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Culture, Service   |   Read

Why We Developed 3 Guardrails to Help Manage our Business

I can’t speak for all areas of the world where our readers are from, but the economy right now in the US is a bit shaky. Over the past 6 months we’ve experienced a drop in the Chinese economy, we’ve ...
I can’t speak for all areas of the world where our readers are from, but the economy right now in the US is a bit shaky. Over the past 6 months we’ve experienced a drop in the Chinese economy, we’ve felt the squeeze of exchange rates across the globe, a general decline in the stock market (including a big sell off of technology stocks in 2016), plus we are in an election year with no clear winner. Perhaps saying that 2016 is starting off a bit shaky is actually more of an understatement. As a small business owner (BrightGauge has 15 employees and growing) these macro factors can impact our business in 2016, so as we began the planning for this year we wanted to make sure we stayed more cautiously optimistic in case the economy does take a turn for the worse. We are fortunate that because we are a data company we keep an eye on our metrics across our business on a weekly (some daily) basis to make sure we are performing in line with expectations. To rely on your Profit & Loss statement at the end of the month is too late in the world we live in today. But another great process we went through this year was developing our guardrails for running the company. Guardrails are the rules or requirements we have decided as a management team to put in place and ensure we operate in a zone we are comfortable with. These guardrails were set at the beginning of the year and are not to be broken or adjusted without a major shift in company direction. Let’s talk about the 3 types of guardrails we have developed for BrightGauge... keep in mind that for the purposes of confidentiality we have changed the numbers but not the concepts: Money The most obvious guardrail that any business owner should have in place is Minimum Profit. Let’s assume that in order to run your business comfortably and save some money for a rainy day you need to operate the business with a profit of $100,000 per year. Just by having that number written down and committed to making it a guardrail means that any investment decision you have should consider the impact to your potential profit for the year. Time Although most people place a higher value on money versus time, I would argue that time is much more valuable. Brian and I have a guardrail on how many hours we are willing to put in each week to live a balanced life. If we find ourselves or anyone on our team bumping up against that guardrail on a regular basis we know we need to reevaluate the workload and/or find another solution to help get the work done. Unit Economics Guardrails can also apply at a micro level to any investment you make or any customer or contract. For example, with any marketing investment we make we have a defined ROI of 5x before we consider it successful. Therefore before we consider making an investment in a new marketing channel or sponsoring a conference we review what we expect the return will be, to ensure we can achieve a 5x return. The same can be applied for any company using Gross Margin minimums, Product Margin minimums, even Sales Quotas. All of these are guardrails that help ensure you are still within the boundaries that you set at a more micro level (deal specific, person specific, line of business specific). While these are 3 examples of some broad-category guardrails we use at BrightGauge, it’s important for you to take the time and decide which guardrails are the most important for your business. Once you have your guardrails in place, you have to monitor them on a daily, weekly, monthly basis (feel free to use BrightGauge) to make sure that you stay in line. Remember, it’s much easier to make small adjustments as you’re tracking than it is to make a more drastic change when you review your monthly P&L.
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Dashboards, Culture, Gauges, Customers   |   Read

