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The BrightGauge Blog

New Process For Importing Data on a Per Client (or Company) Basis

The most frequently asked question by our prospects when evaluating our software is why we are priced “Client based”. For our current partners, many times they say some “data is missing” because they ...
The most frequently asked question by our prospects when evaluating our software is why we are priced “Client based”. For our current partners, many times they say some “data is missing” because they haven’t imported that specific company into BrightGauge. There are two main reasons we currently ask our partners to choose clients to import. By breaking up the Data Ingestion by Client, it limits the amount data transferred “over the wire” since we send client at a time. Since BrightGauge started as a Client Facing Reporting tool back in late 2011 many customers use our tool to create reports for key clients of theirs. Thus only working with those client’s data makes sense for that use case (a legacy use case). For both prospects and current customers, this process causes confusion and we are working to make this easier. For our ConnectWise partners, this has been an extra source of confusion because we added a filter on which clients were available to import. And that filter was based on what type of Active Agreements clients were associated with. As more people used our dashboard functionality they not only wanted to import “agreement based” clients but prospects, project and break/fix clients as well. Today we are happy to share that we removed this agreement filter and instead ask that our Connectwise partners filter which clients/companies are available to import based on COMPANY TYPE!! Screenshot of Client Import Screen We’re ultra aware of our customers experience in using BrightGauge and when there is a source of confusion, we attack it. Today was just a stepping stone in making the Data Ingestion model less client focused and more data source focused. The good news is that as part of our BrightGauge 4.0 release, due out later this year, this data importing will be completely overhauled and transparent to our customers. In the mean time, if you have any questions or concerns related to the client import process, don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team.
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Meet the 2014 BrightGauge Team

As we kick off 2014 we wanted to introduce the BrightGauge Team to our community of customers, partners, friends and family. Over the next few months we’ll share more info about each of them but in the mean time, here's a little summary of each of us. The BrightGauge Team: Steve, David, Larry, Eric, Brian, Orlando, and Christian Steve works with our customers focusing his efforts mainly on support with a secondary responsibility of consulting engagements. His main goal is to make sure that all of the support requests we receive get addressed as quickly and thoroughly as possible. If you submit a question to our team you will most likely meet Steve! David is responsible for the front end of our software application, which means all the screens you interact with are his responsibility. So when you click a button and it takes you to another page, or runs a job, that’s all David’s work. Larry works with all of our prospective customers as they are evaluating our software. Larry isn’t your typical “sales guy” that you only work with before signing up. Since his background is in the education space he likes to work with our customers after they sign up to make sure they are getting the most out of the product. Eric is one of our two co-founders (along with his brother Brian) and he is responsible for all of our sales, marketing, educating our customers, communicating with our customers as well as some boring finance stuff like following up on expiring credit cards. Eric was the lead of our former MSP and we tap his experience to help our customers with the data and metrics they should be monitoring. Brian is our other co-founder and the one responsible for originally coming up with the idea of BrightGauge. He plays a variety of roles but primarily he’s the Product Manager helping manage the development team along with helping customers with any custom work required. His passion for BrightGauge is evident when you speak with him and he loves hearing feedback so feel free to share. Orlando is one of our lead developers and knows the backend of the application better than anyone. He handles our bi-weekly releases and doubles as 2nd and 3rd level support if there is a major issue. When he’s not supporting the code base, he helps architect new projects and features as well as implements them. Christian is our lead architect which means he’s working with Orlando on any high level issues that might pop up but he spends most of his time working on new projects that we have on the roadmap. Christian has experience with Big Data projects and products and is helping us prepare our infrastructure to scale as we grow. We are a tight group of 7 that work very hard on making sure our customers have the best possible experience.

