Product Updates

These days, anything that will help an MSP do their work better and faster is a winning solution. Users of the BCDR tool Axcient x360Recover can now automate the monitoring of their x360Recover backups using a new and improved API, which was recently announced at the Axcient Xperience Summit event on October 3! Integrating Backup Radar and Axcient x360Recover collects backup results directly from the Axcient cloud portal for monitoring. See high-level backup trends, uncover risky, unreported backups, and report on results for your clients.This integration marks an expanded partnership with the Axcient ecosystem and allows an improved experience for our Partners using Axcient’s BCDR tools for their client’s data protection needs. Enhanced integration also enables MSPs to drastically reduce ticket noise from their backups, with integration to your PSA. Intelligent automatic ticketing opens, appends, groups, and closes resolved tickets related to your Axcient backups. You set the ticketing parameters on what and when you will be notified about something, and Backup Radar will take the stress and tediousness of sifting through ticket noise. What can you do with the Axcient API Integration with Backup Radar?This integration marks an expanded partnership with the Axcient team and allows an improved experience for our Partners using Axcient’s BCDR tools for their client’s data protection needs. This integration also enables MSPs to drastically reduce ticket noise from their backups, with intelligent automatic ticket opening, appending, grouping, and closing resolved backup-related tickets. You set the ticketing parameters on what and when you will be notified about something, and Backup Radar will take the stress and tediousness of sifting through ticket noise off of your, or your technicians’, plate. By using Backup Radar and Axcient together, MSPs can access the full suite of solutions available in Backup Radar to automate reporting, ticketing, alerting, dashboards, and our audit screen to review their clients’ backup data or take remedial actions. Use Backup Radar reports and visualizations to look for trends and anomalies in your Axcient backup statuses so that you can proactively remediate issues before they arise. See if backups are failing regularly over time or in a certain environment. You can start monitoring your Axcient x360Recover backups now by integrating in a few easy steps! Not yet signed up for Backup Radar? We can fix that! Let’s have a chat and get Backup Radar working for you. 

