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

The BrightGauge Blog

Dashboards, Service   |   Read

Why MSPs Continually Choose BrightGauge over Integration Solutions

Many of our integration partners have had their own dashboard and reporting solutions (we call them integration solutions) for a couple of years now, and while we’ve discussed how they’ve impacted us ...
Many of our integration partners have had their own dashboard and reporting solutions (we call them integration solutions) for a couple of years now, and while we’ve discussed how they’ve impacted us before, we’ve not really talked about how their solutions differ from our software. Let’s start by discussing the integration solutions: Integration Solutions First off, these are usually free - which is a major benefit. You can try them at no additional cost to you, and receive some benefits from the data. But, as the saying goes: “you get what you pay for”. Users of integration solutions tend to face the following challenges: Limited customization Poor naming schemes Clunky Slow refresh rate And more That’s not to say that integration solutions are bad, they are usually pretty decent, but since they are offered at no additional cost, there is often little incentive for time and resources to be dedicated to improving them. That’s where BrightGauge comes in: BrightGauge Dashboards and Reports Before we begin to dive into the specifics, it’s important to note that BrightGauge doesn’t compete with the integration solutions and instead compliments them. Our integration partners have so many priorities that they don’t have the time to build a better dashboard and reporting solution. We fill in that gap by putting 100% of our time and resources into developing data solutions that save you time, save you money, and help grow your business. Everything Under One Roof One of the most apparent benefits to using BrightGauge is the ability to see all of your important data in one place. Integration solutions will only provide the data from their platform, but BrightGauge has 14 integration partners and is constantly adding to that list. You can easily monitor your financial, service, and operations data in one place. Data Source Mashup and Calculated Metrics Dataset Mashups are a combination of two or more datasets into a single gauge. This gauge can then be displayed on one of our dashboards or reports and provides extra value over traditional gauges because of the ability to gain insight from your data more efficiently. Example metrics that use data source mashup are tech utilization, member scorecards, and advanced hours actual by member. Calculated Metrics, another one of BrightGauge’s most powerful features, allows you to get more from your data by taking two metrics and using basic math to see data you wouldn’t be able to easily identify otherwise. This includes metrics like ticket kill rate. % of 1 touch resolved tickets today, and more. Calculated Metrics makes it easier than ever to manage your data Dashboard Templates BrightGauge offers dashboard templates for each of our integration partners. This allows you to get valuable insight from your data as quickly as possible! In fact, we often hear that getting started with BrightGauge is quicker than the time it takes to get insight from your data in integration solutions. Click here to see our many dashboard templates. 150+ Prebuilt Gauges What good is a customizable dashboard if you can’t easily customize the dashboard? This is where many of the integration solutions are weakest. With BrightGauge you’ve got 150+ prebuilt gauges so that you can easily create custom dashboards and reports in a matter of minutes. Customer Service and Data Customization Team on Standby When you need something extra, such as help on a specific project, BrightGauge provides free customer service along with a data customization team. From troubleshooting data discrepancies to creating a custom gauge, you can count on us to be there. Which Solution is Right for You? It may seem like a difficult choice, but choosing the right dashboard and reporting solution is easy when you follow these 2 simple steps: Since integration solutions are free, we recommend that you give them a try. Get a good feel for how they can benefit you, what is possible and where they may fail to meet your needs. Go ahead and request a free BrightGauge one on one demo - the demo usually only takes 20 minutes of your time and will help you see whether BrightGauge is right for you. After trying both the integration solution and having your one on one BrightGauge demo, you’ll be able to decide which solution will help save you time, save money, and grow your business.
request-a-brightgauge-demo
Best Practices   |   Read