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ConnectWise API Enhancement of SLA Reporting Coming Soon

Great news for all of our ConnectWise API customers! ConnectWise is making huge enhancements to their API as part of their 2014.1 release. Below is a complete list of the enhancements and in particular we wanted to mention the “New Service Report fields” which will include SLA information. Last Update field added to all applicable reporting views. Last Update UTC fields ared added where available. Updated By field added to all applicable reports. Display date fields in ISO format and time zone field included. New Service Report fields: Ticket Age, Severity, Impact and SLA fields. New Company Report fields: Date entered, Date acquired, Delivery method.. New Contact Report fields: Territory. New Expense Report fields: Payment method. New Product Report fields: Picking and shipping fields. New Agreement Report fields: Billing cycle, Billing amount, Agreement start date, Parent agreement rec_ID and name. New Service Board Report fields: Service board rec_ID. New Company Address fields: Expense reimbursement field, Default shipping, Default billing, Default mailing. New Marketing Campaign fields: Marketing ROI view, Count of emails sent, Status field name, Inactive column. Several of our top 10 most popular gauges are SLA related and up until this release we were unable to offer that information to our ConnectWise API customers. But now we’ll be able to add default gauges around Average Time to Response, Average Time to Resolution Plan, and Average Time to Resolution. We’ll be making these fields available through BrightGauge default datasets once they are released from the ConnectWise API.

Most Popular Daily Metric: Tickets In New Status

Currently Open Tickets In New Status shows all your current open tickets that have not been touched by your team. This is a key metric to be monitoring regularly to make sure your team is responding in a timely manner. Additionally, it’s a great indicator if something big has happened at a customer site if multiple people are reporting the same issue. And with our new dashboard release you can have this metric up on your wall and let the entire team monitor the gauge. As with all of our gauges, the important thing is not only to understand the number but also what is driving the data. Click on the gauge itself and it will bring up the detailed data for you to do a deep dive: To learn more about how tracking a daily metric like this can help improve your profitability, check out the webinar we hosted on Best Practices of Working and Tracking Time In Real Time presented by MSP Coach Manuel Palachuk

Executive Client Facing Report Template

BrightGauge began as a Client Facing Tool and over the past two years has transformed to a complete business analytics platform offering both client facing reporting as well as internal reporting of metrics and KPIs. Below is Part I of a II part series of the most popular gauges used in an Executive Client Facing Report from our Connectwise and AutoTask partners. Typically these reports are delivered to the clients on a monthly basis to show the value you are bringing as an MSP. Support Ticket Summary - Waiting on Client Our Support Ticket Summary (STS) module is one of our most popular modules because it allows you to filter down the ticket information you want to show. Our most popular configuration of the STS is filtering down the ticket to Currently Open with the status of “Waiting on Client.” (Disclaimer: Waiting on Client is the name we had for the status of any ticket we were waiting on action from the customer, other customers have this as “Waiting on Customer” or “On Hold.” The gauge can be adjusted to the status of your choosing.) Tickets Opened Last Month & Tickets Closed Last Month Number of tickets opened last month gives your client an understanding of all the hard work your team is doing for their network. We recommend combining this with the number of tickets closed last month in order for you to show the value you are bringing to the table and how you are keeping up with the volume. Average Time to Acknowledgement Trailing 30 Days The average time to acknowledgement shows the average amount of time before a request that is submitted gets reviewed and acknowledged. For those that share SLA information or are looking to start, this is the perfect gauge to begin with. The metric allows you to show how quickly your team is responding to their requests. Typical SLA response times are 5 to 10 minutes with some lagging to 15 to 20 minutes. Most Active Users - 30 Days This gauge allows you to show your customer the top ticket openers which tends to be the “noisiest end users.” Now if you have a particular end user that is your filter to open tickets or your RMM tool automatically creates tickets for automated work they might throw off your numbers. Don’t worry, you can filter out those from being included in the gauge if you would like. Open vs Closed Trailing 30 Days Very similar to the double headline gauge above, the Open vs Closed is a great visual to show the work your team is doing on a monthly basis in comparison to the tickets being opened by your clients. Tickets Opened By Type - 30 Days This gauge starts to bring a deeper level of business intelligence to the conversation with your client. A first level dive into what types of tickets are being opened over the past time period. Trends can start emerging from this gauge that help upsell an opportunity, or identify items out of scope that are billable, or identify areas that need to be addressed on a global scale (i.e. repeated Microsoft Office issues may be resolved with training). These are just a handful of the 60+ default gauges we offer out of the box that happen to be the most popular in customer base. If you have any others you recommend we would love to hear about them. Please share in the comments. To learn more about Client Reporting, download our free guide filled with all the insights you need to know:

