really drink?” Being pretty obsessed with data is our M.O. at BrightGauge, so decided to let a dashboard speak for itself. Here’s what we came up with: Now if you keep up with most of our product features, updates and announcements, you may be asking yourself how we put together this sweet dashboard. Did they announce some new coffee integration I missed? Don’t worry - you haven’t missed any breaking news from our team! However, if you haven’t yet used our awesome Dropbox integration, let’s take a closer look at the coffee data journey and how it all came to be. First, you should know that our Dropbox integration lets us pull in any data via a CSV… so, if you’ve seen Brian’s Wine Inventory dashboard you know how easy it is to think outside the Service Provider box on ways you can use our platform. Using the same process, we decided to put together the key metrics of our coffee consumption. What data to gather The first question we asked ourselves is “what questions do we want to answer?”. Obviously we wanted to know about quantity but that naturally led to other questions we might want to know. Here are the 5 topics we came up with: Beverage Size - to help us track the most popular serving quantity Type of Beverage - to see the type of brew Location - to compare coffee consumed in office vs. at a coffee shop Time of Day - to understand when people were drinking coffee Amount of Coffee Consumed - to see who consumes the most coffee overall Getting the Data into BrightGauge We started gathering the data manually via our coffee Slack channel but that quickly proved to be too manual (although it did start some phenomenal conversations about coffee): So, we set up a Google Form to easily ask the necessary questions (you could also use SurveyMonkey), but the best part is that Google Forms will automatically drop the data into a Google Sheet. This allowed us to have the team fill out the link on a daily basis and collect the data without all the hassle of the manual process. Once we had enough data we exported it to a CSV. Now that we had collected enough data and exported to a CSV, we simply uploaded the CSV via Dropbox to BrightGauge as a dataset. That allowed me to create the gauges you see below. Making Sense Of the Data As you can see from the gauge below, Kristian is by far our biggest coffee drinker - it makes sense given that he leads our Support and we need him “on” all the time: It's also easy to see that the most popular option is to make coffee at the office and enjoy it in the company of our teammates: It also makes sense that American coffee is our most popular option since the BGS Brew (the winner from the gauge above) is American. Although, we did just get a Cuban coffee maker and so I suspect that “slice of the pie” will be increasing over the coming weeks. How Will You Apply This To Your Business? Many times you have questions you want answers to, but no easy way to gather the data and display for others to see. Whether it’s Customer Satisfaction Surveys, Employee Surveys, Manufacturer Warranties Expiring, tracking supply inventory, or anything else - by using the BrightGauge + Dropbox integration you’re able to pull that data in and begin to analyze and visualize your data. Stay tuned for more updates on the BrightGauge crew’s coffee of choice, and tell us... what fun data are you visualizing with your dashboards? *Note: this post was originally published in 2015 and has been updated for accuracy.

Subscribe to get the latest content delivered to your inbox
Customer Success   |   Read

Customer Stories: How BrightGauge has Helped First Stop IT Stand Out in Their Market

First Stop IT got its start in the UK when the founders felt that they could take IT Support into their own hands and improve upon the process. With 18 years of experience, First Stop IT has been helping small to medium sized businesses with their technology issues. In 2017, First Stop IT became a BrightGauge customer in hopes that it would help them improve the way they run their business. We chatted with Gemma Staines, Owner & Managing Director, to learn more. First Stop IT’s mission First Stop IT wants to help customers maximize their investment in employees and find business success all through the use of technology. To do this, they rely on great customer service, learning each customer’s specific business needs and going above and beyond to exceed their expectations. An appreciation of the value of excellent service extends beyond their customers and into their own First Stop IT team. “Since we started in 2000, we’ve held onto our core values of teamwork and taking ownership of our client’s problems,” says Gemma. The kind of reputation they’ve built for themselves is what drives First Stop IT clients to refer their provider to others, which is increasingly important as the company continues to grow. When they discovered BrightGauge, it seemed like a tool that would strengthen the First Stop IT team, keeping their reputation intact. Becoming a BrightGauge customer According to Gemma, the BrightGauge interface has the single most intuitive GUI on the market. “The power of BrightGauge is in its simplicity,” says Gemma. Having this tool at their fingertips has made a significant impact on First Stop IT, both internally and externally. As a team, BrightGauge has helped First Stop IT reach a higher level of visibility, from staff KPIs to department targets. “Giving all employees a running commentary on how they’re doing each day has proved to be really motivational. Plus, it’s created some healthy competition within our office,” says Gemma. Externally, BrightGauge has given First Stop IT a valuable edge over their competitors. When pitching to larger clients, having BrightGauge in their back pockets helps them stand out. “Generally, we find the bigger the client, the more they expect a certain level of account management and reporting. With BrightGauge, we’re able to report on just about anything our client’s heart’s desire. This has proven invaluable for customer retention and customer negotiation,” says Gemma. Go-to BrightGauge features At First Stop IT, BrightGauge dashboards are at the heart of their operation. They have 3 large screens in their office that display dashboards day in and day out, with data coming from ConnectWise Manage and ConnectWise Automate. Specifically, their “How are we doing today?” dashboard monitors their helpdesk tickets and alerts. It shows tickets that haven’t met their SLA yet, live figures on how everyone is doing at logging their time and closing tickets, and kill rate % for the whole helpdesk team. BrightGauge dashboards have just given their team members a level of visibility they hadn’t previously experienced, in turn fostering a stronger culture of accountability and visibility. The added power of reports has given First Stop IT a welcome boost. “We’ve been able to report on metrics that we couldn’t before. Between the two datasources we integrate with, BrightGauge allows us to report on 90% of the activity in our business,” says Gemma. Surprising benefits of using BrightGauge BrightGauge has shown First Stop IT the behavior of not only all the endpoints they’re entrusted with, but also with the inner workings of their own company. Gemma says it best: “By opening up this black box of information, it has enabled us to improve moral, team building, efficiency, customer service, and response times. Additionally, the data we can collate and present to clients has given them a much better understanding of their own systems and staff training needs. BrightGauge has empowered us to deliver an outstanding level of service to the SMB market.” It’s thoughts like these that push us to deliver you a tool that meets your needs on a daily basis. Thank you Gemma and First Stop IT for being an awesome BrightGauge customer!
Integrations, Product   |   Read