How to Use BrightGauge to Stop Losing Sales Quotes

It’s a Tuesday afternoon and you’re burnt out from sending quotes. You’ve been sending out quotes constantly for the last 3 months, but now you realize that you’re wasting your time. You’ve been sending quotes to businesses that you’ll never win. On top of that, you found out last Thursday that you’ve lost a client to a cheaper, local competitor. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? That’s because this is one of the most common issues that MSPs face, but what if I told you that this time next year, you could be turning down clients instead? If you’re ready to waste less time in sales meetings, win more business, and have clients of such high quality that you’re excited to pick up the phone when they call, here’s what to do: The Importance of Identifying your Ideal Customer One of the biggest mistakes MSPs make is failing to identify their ideal customers. Ultimately, there are 3 types of customers: The customers who are a joy to work with, respect your time and experience, and pay you on time. These are your ideal customers. The customers who are easy enough to deal with, mostly listen to what you and your team say, and almost always pay on time. These are your average customers. The customers who don’t value your advice, nickel and dime you on your quotes and invoices and don’t care to pay you on time (if at all). These are your bad customers. The key to closing more sales quotes is to prioritize selling to your ideal customers and to spot bad customers early enough that you don’t waste any time on them. That’s right, not every customer is the right customer! It’s important to note that the size of the customer and even the amount they will pay you is irrelevant. If they are a bad customer they will waste your time. How to Identify your Ideal Customer with BrightGauge Like many other aspects of business, identifying your ideal customer starts with data. With just 3 gauges, you can begin to identify your ideal customer: Top 10 Tickets per Endpoint Monitoring your top 10 tickets per endpoint will help you identify which customers create disproportionately large amounts of work for your MSP. In the image above, Al’s Coffee Shop is submitting 500 tickets, and you may be tempted to put them into the bad customer category, but you’ve got to dig a little deeper before jumping to conclusions. Say you have a customer with 1000 users and they submit 500 tickets. That breaks down to 2 end users per ticket, which is probably pretty profitable for you! Now let’s say you’ve also got a customer with 100 users who submits 200 tickets. That breaks down to 2 tickets per end user, which is not so profitable! It’s all about finding your sweet spot. Which customers have the best ratio of users to tickets? Lowest 10 Tickets Per Endpoint In addition to monitoring top 10 tickets per endpoint, you should take a look at your lowest 10 tickets per endpoint. Generally these will be your smaller clients who submit few tickets because they have fewer end users, but you may be surprised to find a few customers who have a large number of users but are in your lowest 10 tickets per endpoint. Spot the customers that are outside of your norm in both good and bad ways. This might be a sign that your team needs to spend more time with them as they might not be calling you for issues if they are off the normal “range” for your sweet spot. Effective Hourly Rate (EHR) Effective Hourly Rate is a metric that many MSPs measure, but few realize its true potential! While it may be tempting to look at your clients with the highest EHR and call those your ideal customers, it’s best to find a balance between EHR, Revenue and Hours. Your highest EHR clients may contribute a very small revenue, for example, and if you tried to only sell to those customers you’d not have enough revenue coming in to survive! At the same time, your highest revenue customer may have a low EHR, in which case pursuing these types of customers would result in very low profit margins. Once you’ve got those 3 gauges set up, you need to create a baseline. Monitor them over the course of at least 3 months and then start grouping customers by category. Create buckets for each type of customer: average, ideal, and bad. Once you’ve done this, take a look at your ideal customers and bad customers. What do the companies within these categories have in common? Here are a few examples of what to look for (but I encourage you to find as many trends as possible): Industry Number of end users Revenue (theirs, not yours) How much they pay you Number of workstations Number of servers Location The source they came from (Referral, Print Ads, Pay Per Click Ads, Blog, etc.) You should begin to identify what your ideal customers have in common. Once you’re armed with this information, you can create a buyer persona which reflects your ideal customer. This is who you will target and sell to. Similarly, you’ll want to look for the trends which your bad customers have in common. Use these to create a list of red flags which indicate that a customer will be a bad fit for your MSP. Avoid these customers like the plague. Once you’ve created those two documents, you can begin selling to the right customers while turning away the bad ones. By doing this you’ll be able to more effectively sell since you know who to be selling to. Learn More by Watching Our Video on the Subject: Taking the Necessary Steps Here are the 6 actionable steps you need to take to ensure you’ll stop losing sales quotes: Track your Top Tickets per Endpoint, Lowest Tickets per Endpoint, and EHR with BrightGauge. Identify customers that have abnormally high or abnormally low EHR and Tickets per Endpoint. Use this data to find your sweet spot (in other words, your ideal customer.) Create a Buyer Persona and a list of Red Flags. Begin to market and sell to your ideal customers more aggressively, while learning to identify red flags early in the sales process so you can turn away bad clients. Profit! Have any tips for growing sales and retaining customers that you didn't see here? Share them in the comments below!