TL;DR: What’s New For Cognition360? 🎃Cognition360 has released enhancements to five reports that provide your MSP with improved analysis of your operations and financial measures, including four of our core reports. Just like the set of several reports we updated in March, and the four more we updated in July, however, you have to ask for them to get them. Let’s take a quick look at each of the new-and-improved reports and see exactly what’s new and improved.  Which five reports exactly?Here’s the list: Fixed Fee Tickets Report (add-on) Ticket Daily Stats Report (core) Customer Profitability Report (core) Time Entry Benchmark (core) Project Summary Report (core) You might not be using all of these reports now, but they’re all well worth a second look. How do I gain access to these reports?The Cognition360 Support team has just what you need. If you know exactly what you want, you can fill in this form and request to have the reports you want updated to the latest version. Next step, you’re in and using them. What’s new-and-or-improved in each of these five reports?Once again, the official word from our Product team is that “these improvements will improve customer retention, enhance your quality of life, and empower you to make more informed and strategic business decisions.”  Did you take advantage of the last reports that we updated (by the way, here’s the form if you missed out last time, and a link to read what you missed)? Did they enhance your life’s quality? These ones just might. Read on to learn more… and FYI, the best is saved for last.  “Save The Best For Last” was also a huge hit song in 1992 for actress, pop star, and former Miss America winner Vanessa Williams.   Fixed Fee Tickets ReportSpeaking of 1992, do you remember the 1992 Disney film Aladdin, when the titular character sang about “a new fantastic point of view” in the film’s Oscar and Grammy-winning signature song “A Whole New World”? Well, now in 2024, we’ve added a whole new Billable Technicians page that will give you a new fantastic point of view – the technicians who worked on those tickets, including the billable hours and the billable amount. Fixed Fee Tickets Report – new Billable Technicians page All the ticket details are linked here, along with bar charts for the number of billable tickets per technician, the billable hours per technician for these tickets, and the associated billable amounts.  You can also see in the table on the top right how many techs worked on bigger tickets, and this can help you find oddities… like our example, where 6 techs worked on a fixed-fee workstation update for 68.68 billable hours and billed nearly $10,000. Hopefully you don’t find alarming examples in your own business… feels like the client relationship could be in “A Whole New World” of pain. 😬 Tickets Daily Stats ReportThis is just a quick clean-up to the Entered | Resolved page: Ticket Daily Stats Report – Entered | Resolved page The Entered | Resolved page will now show tickets entered vs tickets resolved on the same date range selected for an easier visual comparison. Strongly recommend getting this fix as it makes the page much more useful. Customer Profitability ReportThe Customer Profitability Report has been updated with a new filter for Technical Account Manager added: Customer Profitability Report – new Technical Account Manager filter Technical Account Manager has been added as a filter just below Account Manager on the Summary page of the Customer Profitability Report. If your organization has both AMs and TAMs, with different customer responsibilities or lines of reporting, this will allow you to see how profitable each TAM’s portfolio of accounts is by month. Time Entry BenchmarkAn incorrect URL on the Report Information page had been used (which you’d find if you drill down), and refreshing the report with this updated one will correct the error. This one is just a fix so nothing is broken. No screenshot, but we’ll update it for you. Project Summary ReportSaving the best for last, but unrelated to Vanessa Williams, three enhancements have been made to Project Summary Report’s main Project Details page that improve oversight for projects: Billable Budget Hours Remaining and Billable Budget Hours % Remaining Added Engineer Hours and Project Management Hours Added a With Opportunity filter Project Summary Report – Billable Budget Hours highlighted Billable Budget Hours Remaining and Billable Budget Hours % Remaining have been added to the Project Details page of the Project Summary report. These two measures will indicate the Billable Hours compared to the budgeted hours for the project. This shows at a glance whether billable hours are over or under budget, how many billable hours are still left in the budget, and the percentage of remaining hours of budget.  This enhancement is useful for MSP project managers to communicate with stakeholders, allowing them to quickly highlight projects in the portfolio that are going well and get ahead of issues that have arisen on others (perhaps scope issues with the client, or resource challenges with internal team members). Project Summary Report – Project Management Hours & Engineer Hours added We’ve also added Project Management Hours and Engineer Hours to the Details page of the report. Again, this is great for portfolio-level project oversight – understanding overhead requirements / overruns and getting an at-a-glance look at the technical resources individual projects have consumed versus estimates / budgets for each. Take action on any projects that are moving in the wrong direction before they’re on fire . Project Summary Report – new With Opportunity filter A new With Opportunity filter has been created, which will allow you to view only projects with associated Opportunities that have been created in your PSA, or see those that don’t have any Opportunities at all. This will let you see projects that just got missed on updating Opportunities on the sales process side (or just aren’t linked correctly), or if you’ve moved ahead with a client-sourced project that wasn’t “sold” and never had an Opportunity at all (like a surprise office move).  And That’s The End of That ChapterSummer is over here in the northern hemisphere, so these are the last updated reports of the season. Please use the form to request any of these that interest you, and keep an eye out for more enhancements to Cognition360.  Not a Cognition360 partner yet? Join us for a personalized demo, or check out this quick overview here. We’d love to help you unlock your ConnectWise PSA data to make better decisions and grow a more profitable MSP business. 

Quoter just released their September Product Update which includes recent product release updates, wins, and Partner impact. Delivered straight from the source – Ash, Quoter’s Senior Product Manager.  Some highlights from this month’s release:Quoter Editor Enhancements for Nuanced Pricing Display: This month, as part of our larger Quote Editor enhancement project, we’ve released the ability to have bundles within single-select item groups. Coming (Very) Soon: Profitability Reporting, Leaderboard Updates: First up: salesperson Leaderboard updates. We’re enhancing the interface so that instead of just displaying the top 10 salespeople, the entire sales team is visible at a glance. Next: line item profitability reporting. We’re making it easy to know which products have the highest and lowest profitability to help you flag products to focus on selling or discontinuing.  Get Excited: Quoter + ScalePad Hub Is In Progress: For our Partners who use other ScalePad products, such as Lifecycle Manager or Backup Radar, centralized management is headed your way: Quoter’s integration with the ScalePad Hub is set to launch in the last quarter of 2024.  Read the full article and learn more about September releases:  https://www.quoter.com/quoter-product-update-september-2024/

ControlMap now includes three additional frameworks. With the addition of NIST SP 800-171 R3, NIST SP 800-161r1, and ISO/IEC 42001, it's easier to address security, supply chain, and AI governance challenges. NIST SP 800-171 R3NIST SP 800-171 R3 focuses on protecting Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) in nonfederal systems. Released in 2024, it provides comprehensive security controls for managing CUI, aligning with federal standards, and fostering a proactive approach to risk management. This framework supports meeting federal compliance requirements while safeguarding sensitive data.  NIST SP 800-161r1NIST SP 800-161r1 addresses cybersecurity supply chain risk management, offering guidelines for identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks across IT and OT environments. This framework helps improve resilience and reliability by securing the supply chain and ensuring alignment with federal standards.  ISO/IEC 42001ISO/IEC 42001 sets a structured approach for responsible AI management. Released in 2023, it provides guidelines for ethical AI governance, risk mitigation, and building trust in AI technologies. This framework supports aligning AI practices with global standards and regulatory requirements.  Get Started TodayImport these frameworks into client tenants, cross-map them with existing frameworks, and address gaps in compliance, supply chain security, and AI governance.