You Asked, We Answered: Our Top 7 Implementation Questions

Anyone who has adopted a new software solution knows that there are always questions during those first few weeks. Or sometimes you’re looking for the answers before you agree to sign up. Either way, BrightGauge prides ourselves on making deployments easier than your typical software company! With that in mind, we typically hear some of the same questions from nearly every new customer we work with and we’re always happy to help point you in the right direction. But some of you are DIY’s (Do It Yourself-ers) and you want to fly solo while you tackle the implementation. If solo is your style, here’s the guide to our most popular onboarding questions: What is included with the Implementation Fee? We have a dedicated onboarding team that is purely focused on ensuring you get BrightGauge set up to the exact way you want to see your data. The implementation includes assistance with setting up the data source (including live online troubleshooting), weekly basic group training, one on one training as needed, any additional data customization you may need, how-to’s, or addressing any trouble you have connecting datasources. Can you build out my metrics for me? Of course we can! There are two ways to get this tackled: Take a look at our default datasets. Many of these will contain much of the same data that you were pulling in previously, just in a different format. If the data is there, then just build a gauge to reflect the data in the way you want to show it. You can also reach out to us on the Data Team to help you build those gauges. If the data is not contained in the default datasets, then you can take the SQL queries that you were using before and put them in BrightGauge. On your datasets page, you’ll see a “Create New Dataset” button and that’s where you can paste in your SQL query. If it’s an advanced SQL query, then there may be some issues, but our support forum contains documents that can help you format it or our support desk can help you with it too. Just send an email and we’ll be glad to assist. Do you do one-on-one onboarding training? Yes we do! However, we find it best to go through the basic group training before a one on one. The basic group training will start with a video class (small group webinar) and address the BrightGauge overview or 101 version. Then during on the One on One training we can dive into the specifics of your account and go over any customization needs specific to your company. Why is data inaccurate once I did my first full sync? When logging into BrightGauge for the first time, the data will likely appear inaccurate or higher than what you’re expecting to see. This is very common as all of our default gauges are built with base filters in place. The reason we do this is because everyone has a different set-up and if we were to account for anything specific, what may work for you will likely result in discrepancies for another. A big portion of the training is dedicated to showing you how to add these filters that are specific to your company. Once the gauges have been customized with filters, the data should match what you are expecting to see! If not, definitely reach out to our support team. How can I set up my Clients to get reports? - The process starts with creating Client Mappings within BrightGauge under the “Clients” tab. Client Mapping is a process in which you match your client’s names across all of your datasources in BrightGauge; for example, you may have a client labeled as Smith and Sons Transportation in your RMM, but in your PSA they may be labeled as Smith & Son Transportation. Mappings ensure that your reports are filtered for the correct client everytime, across all datasources. Apart from confirming the client names, when creating the mappings you also create your Client Recipients; these are the email addresses that will receive any report sent to each particular customer. For a more detailed outline of Client Reporting, feel free to refer to this short video. If someone new joins my team who will be in charge of BrightGauge, how do we get them up to speed? In this case, a new employee will start at the beginning of the training process just as any new account would go through. We understand teams grow and change, so our goal is to get new users up and running and comfortable with managing on their own. What happens if I have questions after my onboarding is complete? Questions are always welcome, no matter how long you’ve been a BrightGauge user! Our Support team is ready to answer any inquiries, and you can reach them at support [at] brightgauge [dot] com. Are you ready to get up and running now? If so, make sure you send us a photo of your accomplishments - we love to share under #BGSdashboard on Twitter.

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Dashboards, Gauges, Customers, Service, Best Practices   |   Read

Power User Best Practices: A How-To Tour for Managing Sales

Are you making the most out of the data at your fingertips? If you’re like most of our customers around the globe, then maybe you’ve caught yourself wondering what everyone else is doing with their BrightGauge. After all, viewing someone else’s work is sometimes the best way to inspire yourself to think outside the box when it comes to your own projects. Learn how to model the masters With this idea in mind, plus plenty of you asking to share ideas within the community we’re thrilled to share our first webinar that was hosted by a BrightGauge power user! Shann Bosnell, VP of Technology at TUC Managed IT Solutions joined us recently as he led a show and tell of sorts filled with custom gauges, dashboards, and insights on all the best practices you need to know. The webinar was originally a live event, but you can still access the full recording using the link below. Some of the topics Shann covered: Learn how TUC uses data for their ITSM team See real-life examples of dashboards used by TUC’s Sales Team Walk through some of the custom gauges that help TUC uncover sales opportunities across their client base and so much more! Access the webinar recording here:
Culture   |   Read