Subscribe to get the latest content delivered to your inbox
Podcasts, Best Practices   |   Read

[Podcast] Episode 23 with Kevin Studley of The Network Pro

Making a total transition from traditional break/fix operations into a pure MSP model is a feat that many Service Providers struggle to complete. That’s why we asked Kevin Studley, President & CEO of The Network Pro, to share the highlights of implementing such a large operational change.In addition to changing his service model, Kevin joined a peer group, invested heavily in the Traction operating system, and built a strong sales team to help increase business each year. Listen in for the full conversation on Kevin’s journey. The Results of Adopting a Business Operating System: Episode Highlights Kevin’s introduction and background (0:55) The evolution from traditional break/fix Service Provider to pure-play MSP model (1:35) Areas of focus and a typical day as owner of The Network Pro (6:28) Benefits of adopting the Traction operating system (7:28) Best Practices for meeting format (8:39) The benefits of adopting L10 meetings (9:43) How to get an entire leadership team on board with adopting a new operating system (12:11) How and why Kevin became a member of the TruMethods peer group (16:42) The transformational experience as a peer group member (18:45) The business of numbers: how can MSPs determine if they are a good fit for peer groups (19:45) How Kevin is adding business every year through sales team structure (21:53) How to transition closing power from business owner to sales team (23:56) Talent acquisition: do you train salespeople from the ground up, or find and hire strong players? (27:56) When it comes to being data driven, how do you use BrightGauge? (30:50) Metrics to monitor, coaching opportunities, and more (31:43) Correlating data between tickets, customers, and efficiency (33:28) Rapid-fire Q&A: best business books, how to improve as business owner & executive, hobbies outside of the office, advice for MSP owners/execs, how to reach Kevin (37:03) As referenced in the episode: It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh TruMethods peer group Want to find out more about The BrightGauge Podcast? Check out all the episodes here.
Best Practices   |   Read

How to Increase Sales and Growth with Data Democratization

After reading that data is the key to growing your business, you’ve spent hours every week poring over your sales data so that you can create plans to increase sales performance. You’ve put what you read into practice and are making data driven decisions. An increase in sales and growth must be right around the corner, right? Maybe not. Your Sales Reps still aren’t increasing their numbers and they don’t get it when you try to show them areas where they can improve. As a business owner, one of your biggest priorities is to grow the business by increasing the amount of sales coming in, but so far, you’ve not been able to improve upon your sales performance. So what’s the answer? Data Democratization: The Key to a Well-Performing Sales Team Data democratization, the process of sharing your data with everyone on your team, has the power to increase your sales team's performance by: Enabling sales reps to diagnose their own strengths and weaknesses Improving communication between you and your team, showing them when their actions lead to (or don’t lead to) results Improving your team’s decision making Changing the way your reps sell your product or service Boosting team confidence And more To give you an idea of just how powerful data democratization is, the team at BrightGauge has been able to break sales records and grow larger each year because our sales data is on a dashboard for everyone to see. Here’s how you can achieve similar results: Which Sales Metrics to Share What metrics do you share with your Sales team? Share all relevant and important metrics. For example you may want to share: Month to Date Sales Win Rate Lead Response Time Open Opportunities per Rep Average Deal Size Sales Cycle It’s important that you don’t overwhelm your team with data, so only display a handful of the metrics that matter most. Once you’ve got the precautions in place and you’ve figured out the metrics you want to share, you need to determine how to effectively share your data with your team. The Top Methods for Sharing Data with Your Team There are a couple of methods you could use to share your key metrics, and we will give each a brief overview: A few years ago, the most common method of sharing key metrics with your team was in the form of a weekly meeting. While this still works today, it isn’t the most efficient use of your team's time. Another method is to create reports that you send via email to your team each week. While this doesn’t require your team to be in a meeting each week, it has a little bit of lag time, which means that if a sale closes today, and you don’t send out a report until next week, you may not be sharing fast enough! The last method you could use is a dashboard displayed in a way that your whole team can easily see it. This doesn’t require a significant time investment from you or your team, and is often the go to choice for companies looking to share data with their team. How TUC Managed IT Solutions Increased their Sales with Data Democratization TUC Managed IT Solutions, a BrightGauge power user, has been using dashboards in their office for several years now, and by doing so have increased the number of leads they close. They were also able to cut down on the time spent on admin related tasks, helping their team to focus more on making more sales. They've incorporated some interesting ideas like gamification to create a data driven sales team. Using dashboards, they’ve uncovered new sales opportunities, built customer relationships and more. Learn about the dashboards they use and the tips they give in this webinar recording: Creating Your Own Success Story Becoming data driven on a management level is no longer sufficient. To experience real results, you’ve got to embrace data democracy. Use the tips and tactics we shared in this article and you’ll have a great chance at improving your company’s sales and growth. Take the necessary precautions, share the right metrics, and use a dashboard as I mentioned above. If you have any questions about using data democratization to increase your sales, leave a comment below and we’ll be happy to help!
Dashboards, Best Practices   |   Read