70+ Metrics for MSPs

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

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Free Webinar on the 10 Lessons Learned From Selling Our MSP

Last month we published an eBook titled 10 Lessons Learned From Selling Our MSP and given the overwhelming response and questions we received, we decided to host a free webinar to discuss the topic in more detail. The webinar is intended to be for anyone that is considering a potential transaction of selling or buying a MSP (and at whatever stage you are in). Whether you are in the middle of a negotiation, thinking about going to market or it’s only on your long term list of things to consider. This is a "can’t miss session" where we’ll share real life experiences of the entire process. During the webinar, we’ll cover specifics on the entire experience, like: How and why the decision was made to sell the MSP What the process was to get approval internally How we went to market to find the best buyers What the due diligence process was like and how we prepared for it Making the decision to accept the offer Announcing the transaction to the team, vendors, clients Managing through the integration and transition In order to accommodate our global community, we will be hosting two separate webinars to allow for live Q&A. There are limits on the spaces available so we ask that you RSVP by clicking on the link below for the date/time that works best for you. Tues, Oct 15th @ 7:15pm EDT or Wed, Oct 16th @ 10:00am EDT

10 Lessons Learned From Selling Our MSP

Last year, we sold our Compuquip Managed Services Practice to All Covered, a division of Konica Minolta. Many lessons were learned over the 6 months of due diligence and then 12 months of integration and transition. Done successfully an acquisition can provide a win-win-win for all parties involved including the seller to achieve a liquidity event, the buyer to expand or launch their presence in the business, and for the teams to have new opportunities. Now that the transaction is completed we took some time to reflect on the experience and document some of the key lessons learned throughout the entire process. This is not a theoretical eBook; this is based on our experience in the recent transaction. Download the 10 Lessons Learned from Selling Our MSP where we share specific real life lessons learned during our last transaction. Specifically we provide insight into: - How to best prepare for a potential acquisition before it’s even on the radar - Several important resources to consider before sharing your information - What to expect in every stage of the sale process from start to finish Click the image or Get eBook here >

MSP KPI Metrics: Daily Operations Report

One of our most popular requests from our community is about what type of metrics other MSPs are using and how are they using those metrics. So in an effort to share some of that knowledge, we are going to start a series of blog posts specifically dedicated to the topic. Focusing on the operational performance of your business is a key responsibility of anyone in Management, especially in Service Management. What metrics should you and your team be looking at on a daily basis to help you get a “pulse” of the business? Below is a sample of the most popular Daily Metrics our customers use in their Daily OPS Report: To learn more about how tracking a daily metrics like this can help improve your profitability check out the free webinar we hosted on Best Practices of Working and Tracking Time In Real Time presented by MSP Coach Manuel Palachuk:

MSP Key Performance Indicator: EBITDA Margin

We are all in business to take care of our customers but of course we also want to turn a profit. Measuring that profitability can be done in a variety of ways but the one we used to depend on was to measure our EBITDA margin. EBITDA is an acronym for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization. EBITDA gives an indication of the current operational profitability of the business. The calculations would be as follows: EBITDA = Net Profit + Interest + Taxes + Depreciation + Amortization & EBITDA / Total Revenue = EBITDA Margin Wikipedia has a great summary for this definition: It is intended to allow a comparison of profitability between different companies, by canceling the effects of interest payments from different forms of financing (by ignoring interest payments), political jurisdictions (by ignoring tax), collections of assets (by ignoring depreciation of assets), and different takeover histories (by ignoring amortization often stemming from goodwill). EBITDA also happens to be a popular metric when discussing valuation in an acquisition. Many companies use this as a metric to base the actual valuation; for example, Company ABC was acquired for 8 times EBITDA. Meaning that the acquiring company paid 8x the EBITDA Company ABC produced. When we first started measuring our EBITDA Margin at Compuquip, we were trending in the mid single digits (i.e. 4% - 6% range). That’s when we started to take a hard look at our P&L and trying to drive that number into double digits. The best in class for MSPs had EBITDA margin above 15% and some would be 25%. Our goal was to work our way to 10% and then eventually to 15%. The important thing was we began the measurement of the metric and by understanding that as we grew; we needed to keep our costs in control. That helped us work our way up to 12% EBITDA over an 18 month period. This blog is part of our Internal Metrics That Matter For MSPs blog series that you can download here: Download White Paper