New Integration: Jamf

We’ve got a new integration to announce! Jamf is now available for you to connect to and start pulling data from. Jamf is a mobile device management tool that helps you manage your Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Apple TV devices. Jamf provides a great way for organizations to streamline their device management by simplifying the required processes. When you integrate BrightGauge and Jamf, you’ll get a real-time view of how many devices you have by model, licensed software information, the operating systems being used on your computers, purchasing information for your mobile devices, and much more. How to connect to Jamf Connecting to any of our existing datasources is really simple to do. Just Head to your BrightGauge overview page and click on DATA to get the dropdown menu, then select Datasources. Find Jamf, follow the prompts to enter your credentials, and you should be set up within a few minutes. If you need more help, please read our Jamf support doc. Not yet a BrightGauge customer? We’ll happily walk you through a live one-on-one demo if you’d like! What do I get out of the box? What good is data if you have a hard time accessing it? We want you to start seeing and making use of your data as soon as you get connected, which is why we always offer pre-built gauges, dashboards, and reports with all of our integrations. With Jamf, you’ll see that 30 default gauges, 3 dashboards, and 2 reports are automatically available in your account when you connect, which should be a good start to your data management experience. Gauges With 30 pre-built gauges, monitor devices using Adobe Acrobat, Firefox, and Microsoft Office, or count how many MacBook Pro, iMac, and iPad Minis you manage, or see the operating systems on each computer, your licensed softwares, and so much more. Dashboards You’re going to get 3 default dashboards with your Jamf integration: Jamf Computers, Jamf Licensed Software, and Jamf Mobile Devices. These essentially take your gauges and put them into buckets, so it’s easier to digest the data you care about. Reports Two reports help you get the ball rolling when it comes to showing your clients or your internal teams what’s going on with their Apple stats: Jamf Computers and Mobile Devices and Jamf Licensed Software - Monthly Summary. If you’re tasked with managing multiple Apple devices and use Jamf to help, you might be interested in adding BrightGauge to your stack. If you’ve got questions, support ticket or contact us and we’ll be glad to help you out.
Product   |   Read

How to Locate Your Default ConnectWise Reports, Dashboards, and Gauges

If you’ve just become a BrightGauge customer, you’ve probably got lots of questions, and we’re here to help every step of the way! One thing most users want to know right off the bat is how they can access their default ConnectWise gauges, dashboards, and reports. With ConnectWise and every datasource we offer, we take the time to figure out what metrics and KPIs would matter most to our users and we pre-build any gauges, dashboards, and reports possible so that you can start monitoring your data immediately. It’s our mission to help you run a better business by having data-driven insights, but if you can’t get to that data, then what good is it to you? So, anytime you add a new datasource to your account, you’re going to get access to whatever defaults come with that integration. It happens automatically, and we’ll tell you how to (easily) find what you need. We highly recommend that each time you add a new datasource, you take the time to go through all of the defaults available so you don't end up recreating something that already exists. Pre-built gauges Your default gauges are going to be really easy to get to. From your BrightGauge overview page, click on GAUGES on the top left. On the next screen, you’re going to find a list of all the gauges available in your account. If you just signed up for BrightGauge and you are only connected to one datasource, like ConnectWise Manage, then all of the gauges listed will be your default ConnectWise Manage ones. But, if you’ve been a BrightGauge user for some time and have built your own gauges, or if you connect to several datasources, there’s an easy way to sort for your defaults. On the left side of the screen, click the arrow in the Datasource field to access the drop-down menu and then find the datasource you’re interested in, like ConnectWise Manage. Once you’ve made your selection, you’ll see a whole list of gauges that pertain to that specific datasource. If it says ‘BrightGauge Admin’ in the ‘Last Modified By’ column, then you’ve got yourself a default. Pre-built dashboards From your BrightGauge overview screen, click on DASHBOARDS, either in the top nav or the card on the page. Again, if you’ve just signed up for BrightGauge and you’ve only integrated with ConnectWise, then all the dashboards listed will be your defaults. But, if you’ve built your own dashboards or have multiple datasources connected, you can usually tell which ones are default dashboards because we tend to tag them as ‘BGS - Dashboard Name’. Pro tip: got some dashboards you frequent more than others? Save it as a ‘Favorite’ so you can come back to it faster. Pre-built reports From your BrightGauge overview screen, select REPORTS either from the top nav or the card on the page. Click on Templates on the left-side of the page and you’ll see a list of all the reports you have saved. Anything that says ‘BrightGauge Admin’ in the ‘Created By’ column means that it’s a default report. Can I modify my defaults? Yes, of course! These defaults are just meant to get you up and running immediately, but you can absolutely filter them for the exact information you need. For everything you need to know about filters, read this. And, there’s always the option to build your own gauges, dashboards, and reports. It’s fun :) Data management can seriously change the way you run your business The time that you’re going to save and the insights that you’re going to gain by having this data at your fingertips can change your day-to-day drastically. You’re going to have a lot more time to focus on revenue-generating tasks and you’re going to have real numbers and trends that will help you make sharper business decisions. Use these defaults to help you get started, since it requires no set up on your end. Once you’ve got an idea of the data you’re tracking and what could be more useful to you, then you can make the necessary changes to suit your needs. Happy data-viewing! And remember, if you need help along the way, always feel free to drop us a line.