Eric Dosal Celebrates 3 Years as BrightGauge CEO

We’re thrilled to congratulate our Co-Founder and CEO, Eric Dosal, on his 3-year BrightGauge anniversary! While he's been a part of our story from the first concept to today, this milestone is significant because it marks his move to join our team full-time and the rest, as they say, is history... In the Beginning Eric grew up in the Miami area where he spent summers working for the family IT business, Compuquip Technologies. Back in those days he started at the bottom, spending his days carrying technician tool boxes and pulling cables, all for $3.75 an hour. When the time came to get ready for college, Eric decided on Babson College because he knew he wanted to study business and there was also a great opportunity to play on the school’s baseball team. After graduating, Eric went on to follow his finance passion and pursued his dream of working on Wall Street. But as most of these stories go, the reality wasn’t nearly as glamorous as the dream. Eric had been working 90+ hours a week for over 2 years when he decided that this life was not his calling. Back home in Miami, his father offered a sales position in the family business and Eric ultimately decided to take that opportunity. He worked his way up the management ranks and after 10 years accepted the position of CEO of all the companies under the Dosal Capital umbrella. During that time Eric worked with his brother, Brian, to start the Managed Services division of Compuquip and ended up growing the group from $800K in annual revenue to $8.8MM within a 5-year period. The brothers decided to sell the Managed Services group so that they could focus on a wild idea Brian had: to build a software product. The Wild Idea Comes to Life With a background in the IT business, Eric and Brian immediately recognized what they wanted to accomplish with the software. At the same time, they also knew that founding a business was an incredible opportunity for each of them to focus on their own strengths while building the company and supporting each other. They decided to split responsibilities and Eric would get started on building the BrightGauge sales process and inbound marketing program while Brian would focus on the software development. As the company reached 6, 8, and now 15 employees, the brothers decided to officially split the company into two teams in 2015, Growth and Product, so that each employee could focus on their area of expertise instead of everyone doing a little bit of everything. As the head of the Growth Team, Eric is responsible for Marketing, Sales, Implementations, Customer Success, Support, and the most recent addition of the Data Customization crew. As he explains it, he loves running the team because he has “a real passion for SMarketing” (combination of Sales & Marketing). To top it all off, Eric also adds executive responsibilities and Finance too. Outside BrightGauge When he’s not leading our fearless Growth Team, Eric splits his time managing 2 of the other 3 family businesses as President & CEO of Compuquip Cybersecurity and President of Dosal Capital. We’re not sure how he juggles it all, but Eric also plays a big part in the business leadership community in the Miami area as an Executive Committee member of the Young President’s Organization (YPO) and also the Co-Chair of their Forum Group. If you were starting to think he’s all business, think again! Eric loves spending his free time with his family: daughters Isabella (4) and Andrea (1 ½) and his amazing wife, Lorena. They keep him busy enjoying fun time outside of work hours! Eric's family time with Isabella, Andrea, and Lorena Please join us in congratulating Eric on an incredible 3-year journey with the BrightGauge team; we can't wait to see what the next chapter holds for our team!
Culture, Service, Best Practices   |   Read

The 3 Keys to Stand-up Meetings for Better Team Communication

There’s a lot of excitement when it comes to being part of a team that’s rapidly growing. There are new skills brought to the group, new personalities added to the mix, and you see accomplishments stacking up faster than ever. But growth comes with some challenges also, and over the last year our team has been right in the middle of the excitement and the obstacles. A year is a relatively short amount of time for a team to almost double in size, and one of the big differences for our group was trying to keep up with effective communication. Yes, we talk to each other constantly as a result of a very open floor plan in our office, plus we have lunch together most days, and there are always Slack messages being traded. While those are all great ways to have a quick chat, we still needed a way to make sure that within the Growth team every individual stays up to date on all of the pieces that make up the larger puzzle, so to speak. One of the best ways we’ve found to keep everyone in the loop are weekly stand-up meetings. Every Monday morning, our team gathers in a circle to share a quick (15-20 minute) update about everything going on in Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, Data Customization, Support, and an Executive update as well. Eric leads a stand-up discussion on analytics How to host stand-ups First things first: we’re serious about keeping these sessions at a minimal amount of time so that we’re finding the right balance between increasing communication without taking away from our productivity. To help ensure that the session stays quick, each team member is required to update their notes on a shared Google Doc prior to the start of the meeting. This way, we breeze through and nobody has to stop and think about what they need to say. There are 3 topics that make for a successful stand-up: Recap of accomplishments the prior week: The key here is to highlight a few tasks that are not part of your regular weekly routine. For example, as Marketing Coordinator I wouldn’t tell the rest of the Growth Team that I completed a few blogs during the week because that’s a given. I could instead talk about the changes made to an email layout that increased click through rate by X% because it’s a special project, plus measurables are always a great thing to share when possible. Focus for this week: Again, make sure the plans you talk about for this week are not part of your ongoing weekly functions. This is your opportunity to reference some of the special work you’re focusing on that will be a step towards completing a big picture project. Obstacles that are impeding progress (especially ones that may need team help to conquer): Some weeks you’ll find that you don’t have any obstacles to mention, and that’s fine. However, let’s say I’m working on a blog that needs some data from a specific gauge and the data doesn’t appear to be correct. I would mention this during stand-up time because it gives a heads up to the Data Customization team that I’ll need a few minutes of their time to get the data sorted before I can finish my task. a sample of the topics covered at a recent standup If your team is in need of a fresh take on keeping everyone in the loop, give stand-ups a try. We really enjoy the opportunity to have a quick group discussion on the big picture items and also understand what our counterparts are working on each week. Plus, if you find that you need updates more often, take a page from our Product Team’s playbook... they host a standup every morning!