I'm pleased to announce some recent updates to Lifecycle Insights to improve the user experience and deliver better reporting for your clients. These enhancements aim to make your workflows more efficient and support meaningful client discussions. Let's explore the details of these updates: Save and create multiple recommendations faster: When creating a recommendation, you can save it and immediately start working on another recommendation for the same client. Minimizing the number of clicks will help you save time and reduce distractions.  Group assessment items by recommendation in the report builder: In response to user feedback for more contextual reporting, you can now group assessment items based on the recommendations in the report. This feature allows you to present assessment risks in the context of proposed solutions, making it easier to focus conversations on resolution and demonstrate the value of your work.  Simplified stack alignment table sorting: In the CS Module, you now have more flexibility in sorting the stack alignment table across all clients, enabling you to better understand which clients are showing risks or opportunities.Thank you to our community for your valuable feedback, which helps us continue to improve the Lifecycle Insights product.

Quoter just released their August Product Update which includes recent product release updates, wins, and Partner impact. Delivered straight from the source – Ash, Quoter’s Senior Product Manager.  Some highlights from this month’s release:Moving from CKEditor to Froala as the base of our WYSIWYG editor, which will help improve the usability and functionality of image formatting, pasting content from different sources such as Word or Google Docs, and delivering more flexibility for handling page breaks for PDF generation. We’re now pushing a range of additional fields for our Quoter + HaloPSA users, particularly for products, to help minimize repeat data entry and human error for the records in your HaloPSA account. You can add a rule to require manager approval of new ad hoc line items or bundles. It’s just one more way to ensure quote oversight when delegating the process to other team members.  For Amazon Business account holders (it’s free if you’re not one!), your procurement or ordering process just got an upgrade in speed and convenience.  Via our Quoter + Amazon integration, we now push the ASIN (Amazon’s unique identifier), to Quoter’s Procurement Pick List. With your quotes referencing ASIN numbers, you’ll have a much easier time identifying those products in your Amazon Business account for procurement.   Read the full article here: https://www.quoter.com/quoter-product-update-august-2024/

Calling all managers using Lifecycle Insights: Tracking Assessment Activity just got easier! As a manager, you need to see what is happening across all clients, not one client at a time.  Lifecycle Insights now has an aggregated Assessment view so you can view Assessment events across all clients in one place. Access it from the Assessments page. Where to find the Assessment Events for All Clients This below page can be filtered by team member and time period to ensure each member of your team is completing their client assessments promptly.The Assessment Events for All Clients Screen 

In-app Resource Centers are now available in 4 of our ScalePad apps:Lifecycle Manager Lifecycle Insights Backup Radar ControlMapOn the top nav bar on the right, you can now click the ‘?’ icon to access support resources directly in your apps. The Resource Center icon Once you click on the icon to open the Resource Center, you’ll be able to:Discover recommended help articles Search the Help Center Submit product ideas View product updates Connect with the ScalePad Community View the app status page Submit support requestsThe Resource Center menu 

Quoter just released their July Product Update which includes recent product release updates, wins, and Partner impact. Delivered straight from the source – Ash, Quoter’s Senior Product Manager.  Some highlights from this month’s release:Gain Greater Oversight with Multi-Stage Manager Approvals:  We’ve enhanced our existing Manager Approvals feature in Quoter by allowing more than one approver to be in the process and enabling constraints and rules to apply to the quote’s content. Stack and assign rules for quotes for multiple levels of approval to ensure nothing important to your process is missed. 7 New Quoter + HaloPSA Integration Updates:  This month, we released seven new updates to the integration to help our Partners who use HaloPSA save clicks while building quotes.  Opportunity Creation in Quoter - now our Partners can have Halo Opportunities created automatically upon Quoter Quote creation.  Supplier support, so products built in HaloPSA can be pulled over to a quote along with pricing, SKU, and cost details from an associated supplier.  HaloPSA Lead Support Sales Order (SO) Creation  Purchase Order (PO) Capture and Push  HaloPSA Authentication  Quoter Quote PDF Push to Halo Opportunity    Read the full article here: https://www.quoter.com/quoter-product-update-july-2024/