The Dollar Cost of Not Having (or Cheaping out on) BI Tools

$194,276. That’s the amount it could be costing you each year to skip out on or use cheap and ineffective Business Intelligence (BI) tools. Let’s break down that number and explain why you really can’t afford to be without a good business intelligence solution. Potential Recurring Revenue - $48,000 One of the biggest benefits of using a great dashboard and reporting tool is the ability to identify just how profitable your contracts are. If you’ve ever heard of the Pareto principle, you may not be surprised to find out that 20% of your clients are responsible for 80% of your workload! The toughest part is identifying those clients, but with a gauge set up to display Tickets Per End Point you’ll be able to quickly and easily identify unprofitable clients. In addition to identifying unprofitable contracts, you can use the information to create a report that will help convince them that they need to pay you more for your services. Richard Trivedi, a BrightGauge customer and Owner of CadreNet, was able to increase his monthly recurring revenue (MRR) by over $4,000 a month by identifying these problem clients and then using the reports to raise their rates. He recently joined us on The BrightGauge Podcast and explained how easy it was for him to increase his MRR. The Math: $4,000 multiplied by 12 months gives us a nice yearly increase in revenue of $48,000. Wasted Time - $126,100 Just as a PSA and RMM will pay for themselves by making your team more efficient, having a great dashboard and reporting setup could allow you to save a few, or in some cases a significant amount, of hours per week. This is because you’ll cut down on the time spent on admin related tasks such as producing timesheets and income reports, checking and processing metrics, and running and verifying reports. Before joining us on the podcast, Richard Trivedi was a customer case study with us, and he shared his story of saving 25 hours a week after using our software. The Math: If we multiply 25 hours a week by the global average hourly rate for MSPs ($97) we get a total of $2,425 hours a week. Multiply that by 52 weeks and you’ve got $126,100 a year. Billable Tickets/Hours Lost - $20,176 Most MSPs struggle with lost billable tickets and hours. The amount lost varies by MSP, but in this example, let’s assume an average of 10-15% of billable tickets and hours are lost every week. Most managers and owners attempt to correct the issue by using incentives or even creating additional consequences for not entering all hours, but these methods don’t deliver the best results. A dashboard and reporting solution will ensure that you lose as little hours and tickets as possible, helping to minimize revenue loss. The Math: 10% of a resources time would equate to 4 hours a week. Multiply that by the average hourly rate ($97) and you get $388 dollars a week. Multiply this by 52 weeks and you’ve got a total of $20,176 a year. And that’s just for one resource. Larger MSPs could see a much higher number here! How to Use Dashboards to Increase Your Revenue $194,276 or more could be slipping through your fingers, but you can get it back. Here’s how to use a dashboard and reporting solution to recapture those hard-earned dollars: Start by tracking the right metrics. You’ll want to create a dashboard that displays all the following metrics: Open Tickets by Age - to ensure nothing is slipping through Average Time Spent per Ticket Average Time Spent per Ticket by Technician Top Tickets Per End Point by Client Profit by Client or Device Time Spent per Month by Client and Device Hours by Technician Once you’ve set up a dashboard showing this information you’ll be able to use the data to identify where you need to raise rates, what is taking up your and your technician’s time, and how many tickets/hours are being lost. Armed with that information it will be easy to make decisions that will increase your MSPs profitability, and since you’ve got the data to back the decisions up, you’ll encounter less resistance from clients and employees. If you want to see firsthand how a dashboard can increase your business's profitability, schedule a demo with our sales team.