70+ Metrics for MSPs

Key metrics and accompanying formulas to help MSPs skyrocket growth and success!

Get your KPIs

Integrations, Product   |   Read

New Integration: Kaseya VSA Cloud

Announcing the latest datasources to join our growing list of integrations: Kaseya VSA Cloud! This is currently available for you to connect with and start pulling data from. Kaseya VSA Cloud is a remote monitoring management (RMM) solution that allows you to manage your endpoints and your infrastructure simultaneously. For MSPs, it’s a really efficient way to get a handle on client’s devices. When you integrate BrightGauge + Kaseya VSA Cloud, you’ll get a bird’s eye view of your machine statistics, server statuses, and more. You may know that we already offer Kaseya VSA on-premises, and now we’re happy to support Kaseya SaaS customers as well. How to connect to Kaseya VSA Cloud This is really simple to do. Just head to your BrightGauge overview page and click on DATA to get the dropdown menu, then select Datasources. Find Kaseya VSA Cloud and follow the prompts to get connected. If you’re looking for more help, check out our Kaseya VSA Cloud documentation. If you’re new to BrightGauge and would like a live one-on-one demo, please contact our sales team today. What do I get out of the box? Like any of our integrations, we want you to start viewing your data immediately, so we’ve pre-built some gauges, dashboards, and reports to get you started. Please note that we are adding to this list and more defaults will soon become available. Currently, with Kaseya VSA Cloud you’re going to get 11 gauges and 1 dashboard to get you started. Stay tuned for more to come. Gauges Your default Kaseya VSA Cloud gauges include: Server Disk Space Used, Server Disk Utilization by Drive, Server Disk Utilization by Machine, Server Inventory, Server Operating System, Servers, Servers Offline, Workstation Disk Space Used, Workstation Operating System, Workstation Warranty Expiration Year, and Workstations. Dashboard Your default Kaseya VSA Cloud dashboard is going to provide a bird’s eye view of the important machine data you’re monitoring, putting it all on a single pane of glass that makes it easy to see what’s going on at any given moment in time. If at any time you have questions about your Kaseya VSA Cloud integration, submit a support ticket or contact us and we’ll be glad to help you out.
Best Practices   |   Read