 Preparing for and completing audits of frameworks and controls requires meticulous planning and execution. ControlMap has upgraded the audit experience in-app to further streamline the process and eliminate more tedious tasks from the to-do list with internal audits, jumpstart expansions, evidence exports, and updated vendor reports. What’s new?Internal AuditsMSPs and their clients can now perform an internal audit based on either frameworks or controls. Previously, audits were limited to third-parties, but we’ve provided the ability to perform this internally for a framework or a control set. This offers MSPs and their clients the following benefits:Complete a thorough self-assessment – MSPs are able to do a self-assessment to allow them to self-attest compliance for certain security standards such as CIS Controls, NIST Cybersecurity Framework (NIST CSF), and GDPR. The internal audit provides a thorough process to ensure no details are missed.Maximize audit readiness – Prior to a pricey third-party audit, MSPs and their clients are able to perform their own internal audit to benchmark their compliance status. They can identify security or areas for improvement and position themselves for success by addressing key issues before initiating the formal audit. Thorough preparation leads to a streamlined audit that saves the MSP time liaising with the auditor, as well as providing additional evidence or clarity around evidence and controls.  Not every MSP or client requires a third-party audit based on the organization, vertical, and compliance goals. While compliance with a certain standard may be the goal for many businesses, all organizations strive to improve their security operations. An internal audit helps support organizations earlier in their compliance journey to strengthen their security posture by identifying potential gaps and addressing them. The internal audit feature also allows MSPs and their clients to perform robust self-assessments to ensure they meet the required standards and guidelines of frameworks that rely on self-assessment. It documents evidence of assessment (or audit) history, risks, evidence, and more that can be referenced as required in their industry. Cross-mapping and Jumpstart ExpansionMany organizations need to satisfy the compliance requirements across multiple frameworks. ControlMap helps streamline the process by cross-mapping frameworks to identify common items required for assessment. Jumpstarts apply matching evidence to other frameworks to reduce the amount of labor. Support for the following jumpstarts is now available:NYDFS → SOC 2, NIST CSF 2, CIS V8 CIS v8 → ISO 27001 2022, CJIS Evidence ExportFor CMMC compliance audits, auditors require submission of all evidence of compliance. With a single click of a button, ControlMap users can export all evidence required by auditors including:A logical folder structure that includes all files and metadata; A spreadsheet with a description of all evidence, including when it was created and by whom.MSPs no longer have to cobble together and create an audit-friendly file & folder structure anymore – this is all automated to streamline the audit preparation process and remove friction from the audit itself. While developed particularly with CMMC in mind, the evidence export is useful across all compliance frameworks as it creates an evidence record that can be archived and accessed if required.  Vendor ReportsA key piece of compliance is tracking risks associated with vendors that have access to any sensitive information or data. Ad hoc export of vendor data had been possible, but ControlMap has now added the ability to schedule and save vendor reports. These reports are audit-ready making preparation for a third-party audit effortless – no more struggling to format excel sheets or word documents.  Get started now.Automation is the best friend of an MSP – it eliminates tedious manual work. With the latest enhancements to the audit experience, ControlMap will put hours back in your team’s day. Log in to ControlMap to start enjoying an enhanced audit experience. 