70+ Metrics for MSPs

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

Get your KPIs

Dashboards, Gauges, Product   |   Read

Take Client Reporting to the Next Level with Client Dashboards

Over the last month, our Product and Data Teams have been making it easier than ever to visualize your data. We rolled out the “Save Filter" feature, created Technician Dashboards, and now Client Dashboards. With our new Client Dashboards feature, you can now take client reporting a step further by: Being more transparent with clients and building trust. Showing clients you have command of your offering. Saving both your time and your client’s time since the dashboard is real-time. Giving clients the information they want, how they want it. These benefits make client dashboards a “must have” for co-managed IT services. Client Dashboard Examples Since every data source is different, we couldn’t just create one dashboard. Here are four examples of client dashboards and some of the metrics they contain: ConnectWise Cloud ConnectWise On Premise Tigerpaw Zendesk Client Dashboard Metrics (Varies by Data Source) New Tickets shows your clients how many tickets your team hasn't responded to yet. Tickets Currently Open will help your client see how much work they’re sending your way. Average Time to Response helps the client see whether you’re meeting your SLAs or not. This gauge is typically shown as an average for the last 14 days. Average Time to Resolution shows the client whether you’re meeting your SLAs or not. This gauge is also typically shown as an average for the last 14 days. Tickets Waiting on Customer helps you cut down on the time it takes for clients to respond by showing how many tickets are waiting on them. Opened Tickets by Type will show clients areas where they may need to train their staff or even buy new software or hardware. Tickets Open by Tech breaks down the data a bit, and shows clients how you’re handling their tickets. Tickets Open by Contact: sometimes one or two people at your client's business result in the most tickets. By showing them which people send in the most tickets they can identify who may need extra training. Tickets Opened and Closed provides a brief look at how many tickets the client sends and how many you complete. This gauge typically contains data for the last 14 days. Here’s How Client Dashboards Work With our new “Save Filter" feature we've created a template dashboard for your clients. All you need to do is invite them to log in and they'll see only their data! To find your new Client Dashboard, please log into your BrightGauge account and search for the “Client Template” Dashboard. Then follow these instructions to set up the filters for each of your clients and these instructions to invite your clients as Viewers (which are free at BrightGauge).
Culture   |   Read

Get to Know the Team: Sitting vs. Standing at Work

Our office is divided into 3 distinct groups: The sitters, the standers and the statters. No, that doesn’t sound right. Stinders isn’t any better either. Well, there’s no good name for people who both stand and sit (if you think of one, leave it in the comments below!), so we’ll move on to the reason why we’re sharing a special look at the work habits of BrightGaugers. As part of our “The People Behind the Product” blog series, we’ve asked the team which they prefer: Sitting, standing or both? Here are their responses: Adam: I sit since I don’t have a standing desk yet. I tend to get up and walk around a few times throughout the day. Brian: I sit. Eric: I used to stand all day but then got into working out and need to sit on the days that my legs are tired. I plan to go back to standing very soon as I miss it, I feel more awake standing. Kristian: I actually take turns between sitting and standing when using my Geek desk. Truly, it all depends what mood I'm in. Larry: Both. I’m trying not to be too sedentary. Randall: I stand, I have back issues and it feels 100x better when standing since it works my core. Plus, standing desk dancing is better than chair dancing! David: #TeamSit I tried standing one day during my week in Customer Support and thought it was terrible. My back felt uber compressed and my feet felt swollen so that sorta sealed my impression of this whole standing-while-working thing. Steve: I split the day by starting out standing in the morning and sitting after lunch. I went a stretch where I stood all day but think it was doing more harm than good. Francisco: I sit while I work mostly because I've never really tried standing. I can't see myself standing all day though, it would probably be exhausting. Amanda: I alternate between sitting and standing. Most often, I'll sit in the mornings and then, when the after-lunch slump hits, I usually spend a couple of hours standing. It also depends what I'm working on since I find myself concentrating more when I'm sitting. Orlando: I sit. But I just got a standing desk so I will be standing more. Christian: I sit - I haven't really got the hang of standing desks. Lin-Dai: Sit usually, but now that I’ve seen the convertible desk in action, I may be requesting one soon! :) Rick: A little bit of both. I tend to sit until I feel a little ashamed and then I'll stand. Then, I ultimately sit down again and it's just a mean cycle that repeats. Stephen: Depending on the nature of what I’m doing I'll either stand or sit. Definitely prefer standing while on calls. Jessica: Sit. Currently, the standing option is not all that comfortable. Okay, so maybe we aren’t divided into groups by our decision to sit or stand, and maybe most people are sitanders (still can’t come up with a good mix between those two words!). At the end of the day, it all comes down to personal preference. Tell us which you prefer!
Dashboards, Gauges, Service   |   Read