Why You Should Make CSAT a Priority

Customer is king. It’s a philosophy we strongly believe in, and for good reason. Everything we do is for our customers. We want to make sure they are getting real value out of our product and feel like they have a strong support system backing them up. At the end of the day, unhappy customers won’t be advocates for your product or service and they won’t stick around for the long-run, which is no bueno for business. That’s why we are constantly monitoring customer satisfaction and why we recommend it as a smart business practice for all MSPs. What CSAT scores mean Customer Satisfaction is a measure of the degree to which a product or service meets the customer’s expectations. CSAT scores tell a company a lot about how they are doing. These numbers provide insight into operational efficiency, customer’s concerns, and strengths. Peter Drucker famously said, “What gets measured gets managed”, a quote that most definitely applies to customer satisfaction. If you’re not checking in with your customers to get feedback, how can you ever improve upon your offerings? Your customers are the people who are using your product or service day in and day out. They are rightfully going to be critical of what you offer because their assessment will be based on how helpful or not your product or service was to them. Most likely, your organization’s mission is to help your customer in some way, and a CSAT score is a very telling way to figure out if you’re doing that. Where CSAT scores are useful At first thought, it seems that CSAT scores are solely reserved for the service industry. If you’ve dined out recently, you may have noticed a quick on-screen survey at the end of your purchase. It could even be a prompt to choose between 3 smiley faces: This is a CSAT prompt that allows customers to leave a really quick review about the service they were just provided. Of course, this can apply to your service desk also. After closing a support ticket, a user may be cued to review their experience in order to provide your techs with insight. It’s really important to track CSAT at this level. Oftentimes, your support techs will be the first line of communication with customers, so it’s critical to keep this team in check. Not only do you need to ensure they are acting friendly and professionally, but you need to know whether their responses are adequate enough. Is the customer satisfied? Is the customer’s concern being addressed with the least amount of friction possible? Is your customer given advice about how to troubleshoot an issue like this in the future? Paying close attention to CSAT scores in this department will just make your support team that much stronger over time. And trust us, customers notice an all-star support team. When you’ve got an all-star team, people start talking, and word-of-mouth can become your best friend. But CSAT doesn’t have to live and die with your support or service team. CSAT can relate to how a customer feels about your actual product. Surveys related to your product can help you understand and prioritize what needs to be upgraded and improved upon, or what features are missing from your stack. Feedback from CSAT surveys can also shed light on the user’s experience: is your product easy to use and navigate? Is there a learning curve or onboarding period? Do the benefits of the product outweigh the cost? It may seem like such a simple, black and white score (i.e., positive or negative), but if you dig deep into your CSAT reactions, you can uncover pretty powerful insights that can push you towards success. BrightGauge and CSAT scores BrightGauge currently integrates with Customer Thermometer, CrewHu, and SmileBack, 3 tools that help you gather CSAT reactions. By connecting to any of these tools, a BrightGauge dashboard will aggregate your CSAT metrics and display it in a single pane of glass. You might look at CSAT scores for the last 30 days for your entire company. Or, you might break down the scores per technician to determine whether any of your employees might benefit from additional training. You can have a gauge that totals all of your positive reactions or averages your CSAT scores across the board. You can even set gauge thresholds to change color and ring an alarm when your scores fall below a specified point, so that you can take immediate action to course correct. Having a CSAT dashboard on display for all employees to see is a really motivating way to get your team members focused and to make every effort to put customers first. 4 main benefits to tracking CSAT In sum, CSAT scores can speak volumes about your product, service, and team. As an MSP, you’re definitely going to want to keep a pulse on CSAT at all times because it’s only going to benefit you in the end. Perks of monitoring CSAT include: Turning customers into loyal clients. Deciphering what helps your customers feel satisfied means you can reduce churn, which is huge for any MSP. Figuring out which customers are a perfect match. Not every customer is going to be the right customer for you, and through CSAT, you can identify those that are a match and those who are going to be too noisy. Identifying areas that need improvement. Feedback from CSAT surveys will tell you what you’re doing right, what you could be doing better, and what new features you need to offer. Gaining promoters of your brand. Satisfied customers will let their friends, peers, colleagues, social followers, etc. know and word-of-mouth is awesome for any MSP! Want to start gathering CSAT reactions but aren’t sure where to start? Download our free whitepaper Customer Satisfaction Surveys That Work.
Best Practices   |   Read

3 Ways Your Dashboards Can Inspire Action

We’re all getting busier and busier and it’s hard to keep up with ourselves, let alone everything going on around us. Sometimes, it helps to stop and evaluate what you’re doing to make sure your approach is as effective and productive as possible. Today, we’re sharing quick dashboard tips so that you’re not only getting the most out of your data, but you’re inspiring your team members (and yourself) to take action. 3 things you can do right now to make your BrightGauge dashboards work for you Business intelligence dashboards are awesome because they save you a lot of time. Instead of toggling between a bunch of windows or logging in and out of accounts to get all the metrics you’re interested in, you can just see all your data in one place. This should make your work day calmer and simpler (two ideas we’re very into). BrightGauge integrates with a lot of popular tools on the market - like ConnectWise Manage, Webroot, Datto, Salesforce, QuickBooks, Smileback, and more - in the hopes that data insights will help you make better business decisions. But if you’re not fine-tuning your data, you’re going to end up with analysis paralysis instead of data insights. Information overload. Too much data, too little time. You get the drift. To avoid that, you can take 3 really simple steps to ensure that you’ll get what you need out of BrightGauge dashboards: 1. Keep your dashboards clean. What we mean by that is to remove the mess, remove the clutter. Don’t try to cram every gauge you care about into one single dashboard because it will quickly lose its effectiveness. Ideally, you’ll be able to view your whole dashboard without having to scroll down or adjust your screen. If you overcrowd it, you run the risk of becoming overwhelmed by too much information, which will prevent you from digesting the important data you’re looking for. Remember that you can drag your gauges to change the size and get your dashboard to a point that feels nice and calm for you. A calm dashboard = a higher chance of taking action based on the metrics you see, since there’s less of a chance that anything will fall through the cracks. 2. Take advantage of thresholds. If you’re monitoring time-sensitive data, like number of servers offline, you’ll definitely want to be alerted to that info sooner rather than later. That is literally what gauge thresholds do. You set them up based on your preferences and what you consider to be a warning sign, so your safe zone is completely determined by you. When you have a gauge with a threshold up on a dashboard, it will change colors and audibly ding based on the parameters you’ve set. You can even set multiple thresholds for one gauge. For example, the number can turn purple if you reach 1 server offline (i.e., something is off); yellow if you reach 2 servers offline (i.e., it’s not looking good); and red when 3 servers are offline (i.e., this is really bad and immediate action needs to be taken to prevent further issues). Say you’ve got a TV displaying your BrightGauge dashboard in a room full of busy techs. The second your threshold alarm dings, everyone is made aware of an issue and can immediately react quickly and effectively. Read more about thresholds here. 3. Use leaderboards to encourage healthy competition. Leaderboards are quite possibly the most motivating gauge on a dashboard in terms of inspiring your team members to take action. Leaderboards essentially rank employees based on their performance, whether you’re monitoring the number of tickets they’re closing, the number of dials they’re making, number of hours worked, etc. You can set up the leaderboard with the parameters that fit your preference and you can assign badges (or icons) to pop up next to each ranking. When you put this leaderboard up on a dashboard, it becomes visible to everybody. And who doesn’t love seeing their name in the #1 spot? Your team members are going to work hard to see if they can earn that coveted spot. Add a little more incentive by promising a reward to the top performer. An extra PTO day perhaps? Always be improving The more you dive into your data and use tools to assist you, the better you’ll get at knowing exactly what works for you. Little tweaks here or there can pay off in a big way by saving you even more time, getting you to your data even quicker, and motivating your employees to stay focused and productive. We encourage you to evaluate and clean up your use of gauges, dashboards, and reports a few times a year so you can squeeze all the juice out of your BrightGauge, so to speak. To get even more tips, watch our free webinar, Dashboard Best Practices.
Integrations, Product   |   Read