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Podcasts   |   Read

[Podcast] Episode 13 with Dan Tyre of HubSpot

“Just stop cold calling.” It’s a bold and direct statement made during our conversation with Dan Tyre, HubSpot Executive and SMarketing guru. We asked Dan to join us for a discussion on the ins and outs of Inbound and why Managed Service Providers should invest in it instead of traditional sales and marketing methods. As Dan explains the concept to our community, he points out that Inbound is a “data-driven, holistic approach to turn total strangers into table-pounding fanatics” before going on to confirm that Inbound is the quickest, fastest, least expensive way to attract customers. Whether you’re brand new to the world of MSP marketing, or looking to refresh your efforts, Dan talks about the results that SMBs see as a result of adopting Inbound. Why MSPs Should Practice Inbound Marketing: Episode Highlights Dan’s Introduction and background (1:22) Dan’s journey at HubSpot and what he’s focused on now (5:43) The concept of Inbound (7:05) The quickest, fastest, easiest, least-expensive way to generate new leads and customers (9:43) Creating a website that helps people find you (10:59) … "But I don’t have time for Inbound” (14:09) Inbound results at BrightGauge (17:22) How long does it take to see value and benefits? (19:52) How do you buy something in 2016? (22:24) You have to have a CRM [+ free CRM offer] (25:26) The ROI on Marketing vs. Sales (27:14) Welcome to the Inbound Revolution: a customer-centric approach (29:39) The Customer Experience (34:04) Inbound Objections & How to easily get started (35:52) There’s so much noise on the Internet… who’s going to read my blog? (38:17) Parting advice and how to reach Dan (41:32) Want to find out more about The BrightGauge Podcast? Check out all the episodes here.
Gauges, Product   |   Read

Fresh Feature Alert: Downloading Data to CSV now Available

Since kicking off the year we haven’t talked a lot about new feature updates, but that doesn’t mean our team was slowing down the work on bringing them to life. You asked for them and we listened… and we’re excited to launch 2 big improvements (mentioned often on our Feature Request board) that will make your BrightGauge experience better every day: Export Gauge Data to CSV Let’s say you’re working remotely one day and notice a gauge that you want to get some more information on. You need to share the data with your teammates in order to ask them for that extra info. This happened to me recently when I was looking at the gauge to show our list of customers for one specific RMM integration. Before, there was no easy way to share this list - I would have to ask my team to log in and look at the gauge, or maybe try to screenshot the data list as best as possible. Neither of those is a great option, plus there would be nowhere for my crew to log any notes. The good news here is that with our new exporting feature, all I had to do is hit the “CSV” button and my list was immediately emailed to me. I quickly opened the file in a spreadsheet and shared with those who needed to review the list and get back to me. Adding notes was easy and within 15 minutes the whole thing was done and I had the information I was looking for. Any list gauge or table gauge can be downloaded with no limits on the amount of rows downloadable. Export Drilldown Data to CSV Building on our new downloading capability, we also gave users the option to download any drilldown data to a CSV. This is a great option for those times when you have a long list of data to sort through. Let’s say you have a machine count gauge with 250 machines and you need to sort and analyze that data. Using the CSV download feature to then transfer the gauge data to a spreadsheet makes it incredibly easy for a granular analysis. use the “CSV” link in the right corner and your download will start Stay tuned for more delightful features, as we call them, coming soon and are sure to make your BrightGauge experience better every day!
Culture   |   Read