How to Quickly Reduce Churn with Just 1 Metric

As a Customer Service Manager, one of your biggest responsibilities is to keep the churn rate low. Your churn rate is the percentage of customers which stop subscribing to your services, and even a 1% change in churn can result in the growth or decline of your business. You may have a whole dashboard tracking customer service KPIs, but if you’re not seeing any noticeable change in churn then you may be missing this one key metric: How Responsiveness and Churn are Connected Responsiveness is the single most important attribute of any service organization and it especially holds true for IT Service Providers given the criticality of an end user’s network. Understanding how long it takes your team to respond to client issues is the most important metric your team should be monitoring. Did you know: Failure to resolve an issue quickly is one of the top 2 reasons for a customer loss. 41% of customers expect a response within 6 hours, and 24 hours is often considered the maximum acceptable response time. The above facts, from Help Scout, show just how closely responsiveness and churn are linked together. Cutting down on the time it takes for your team to respond will directly reduce churn. How to Monitor and Improve Responsiveness As the saying goes: “what we measure, we improve”. You can’t begin to improve your responsiveness without doing the following first: Begin collecting data on your response times and verify this data for accuracy. Establish a baseline for your responsiveness so you know where you currently stand. Organize the data and display it in a way that is easily digested and holds you and your team accountable. At BrightGauge we monitor response time rigorously and if it is ever out of line we immediately huddle up to figure out what happened and what we can do to fix it. For those of you using ConnectWise, you can monitor these key metrics… Tracking the average time to acknowledgment helps you to monitor your response time for any given day, allowing you to quickly see if things are getting off track. A good way to “wow” your customers is to keep this number under an hour at all times. Tracking the average time to response over 7 trailing days will give you a better indication of the recent trend in volume that may not be visible if you are only looking at the metric for a given day. Taking Things a Step Further with Client Reporting Sharing average time to acknowledgement with your clients via our client reporting feature allows you to share the great response time you are providing them. This helps to reinforce the fact that you provide quick service and will help to further reduce churn. Even with a spike in response time as shown above, it’s still good practice to share this with your clients. The key to building trust is being fully transparent, and by building trust you’ll further lower your churn rate. To recap: Collect and verify your data Establish a baseline for responsiveness Visualize your data Share your data with client reporting Accomplish these 4 steps and you’ll have an increase in responsiveness and as a result, a decrease in churn. Ready to learn more about how to exceed your customers’ expectations through account management? Check out How Investing in Customer Success Drove our MSP Growth:
Culture   |   Read

The BrightGauge Guide to Staying Energized During the Workday

A drop in energy levels is one of the toughest parts of the work day. It’s a universal problem, but the trick is to find a technique that boosts your energy during that workday slump. Similar to our series on The People Behind the Product, we asked our teammates to fill us in on some of their favorite ways to boost energy during the workday, and here’s what they had to say: Adam: I usually take a walk around the parking garage or do some stairs. Coffee, tea, snacks, and jokes also work. Brian: Double espresso from Starbucks. Eric: A cup of tea and/or a short, brisk walk help me refocus and clear my head. Kristian: Cafecito Cubano! I introduced the electric cuban coffee maker into our office and it is now a daily ritual towards later in the day once drowsiness starts to kick in after lunch. Larry: I take a walk. Anthony: I usually get some tea, coffee or a snack, but I’m trying to get away from doing that. I also like to get up and walk over to the sofa and work there. The more comfortable seating surprisingly makes me more focused and energized. I also normally walk with the team when they go to pick up lunch (even if I’ve brought lunch). I’ve noticed that on the days where I don’t walk, I don’t get as much done. Randall: I change Pandora stations. Simply changing the music can reinvigorate me. Steve: I'm assuming this means other than coffee, because that's a given. I usually go for a walk a couple of hours after lunch. Getting some sunshine is nice, especially if I've brought lunch and haven't been outside the whole day. Francisco: Usually a regular American coffee does the trick for me, and if I'm really feeling off, two cups of coffee. I know, boring. Amanda: I like to get up and move around, maybe take a walk around the garage or down the block. Using my standing desk helps as well. I also enjoy spending a few minutes socializing with my teammates - we have some real characters around here and they always make me laugh! Orlando: Coffee. Lots of coffee. Christian: Kiki (Kristian) usually has the timing right - he'll magically appear by your desk with a Cuban coffee right when you're fading away. Lin-Dai: Having more than the ordinary dose of coffee or candy will usually do the trick. Rick: I call upon the almighty Kiki for an exceptional dose of Cuban cafecito. Stephen: Black tea usually gets the job done. Jessica: Healthy option: stretching and drinking black tea. Unhealthy option: eating lots of candy. Of course our answers were mostly coffee! We’re talking about the team that created a dashboard just to monitor coffee consumption! What’s your go-to for fighting the afternoon slump?
Podcasts   |   Read