New Integration: ServiceNow

Announcing the newest datasource to be added to our roster: ServiceNow! If you’re interested in connecting to this integration, it is now available for you to pull data from. ServiceNow is an IT Services Management (ITSM) tool that makes it easier to complete routine tasks and projects. Their mission is to make work, work better for everybody. When you integrate BrightGauge and ServiceNow, you’ll get a real-time view of project tasks, status, problems, hours, and more. Having to worry less about your workflows means you can spend more time focusing on revenue-generating tasks. How to connect to ServiceNow Like any of the integrations we offer, we try to make it as simple as possible for you to connect. ServiceNow is no different. Head to your BrightGauge overview page and click on DATA to get the dropdown menu, then select Datasources. Find ServiceNow, follow the prompts to enter your credentials, and you should be good to go. If you need more help, read our ServiceNow support doc. If you’re not a current BrightGauge user, request a live one-on-one demo to learn more. What do I get out of the box? Our mission at BrightGauge is to simplify the way you manage your data and that starts with making sure you can get started on day one. Before we release any integration into the wild, we want to make sure you’re set up with pre-built gauges, dashboards, and reports that align with some KPIs you’d care about. With ServiceNow, you’re going to get 17 default gauges, 1 dashboard, and 1 report to kick things off and you’ll have access to all of that as soon as you connect to the datasource. Gauges ServiceNow gauges are going to focus on project-related metrics like Currently Open Catalog Requests by Approval, Hours Worked by Company, Open Tasks by Priority, Problems Closed, Tasks Opened, Tasks Met SLA, and Total Hours Worked. Dashboard You’re going to get one ServiceNow dashboard that gives you a bird’s eye view of your project stats. This dashboard will display data like your tasks that have met their SLA, your tasks broken down by priority, hours worked by company, and tasks opened versus closed. Report You’ll also find one ServiceNow report in your account, which compiles your stats for the Current Month and Last 30 Days. Clients love receiving consistent reports like this because that level of transparency breeds a solid relationship based on trust. Goals We encourage you to take advantage of our Goals feature to get the most out of your ServiceNow integration. You can use it to assign your techs individual goals - like a certain Kill Rate % or a target number of tasks that have met their SLA - and track their progress on meeting their goals each and every week. It’s a really effective way to drive accountability and motivate your team day in and day out. If at any time you have questions about your ServiceNow integration, submit a support ticket or contact us and we’ll be glad to help you out.
Culture   |   Read