Get to Know the Team: Our Favorite Place to Eat in South Florida

If you keep up regularly with our blog, you know all about the new series we’ve kicked off to help our community get to know the people behind the product here at BrightGauge. Through lists of our favorite things, we’re letting each team member tell us as much or as little about the topic at hand for each post. So far we’ve talked about our favorite movies and our hometowns, so now let’s dive into our favorite places to wine and dine: David: My favourite place to get food from is actually a take-out Chinese restaurant called Hong Kong Chinese. It's deep in the Kendall suburb of Miami and as much as I live near Downtown I haven't found Chinese food that's anywhere near as good or for as low a price. Kristian: As cliché as this sounds, my favorite place to eat is in my very own home. Growing up in a hispanic household with your grandmother and a father who used to be a chef, kind of spoils you. Yes there are a countless number of awesome restaurants here in South Florida (which I love to indulge in, don’t get me wrong), but none of the food compares to a good ol' home cooked meal. Adam: All of South Florida? Wow. That is a large area. One of the great things about South Florida is the wide variety of Latin American and Caribbean food. Great Haitian food in Little Haiti, the ceviche at Peruvian restaurants, the cafecitos everywhere, and new food trucks coming up every weekend all contribute to an endless tasting course. I'm not sure I can definitively say there is one place that is my favorite. Perhaps because pho is hard to find down here I do enjoy a little place called Pho Thang near Palmetto Bay in Miami. It's not fancy and the service isn't amazing, but the pho is very delicious and the prices aren't crazy. Stephen: My favorite place to eat in South florida has to be Shibui - best sushi in Miami for the price. Orlando: Versailles. Great cuban food. Reasonable prices. Real "Miami" experience. a team celebration at Versailles Francisco: Hillstone's in Coral Gables. I have yet to go to a place where everything I have ever tried on their menu is as delicious as the next item. Never exited the restaurant with a bad experience and always with a happy mood and full stomach. Larry: Burger Bob's. One of the last greasy spoons left in Miami. Rick: Uh, POC Buffet & Sushi... Obviously. Fantastic Sushi, all you can eat, right below the BrightGauge headquarters?! Oh, and a premium Zagat rating. Haters need to learn to appreciate. (Eating House, definitely Eating House). Editor’s note: The story behind Rick’s response is that we all give him a hard time about the “all-you-can-eat” sushi buffet that sits in the lobby level of our office building. While the Yelp reviews do give the restaurant 4 stars, most of us have tried the restaurant and the easiest way to explain it would be the old line about “you get what you pay for”. Rick has been known to fly solo at POC because he can’t seem to convince anyone else on our team to join him there. Eric: Christy's in Coral Gables. My father, brother and I have a monthly "Dosal Boys Lunch" on Fridays where we get to catch up so it has a special meaning to me. Steve: Well whenever I pick lunch for a work event it's always Swine. The brisket and pork are amazing and I love the pickled onions. A close second is Mellow Mushroom in South Miami. That's my wife and I's new date spot. Great variety of funky pizza and good beer selection. lunch at Swine... the lights say "Run Pig Run" Amanda: Wow, it’s hard to pick just one! Coming from a small town with mostly chain restaurants, the variety that we have in South Florida is so awesome and trying out new restaurants is one of my favorite hobbies. I’ll have to name a few of them: For pizza, there’s a tiny place in Fort Lauderdale called Luigi’s Coal Oven Pizza - the owner is originally from Naples (Italy, not the gulf coast of Florida) and he does true works of delicious art. In Coral Gables, there’s a fantastic Caribbean restaurant called Ortanique that I always enjoy. I could go on for ages, but the list is getting long so I’ll cap it off with DaDa in Delray Beach - the restaurant is a historic home and property that also focuses on a rotating artwork collection. Pretty cool vibe and always tasty food, but it’s their drink menu that I really love. Their signature item is the mojito, and they have an entire menu of different flavors made with fresh fruit puree and Hawaiian sugar cane sticks. Delicious! Ryan: Living next to the ocean for the first time in my life, I am taking advantage of the great seafood. I love eating at Divino Ceviche in Miami because of their namesake dish... the ceviche! I also enjoy The Local and Swine in Coral Gables because they serve modern/southern fare that reminds me of Tennessee. Brian: Hillstone. Coral Gables. Amazing food, awesome service, great location, and they serve the best wine experience by the glass. Always fresh, perfect temp, and affordable. Randall: Shiver's Barbecue. Homestead. I love me some good ribs. Have you been to the South Florida area? If so, tell us about your favorite restaurants so we can check them out!
Dashboards, Customers, Best Practices, Customer Success   |   Read