[Podcast] Episode 22 with Peter Briden of TruMethods

When it comes to offering MSPs advice on growth and operations, the best insights come from business leaders who have already forged the same path. That’s where Peter Briden comes in. After building and selling PC Networks, Peter joined the TruMethods peer group as a coach for Solutions Providers looking to improve their business. During his conversation with BrightGauge co-Founder and CEO, Eric Dosal, Peter offers insights on market trends in security and cloud, the challenge of talent acquisition, moving up the stack in a commodity-level business, and how to move out of a reactive spiral by staying focused on what’s urgent. Moving from MSP Owner to Coach & Mentor: Episode Highlights Peter’s introduction and background before TruMethods (0:53) The decision process behind selling PC Networks, Peter’s MSP (2:02) Moving from MSP Owner to Coach and Mentor (4:35) Helping MSPs move out of the reactive spiral by understanding what’s urgent and important (8:20) The perpetual education process (10:38) What’s more valuable in TruMethods: sharing among peers or knowledge gained from the coaches? (12:17) A typical day for Peter (14:04) Heating up or winding down: trends in the MSP industry with consolidation, commoditization, security, and cloud (15:05) Moving up the stack: how the role of vCIO is instrumental in commodity-level business (18:34) Are traditional MSPs capable of changing into a vCIO role? (19:55) The easiest way to get started in the vCIO space (24:14) Is every business owner a fit for coaching? (26:52) The biggest challenge Peter sees MSPs facing: talent acquisition (28:47) Managing cloud applications (33:50) Rapid-fire Q&A: best business books, best resource for self-improvement, parting advice for MSPs, and how to reach Peter (35:05) Books as mentioned in the episode: The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy, by Thomas J. Stanley Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck - Why Some Thrive Despite Them All, by Jim Collins The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Team Win, by Gene Kim Want to find out more about The BrightGauge Podcast? Check out all the episodes here.
Culture   |   Read

How We Chose our 5 Core Values

Core values are something that just about every company talks about when it comes to their team and their operations these days. But at BrightGauge, we didn’t want to just talk about core values, or have them hanging on the wall in an effort to showcase that we’re like everyone else. In fact, until just a couple of months ago we didn’t even talk much as a team about core values. The thing is, with such a small group (until recently) it was always fairly easy to pick out new teammates that we knew were a fit based on their personality, their work ethic, knowledge of the job at hand, and perhaps what may best be described as a certain amount of “do the right thing” mentality. It’s not to say that we didn’t give each new hire a foundation to work from… in fact, we did have a list of Core Principles that each teammate signed off on. But as our team continues growing and maturing, we knew it was time to revisit the idea and put those values in the spotlight because those are the virtues that we live by every day. Our co-Founders, Brian and Eric, sat down to make a list of the values that really embody who we are as individuals, and therefore build us into one strong team working together to continue building an awesome product. They came up with 5 core values that drive our culture, our teamwork, and the organization: Gritty Workers We value hard work and take pride in getting things done. We give each day 100% and accept nothing less. We are hungry to work hard, build awesome product(s), and help our customers. Passionate About Our Craft & Culture We are passionate about our craft, overall service, and product we deliver to our customers. We also care immensely about our culture and team and creating the best environment to work in. Always Humble Every member at BrightGauge must be, and always be, humble. We have strong opinions, but always open to new facts and ways to get better. Ultra Responsive We pride ourselves in being extremely responsive to our customers and to each other. Through whichever medium, we keep the cadence and pace of communication that helps accomplish our goals. Good People We are ethical, helpful, and honest individuals who are always trying to do the right thing. We pride ourselves on being good family men & women, good community members, and great co-workers. It’s the combination of these values in each of us that makes us unique as a team and also drives our service-centric culture at BrightGauge. As we continue to grow the business, we will rely on these values in how we conduct ourselves and they will help us decide who joins us as teammates. We’re really excited to publish our Core Values and share them with the community, and who knows - we may even see them hanging on a wall soon at BrightGauge HQ!

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