Alanna Torre Joins BrightGauge as Sales Development Representative

We’re excited to welcome Alanna Torre to the team as a Sales Development Representative! Join us in learning more about the newest member of our growing BrightGauge family… In the beginning No surprise here - like most of her fellow BrightGaugers, Alanna is lucky enough to call South Florida her hometown (represent!). She grew up in Weston, to be exact, which is a city that sits on the edge of the Everglades. After high school, Alanna wanted to try seasons out for a change, so she headed to Boston to attend Brandeis University. While there, she received a Bachelor’s Degree in Business with a minor in Economics. She was also a member of the Women’s Varsity Soccer team for all four years and served as the team’s captain during her senior year. Out of college, Alanna began her career as a Client Services Specialist for a boutique wealth management firm in Newton, Massachusetts, but soon realized she’d had enough of winters and flocked back down to Miami. Here, she joined Canon at the University of Miami for almost 4 years. At Canon, Alanna was tasked with flipping a fleet of about 2,500 assets across all campuses and to do so, she built out customized dashboards to help her find the right optimization opportunities. Out of that experience, a true love for dashboards and data was born. Joining BrightGauge Alanna’s good friend and fellow BGSer Allison would often talk about her job at BrightGauge with a lot of passion for the company and the culture. When Allison alerted Alanna to an open opportunity, it seemed like the exact environment that Alanna was looking for. That coupled with her love of data and building dashboards made her eager to join the team. Luckily, the feeling was mutual and the rest, as they say, is history. Alanna says, “I’m most excited about learning the software, the various integrations, and how different companies utilize BrightGauge. I know that being on the sales side of things will definitely help me to better understand customer needs. And, the sales team is pretty awesome!” We have to agree with that. Out of office When Alanna wraps it up for the day, you can probably find her enjoying the outdoors, which we’re fortunate to do year-round down in Miami. She loves biking and rollerblading, going to concerts, and supporting her favorite teams, the Miami Heat and the Dolphins. Alanna is also a big music junkie. Scroll through her playlist and you’ll discover new hip-hop and R&B artists. And, this one’s meme game is strong - she’ll hit you with some of the rarest tier-3 memes on the web, so watch out!
Customer Success   |   Read

What to Expect as a New BrightGauge Customer

So, you recently became a BrightGauge user? Awesome! Welcome aboard. You might be wondering what to expect as a new customer, so we’ll give you a quick overview. If you’ve got questions at any time, you should know that you can reach out to our support team for help. We’ve got you covered. Your first 90 days BrightGauge was designed to simplify your daily tasks and give you a strong grasp on your data. To help get you started, we’ve developed a guided training that takes you through your first 90 days as a customer. When you first signed up, you should have received an email with the credentials to access your account. Hopefully you signed in and started taking a look around. Once in your account, you’ll notice a column on the right with a checklist and helpful links. This is your go-to area for next steps and more. Here, you’ll find a 90-day checklist that you can use as your guideline for success. These support documents will show you how to connect your datasources, build gauges, put your dashboards on display, schedule reports to go out automatically, and improve with goals. Our Knowledge Base is a resource to help you get the most out of BrightGauge. A ‘Go-Live Checklist’ is also available off the app, within our support page. Think of our Success Team as an extension of yours We understand you may need some help navigating BrightGauge, and that’s where our Success Team comes in. During your first 90 days with us, hopefully you’ve learned the basics and started bringing in others to use BrightGauge, both viewers and admins, with you. Once you’ve progressed, we recommend you get on a one-on-one call with a member of our success team for further tips and tricks. This training call is free to each team using BrightGauge, and gives you the opportunity to dig deeper into your data and ask any questions you may have. This is an opportunity to learn much more about the ins and outs of BrightGauge. Current users have told us it’s been one of their favorite and most valuable uses of time. Manage your expectations Some of our customers have asked us how app-knowledgeable they should expect to be within their first 3 months as a user. While everyone’s motivation, pace, and learning curve may vary, we do want you to quickly see the value in BrightGauge and to benefit from the data insights you will gain, so here’s a timeline you can try to stick to: Within one week: Log into BrightGauge Connect your datasource(s) Watch our introductory webinar Assign Admin, Viewer, and Analyst roles Take advantage of the pre-built gauges, dashboards, and reports that are automatically included with your datasource(s) Within one month: Subscribe to our blog for best practices, customer stories, new feature alerts, and more Explore our Knowledge Base and Resources to help you troubleshoot any issues Build out your own custom gauges Send internal reports to your team members Open a support ticket Within 3 months: Complete your one-on-one call Sign up for a Data-Driven Workshop to get even more advanced training Set up client reports to go out automatically Assign goals to your team members and have them check in on a weekly basis Give us feedback Our priority is to help you find success. Whether we do it through the support we provide or by improving BrightGauge, we really want to help you make better business decisions through the power of data. To do that, we rely on your feedback. Tell us what you like, what you don’t like, what you think could be better, what your dream feature would be, etc. We love hearing it all. We hope you’ll get a lot out of BrightGauge, so make the most of these first 90 days to really soak it all in and come to us with any help you need. Again, if you need anything, we’re just a message away. Thanks for being our customer!!