PriorityOne Reveals What to Expect when Adopting BrightGauge

[Case Study] Sometimes in life, you don’t initially realize when things could be even better than they already are. At first glance, the grass is green on your side of the fence. The team at PriorityOne Group used to be in this scenario… their grass was green when it came to the dashboard and reporting solution they had in place and they actually liked the product very much. But at a closer glance, there were some brown patches to be found here and there. As Jason Romer, Director of Technical Services, looks back on his days of using that first software solution he remembers that he wished for faster support response times and more guidance on what the software could do. Additionally, the gauges and dashboards in those days were very time intensive to manipulate - and with a growing business he didn’t have any time to spare. The Change It was the IT Nation conference in November 2015 that gave Jason a glimpse into how green the grass could be for PriorityOne. He had just left the booth of his dashboard solution at that time, when he came across the BrightGauge booth. As he tells the story, “I spoke to the BrightGauge team and they showed me the types of gauges and reports they had. The a-ha moment was when they said they would set it up for us and showed us the Quickbooks datasets – as soon as we saw that, it was a wrap.” Besides the Quickbooks integration, Jason was also keen on the ease of use and data manipulation that he knew would result in rich reports for his clients. But it was the BrightGauge team that truly sealed the deal. Jason concludes that “the people sell the product” and we certainly agree that our people are one of our best assets! Getting Started with BrightGauge Looking at the BrightGauge implementation and onboarding process, Jason states that it was “incredibly easy”. It all started with a Data Customization chat with our team so that he could explain what PriorityOne wanted and the parameters of how they use their data sources. Jason goes on to explain that the onboarding process and the people at BrightGauge are the most positive experiences in his time as a customer. “We were hand-held from the beginning, which from my point of view trying to run a MSP of our size and not having the time to get into the weeds on all this stuff is HUGE! The BrightGauge team did and is still doing the work for us so that we can focus on using the tools.” When it comes to the software differences Jason confides “there are many positive differences just in terms of user experience, look and feel, types of data that is available and the reporting aspect, but it’s the people that make BrightGauge different and stand out. Even when the team got slammed with work around the holidays, they were upfront about it, setting expectations with me the entire way. It was a breath of fresh air in a world where everyone seems unable to tell the client what’s really going on.” Recommending BrightGauge The effect of changing their Business Intelligence platform showed quickly for the team at PriorityOne, as they were soon able to benefit from the results of leveraging BrightGauge. Jason explains that now he and his team “see everything” from A/R at a glance or even noticing when their engineers are getting too busy… and that visibility also allows them to work on other aspects of their business. Jason minces no words as he explains to the MSP community “If you don’t have a dashboard system you have no idea what you are missing, seriously, because you have no visibility on what you are missing. I recommend BrightGauge over other solutions because of the hands on approach the staff takes, the elegance of the dashboards, the ease of use and manipulation, and the quality of the reports.”
Culture, Service, Product   |   Read

What is a Product Team, and What are They Responsible For?