Pricing Your Managed Services Contract

How do you come up with your monthly price for your contracts? Do you follow a specific formula? Do you share that with your customers? At Compuquip, we had a variety of ways to calculate pricing which I’ll share. We tried to triangulate the price using a variety of data points. And I must tell you that it’s important to factor in all of them because you could get insight from one of the questions that will dramatically change your price point. Standard Pricing What do you typically charge per end user? Or what is your goal? Typically, we shoot for $100/end user and when we could, we went for $125. However our ARPU (average revenue per user) typically was in the $75 - $80 range. Cost To Deliver It’s important to know your cost to deliver the service. What is your current burn rate for delivering services? I always wanted to know the cost to add on an additional end user to help me factor in my incremental margin but I never got to that. So I had to do a “back of the envelop calculation”, figuring what the direct cost to support would be. Do they need a dedicated resource onsite? If so add that. How many calls do you think you’ll have to take, what is your cost per call? A fail safe is what is your typical service margin and use that as the cost. Current Cost What is the prospect currently paying for services? If they are using another Managed Services provider its relatively easy to get an understanding of what they are spending. Just be careful to read the current scope carefully because they may not be getting everything they need included, hence why they are looking for another provider. If they have an in house team then you’ll want to factor in all the costs associated with those folks. You can take some of the direct costs I lists here on our Service Gross Margin blog post. Cost To Do This on Their Own Internally All companies at some point consider bringing IT in house, typically because they’ve been burned by an outsourced provider. So we used to always have that as a barometer. Typically, it required to hire a full time person which was going to be at least $35K plus benefits and overhead. What Will They Pay for the Service? This is a question I ALWAYS asked my prospects. You’ll learn so much by the answer. If they are cheap with IT then you’ll get a low number, or if they want to be ball busters and negotiate, they’ll throw out a low number and you have another data point to factor. If they have been burned lately then they might be willing to pay extra for it. Next time you have a contract to price, try this and put the numbers on the whiteboard. In my experience, the price points are typically within 20% - 25% of each other which helps triangulate the final price or at least get you a starting point. How do you price your contracts? Let us know.

MSP Key Performance Indicator: Service Team W2 Ratio

Another great metric that is similar to Service Gross Margin is Service Team W2 (salary) Ratio. The formula for this is: Service Team W2 Ratio = Services Revenue / W2 Expense Of Services Team Services Revenue is the total services dollars delivered by your team and W2 Expense Of Services Team is the total compensation of that Services Team. (note: The term "W2" comes from the federal tax form issued by employers which states how much an employee was paid in a year) 2.0x ratio translates to 50% Gross Margin and 2.5x ratio translates to 60% gross margin. Our goal was always to break 2.0x with some of the most efficient firms pushing 2.5x - 3.0x. At Compuquip, we typically hovered between 1.7x - 2.0x most of the time which makes sense given that our historical services gross margin was less than 50%. One point to note is that typically this metric did not factor in the additional direct cost of your service team. That wouldn’t change the numbers drastically but I always liked to see fully loaded costs to truly understand my margin. However, given how easy it is to calculate we often found ourselves using this metric in our monthly review meetings. Metrics like this and Services Gross Margin are great indicators on how efficient your team is performing. As I’ve said before, the important thing is to start measuring the metrics that matter to you and then take action to improve the metric performance and ultimately improve your business. This blog is part of our Internal Metrics That Matter For MSPs blog series that you can download here: Download White Paper

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