Our Latest Content

Product   |   Read

Why BrightGauge is the Best Analytics Solution for MSPs & TSPs

In a world where data drives decisions, BrightGauge stands out as the premier analytics solution for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) & Technology Service Providers (TSPs), offering the tools and insights needed to excel. Empowering TSPs with Data-Driven Insights In today's fast-paced technological landscape, the ability to make data-driven decisions is crucial for the success of Managed Service Providers (MSPs) & Technology Service Providers (TSPs). BrightGauge is on a mission to empower MSPs by offering robust analytics tools that turn raw data into actionable insights. By leveraging BrightGauge, MSPs can monitor performance metrics in real-time, get proactively notified on threshold alerts, identify trends, and make strategic decisions that drive growth and efficiency. With BrightGauge, MSPs have access to a comprehensive suite of dashboards, reports, goals and proactive notification workflows that provide a clear view of key performance indicators (KPIs). This not only helps in tracking operational efficiency but also in identifying areas for improvement, thereby facilitating a culture of continuous enhancement. New Tools and Features: What's Fresh at BrightGauge In 2024, BrightGauge significantly expanded its native integration capabilities by adding support for five tools, including Acronis, Axcient, ConnectWise MDR, ConnectWise Asio, and Strety. These line of integrations highlights the critical need for monitoring endpoint status and backup recovery posture for business continuity. Notably, the integration with Strety allows BrightGauge metrics to power scorecards and create linked To-Dos and issues, marking BrightGauge's first outbound integration and reinforcing its leadership in providing comprehensive solutions for MSPs & TSPs. BrightGauge continually evolves to meet the dynamic needs of MSPs. This year in 2024, our Recent updates have introduced a variety of new tools and features designed to enhance the user experience and provide proactive insights & personalized visualizations to everyone at your organization. Proactive notifications workflows feature was made generally available in first half of this year. It enables you to create thresholds on metrics that you want to track based on threshold conditions. With flexibility to get notified on MS Teams, Email & Slack notifications, BrightGauge monitors these metrics and provide customizable & personalized alerts if metrics crosses the threshold. BrightGauge also introduced brand-new Dashboard management experience in Asio-neon theme which enables management of dashboards, filter on different fields, categories to organize, manage access to users at a single place. This also paves way to have access to BrightGauge dashboards from within AsioTM platform. Another exciting addition is the Sidekick for BrightGauge (currently in Early access), the AI-enabled chatbot enables BrightGauge users to ask questions in a natural language and MS teams-based Sidekick app provides summarized answers from the data sources connected out of 60+ supported integrations. This innovation makes BrightGauge the only MSP-focused analytics platform that truly integrates AI to deliver insights with your existing BrightGauge subscription. Personalized Insights for Every Role in the Organization At BrightGauge, we want to empower MSPs to provide personalized insights to everyone at your organization. We believe creating visible & measurable goals, providing visibility to different activities & its metrics that contribute to those goals makes people rally around the goals and often exceeding them. One of the stand-out features of BrightGauge is its ability to create Parent-child dashboards. Using a single Parent dashboard, you can create multiple clone child dashboards to provide personalized view tailored to needs of every role within an organization. Parent dashboards enable you to control and make updates to multiple dashboards at ease. Whether you're a technician on the front lines, a manager overseeing operations, or an executive shaping strategy, BrightGauge delivers the specific data you need to excel in your role. In last one year of launch of this feature, MSPs across the world created around 12000 dashboards from their parent dashboards fewer than 1800. That shows how easy it has made to provide either client-facing dashboards or technician specific dashboards. Why BrightGauge Outshines the Competition Central to BrightGauge's design principles is the ease of use and the empowerment of MSPs through self-service capabilities. BrightGauge distinguishes itself from other analytics solutions with its intuitive interface, extensive customization options, and strong integration features. Unlike many other platforms, BrightGauge is specifically crafted with TSPs in mind, ensuring that all features and tools are tailored to the unique challenges and needs of this industry. Integrations and features mentioned earlier in the blog are some examples of our focus for TSPs success. Furthermore, BrightGauge is committed to meeting the needs of MSPs worldwide. In addition to North America, BrightGauge now has data centers in the EU and AU, offering data localization options. With over 4,200 pre-built metrics and gauge templates, along with its seamless integration with other essential systems used by MSPs, such as PSA and RMM tools, BrightGauge enhances its value, making it an essential component of any MSP's toolkit. Looking forward in 2025 ConnectWise is dedicated to delivering the first and only true MSP platform, and as part of this commitment, more of BrightGauge's features will be reimagined with user-friendly enhancements in an Asio-neon theme, becoming available on the ConnectWise Asio platform. In the addition to new integrations, existing ones, particularly those with AsioTM solutions, will be more tightly integrated, ensuring seamless data access across the tools MSPs use within the platform. Next year, BrightGauge will introduce features designed to support the community and its needs, offering self-service capabilities for creating data views to generate domain-specific insights and foster community sharing experience.
Best Practices   |   Read