My brother mentioned that at BrightGauge we have two teams, one being the Growth Team (which he manages) and the other being the Product Team which is my responsibility. Though we all work very closely together, there are very distinct differences between the two teams. As you can imagine, our product team has complete responsibility for building and maintaining... you guessed it... our product. The different functions that make up our product team are fairly well known in the software world but may not be to people outside the industry. So I’ll lay them out for you now: Product Manager: makes sure that all engineering and design work is getting done properly and with thoughtful order. This one is my personal responsibility and you can also think of this role as the “project manager”. In building agile software products, the role expands a bit more where the responsibility is making sure the team is building the right features, at the right time, and in the right order. Seems simple but I can assure this has yet to become a science. Other fun responsibilities of the Product Manager is to be the top quality assurance tester so as to make sure what is put in the pipeline to be developed and shipped does so at the acceptance levels we all would expect. User Experience (UX) / User Interface (UI): This critical role builds the human interfaces and interactions within the platform… better explained as this person makes sure BrightGauge is user-friendly. In any product team, this skill is one of the hardest to find because of the wildly broad expertise needed; it’s not just being a good artist or coming up with good ideas but it’s both of those as well the implementation of those ideas. It’s a blend of right brain and left brain thinking that very few individuals possess all together. And that’s not to mention the attention to the finest details in actually delivering that idea which needs to be something beautiful and incredibly useful. It’s a critical part of any product team and we are no different. Back End Developers / Engineers / Architects: This group loves to turn ideas into living products; the code they write is running the most critical parts of our product. The core of any software product is the architecture which can be translated into the systematic design and technologies used to run the product. This is where back end engineers live and for us this is the background of our Director of Engineering. I, and many others, call this area the “backend” because the code they write does not interface directly with the user. This function, especially with small teams like ours, also compromises development operations, which means they are responsible for keeping systems up 100% of time. Thankfully, services like Amazon Web Services take care of a lot of that system administration and network security, so the backend team can focus more on writing code instead of maintaining servers. Front End Engineers: differentiated from the backend because these specialists know how to work with technology that is very browser focused (for web apps like ours). It was once explained to me that the code being used to create amazing web experiences is like the wild, wild west. Where technology and approaches are so varied and changes constantly that we, like many others, need specialist who just live in and love this world. It’s not to say these same engineers couldn’t or don’t do backend work (or vice versa) but it’s more a division of expertise. the Product team enjoying a lunch celebration To close, I must also say that we thoughtfully named ourselves the product team versus what would be a traditional development or engineering team. The reason we call ourselves a “product” team is that every one of us works together to build a full product that adds real value to our customers. This means we aren’t just a group of engineers writing code to write code, or a designer trying create pretty designs. We are a cohesive team with many different specialties but have a singular goal of building an amazingly useful product for our customers.
Culture, Customers, Product, Best Practices   |   Read

Revolutionizing Support with Video Clips

It’s probably safe to say that throughout history, plenty of great ideas, inventions, and achievements were stumbled upon rather than being planned out. Sure, a lot of people may also be chasing a dream and have a specific route in mind along with a checklist to get them there. In this specific case, the Support Team at BrightGauge found themselves in the former category when it came to ramping up their efforts on customized videos almost a year ago. Our team had dabbled in support videos here and there, but prior to a year ago they were occasional at best - usually saved for a really complicated ticket that couldn’t be explained by a written response. Then Kristian joined our growing crew. As the main Support guru on our team, we left Kristian with the responsibility of making sure our support time continued to be world-class and that our customers were happy with the help we provide. We didn’t really set many guidelines about how he should achieve that task… this was his project to own. Kristian was up and running in no time, and hearing him recording quick videos became a common practice. As the months flew by and the videos kept multiplying, the happy customer responses just kept rolling in. In fact, we have a Slack channel dedicated to sharing Customer Feedback, and after a while we knew we had definitely written a new chapter in the BrightGauge history book. as shared in Slack: a note from a customer in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada When we asked Kristian about how the videos came to be such a big focus for him, the answer was simple: “I personally am a visual learner and I believe most other people are too. So if I have the ability to show someone how to do something, I’ll take that route. I also think it’s not only easier for me to record a quick video vs. typing a long explanation, but I think it’s also easier for the customer to watch a short video.” Like the example above, if you’ve had the pleasure of receiving a customized support video clip from Kristian or anyone else on our team, then there’s a huge chance that you were incredibly excited about it, probably sent us a love note, and also wanted to know more about how you could implement the same idea on your team: another example of the great notes we’ve received about our support videos We’re always excited to give our customers the answer when they ask, but since there are plenty of other companies out there who could benefit from better service and support we decided to share our secret with the world - Droplr is the tool behind our customized video success. (side note: Droplr does more than just videos and our team uses it in some manner every day at BrightGauge HQ.) The custom videos have become such a key part of our support method that we now ask job candidates to send us “how to” recordings as part of the interview process for our Customer Support Specialist opening! Videos are here to stay and since seeing is believing, here’s a sample video recently sent to a BrightGauge customer: When you give customized videos a shot, please share your experience with us... we think you'll love it!

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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!

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