How to Generate Powerful Autotask Reports

You know what clients love? Partners who are trustworthy and transparent about what they’re doing. Know what’s even better? When that foundation is set naturally, without clients having to ask. It’s likely a priority of yours to foster a really strong sense of trust between you and your clients, which is great. Trust breeds long-term relationships and repeat business, putting you on a path towards success. And a really simple, yet powerful way to build that trust is to get in the habit of consistently sending out client reports. It’s not as tedious or time-consuming as you may think, and the payoff is substantial. Determining what to report on Let’s say you’re using Autotask Professional Services Automation to track your support tickets, SLA data, engineers’ hours, and more. That’s some pretty important data! How do you show your clients what you do with that data to keep them running efficiently? This is where Autotask reports come in. Consistent reports give you the opportunity to visually display your value to your client and reinforce the reasons why they are paying you. Autotask reports also show that you’re proactive and committed to helping them run their business - a.k.a., you’re a partner, not just a service provider. However, while we are clearly in support of showing off your data management skills, we should caution against dumping too much Autotask data (or any data) on your clients. The key is to choose the right data. There are a few questions to ask yourself whenever you’re choosing the Autotask data to report on: How does this fit into my client’s SLA? Referring to the SLA you and your client agreed upon is an excellent way to refresh yourself on what matters to them. For example, if the SLA specifies a satisfactory support ticket response time, you’re going to want to include your Autotask Average Time to First Response on each report you send. Does this impact my client’s bottom line? Only include the Autotask data that’ll have the most impact to each specific client. They may not need to know nitty-gritty details like Hours Today by Engineer, but would probably appreciate an update on Projects Opened vs. Closed. Am I spending significant time on this? If it’s not something that matters a whole lot to you, it’s not likely to matter a whole lot to your client. Remember, this is an opportunity to report on your value, so show off Autotask data that you spend a worthwhile amount of time on. Once you’ve got your data ironed out, you can start pulling your Autotask reports together. A little help goes a long way You’re really busy. You don’t have 8-10 hours a week to spend on compiling reports. And no one says you have to. Using a business intelligence tool like BrightGauge can help you get your Autotask reports out with very little work on your end. First of all, BrightGauge takes all your Autotask data (plus data from your RMM, BDR, security, finance tool, etc) and puts it up on one seamless dashboard, so you can keep an eye on the metrics that matter to you in real-time. Then, when it comes to building reports, the whole process is automated and can be set up in just a few clicks. When you connect BrightGauge + Autotask, your account will come pre-loaded with 8 report templates to get you started, including Daily Member Scorecard, Weekly Project Work Summary, Service Calls, Sales Daily Wrap Up, and more. You can open one of these templates, personalize it with a client logo, choose your client recipient(s), and then schedule the report to automatically be sent out at the frequency you choose (like every Monday at 8 a.m.). If you’d rather build a report from scratch, it’s just a matter of dragging and dropping the data you’re already tracking into the report template, and then personalizing it and scheduling it out. It’s honestly that simple. And the reports look clean, professional, and digestible. Once you get your Autotask reports scheduled, you can rest easy knowing they’re automatically being delivered to your client’s inbox every week/month/quarter and that your client’s can rely on you and trust you to receive this information. High-five! By the way, in addition to 8 report templates, you’ll get almost 200 default KPIs and 9 pre-built dashboards to get you started. Some KPIs include: Amount on Invoices 90 Days Past Due Average Time to First Response Average Time to Resolution Breached SLA Summary Per Resource Customer Satisfaction This Month Leaderboard Opened vs Closed Tickets Project Phases - Current Month Tickets Assigned by Tech Tickets Completed This Week Leaderboard Tickets by Issue Type Watch this video to learn more about setting up and sending out reports. If you’d like to add Autotask to your stack of BrightGauge datasources, please contact us today.
Customer Success   |   Read

Dashboard of the Month: RMM Overview - Endpoints

Dashboards and reports play a vital role in streamlining data and extracting valuable insights. In the dynamic realm of endpoint management, it is imperative for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to have real-time access to consolidated data from their array of tools, enabling swift action on behalf of their clients. Utilizing metrics not only aids in pinpointing areas for enhancement but also empowers them to enact precise strategies for advancement. In this month's featured Dashboard, we delve into RMM Overview metrics tailored to streamline endpoint monitoring and management. Our inspiration stems from a recent user showcase webinar featuring Nate Ginn, the Centralized Systems Manager at ESI Technology Advisors, who shared insights on leveraging ConnectWise RMM and ConnectWise PSA data for enhanced client management. Tune in to Optimizing Remote Monitoring and Client Management with Data to discover more on how Nate drives performance enhancements through data utilization. Nate and the ESI team rely on the RMM Overview dashboard to gain a snapshot into critical indicators like patch status, warranty updates, and disk space utilization, guaranteeing optimal functionality of their endpoints. This visual aid, shared among their team, helps them stay ahead of RMM tickets for prompt issue resolution as well. RMM Overview - Endpoints - view here. Here are some featured metrics: Ticket & Configuration Information - These segments organize RMM tickets based on their status, time spent, and attached configurations. It also offers a historical perspective on ticket volume, and provides insight into the endpoints and software under your management. Patching & Disk Space Utilization - These metrics provide valuable insights on missing patches, OS patch compliance rates, and disk space utilization percentages. These data points are crucial for addressing performance concerns and identifying potential security vulnerabilities. Thank you, Nate, for collaborating with us and sharing your valuable insights! Recreate in your BrightGauge RMM Overview - Endpoints Dashboard (public view link) RMM Overview - Endpoints Buildout Key Make sure to visit our library of more report and dashboard templates and please feel free to reach out to success@brightgauge.com with any questions!

Product

Features

Resources

Company
               

 

©2023 ConnectWise, LLC. All rights reserved.
// Siteimprove tracking