TL;DR: What’s New For Cognition360?Cognition360 has released enhancements to four reports that provide your MSP with improved analysis of your operations and financial measures, including updates to two core reports. Just like the set of reports we updated in March, however, you have to ask for them to get them. Let’s take a quick look at each of the new-and-improved reports and see exactly what’s new and improved.  Which four reports exactly?Here’s the list: Opportunity Dashboard (core report) Agreement Renewals Report (core report) Service Profitability Report (add-on) Ticket Daily Stats (add-on) You might not be using all of these reports now, but they’re all well worth a second look.  I’m interested… how do I actually get access?The Cognition360 Support team’s got what you need. If you know exactly what you want, you can fill in this form and request to have the reports you want updated to the latest version. Next step, you’re in and using them. What’s new-and-improved in each of these four reports?The official word from our Product team is that “these improvements will improve customer retention, enhance your quality of life, and empower you to make more informed and strategic business decisions.”  Are we over-promising? I’d sure like to enhance the quality of my life. Read on to learn more about each; you be the judge. Opportunity DashboardYes, we just updated this a few months ago, but it’s even better now.  Opportunity Dashboard The Opportunity Dashboard now shows the latest conversion stage with the latest conversion value. This will help avoid any confusion, as it will only show the latest stage and value instead of multiple conversion stages with different values. Feedback was that the granularity of multiple conversion stages was more trouble than it was worth. Agreement Renewals ReportThe report now uses the actual last invoiced amount to improve accuracy.  Agreement Renewals Report The enhancement to the Agreement Renewals Report improves it to use the actual last invoiced amount as renewal amount instead of amount of the agreement. This better represents true renewal values, as the actual amount can be different from agreement amount. This allows you to see the effects of discounts or deals – how much are your clients actually being charged? Service Profitability ReportThe Service Profitability Report has been updated with ticket summary, board, and billability status. Service Profitability Report The report itself has been updated to display Invoice Details with a ticket summary. Scroll to the right, and you’ll see  an at-a-glance overview of each ticket, and the ability to sort by which board tickets were assigned to – another way to look at cost/profit/margin by ticket on each service board. A "Is Ticket Billable" filter has also been added, allowing you to filter out ticketed-but-non-billable work that you may choose not to include in your profitability reporting. This allows you to maintain best practices of tracking all work with tickets and time entries without distorting your margin measures; for example, when team members may be assigned to non-revenue internal projects. Ticket Daily StatsThree enhancements have been made to Ticket Daily Stats: Identify the ticket contact and submitter Average age of tickets Ticket owners can now see resolved tickets Ticket Daily Stats – Ticket Details showing Contact for each ticket Want to see right from the Ticket Daily Stats report who’s been sending in tickets and get a hold of them for follow up? Contact is now listed right there. Ticket Daily Stats – Tickets Resolved showing average ticket age The Tickets Resolved page now displays the average age of resolved tickets and compares the average age of those resolved tickets by day, week, and month. The Ticket Age calculates the time elapsed between the ticket creation date and the resolution date.  Ticket Daily Stats – new Ticket Owner | Ticket Resolved page A new page, Ticket Owner | Ticket Resolved, allows a ticket owner to see all their resolved tickets, regardless of who actually resolved them. Perfect for when you’re coming back from summer vacation and you want to know who to thank for closing out some tough ones.Wrapping It All UpSpeaking of summer, we’ll have more updated reports at the end of it. Please use the form to request any of these that interest you, and keep your eyes peeled for more enhancements to Cognition360.  Not a Cognition360 partner yet? Join us for a personalized demo, or check out this quick overview here. We’d love to help you unlock your ConnectWise PSA data to make better decisions and grow a more profitable MSP business. 

The last check-in date is now available in the Lifecycle Manager Hardware Console.The last check-in date feature automatically pulls usage from your RMM to report when a device was last used. This will allow you to:Identify devices that are no longer in use Make more informed decisions about when to decommission or repurpose a device. Avoid purchasing unnecessary protection on unused devices.The last check-in date can be added as a field in your custom hardware report so you can give clients full visibility on workstation usage.  

Quoter just released their June Product Update which includes recent product release updates, wins, and Partner impact. Delivered straight from the source – Ash, Quoter’s Senior Product Manager.  Some highlights from this month’s release:Customize Your Quote Reminder Intervals: Set customized intervals to best fit your preferences with Automated Quote Reminder.  Calculate Line Item Pricing Based on Markup or Margin: Adding the ability to calculate a line item’s unit price based on a markup or margin calculation.  Make Bulk Update to Line Items: For Quoter Partners on Standard or above plans, an additional feature is now available: the ability to bulk update line items in a section.  Customize Your Quotes List View: Now you can save customized views and access new filter options so your Quotes List View delivers exactly the information you want to see.    Read the full article here: https://www.quoter.com/quoter-product-update-june-2024/

• NYDFS Cybersecurity RegulationMay 9, 2024ControlMap now supports the NYDFS Cybersecurity Regulation, enabling MSPs to tailor cybersecurity programs for clients operating under the New York State Department of Financial Services jurisdiction.• NIST AI Risk Management FrameworkMay 29, 2024ControlMap now supports the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, enabling MSPs to support cybersecurity programs related to AI.• Digital Operational Resilience ActMay 29, 2024ControlMap now supports the Digital Operational Resilience Act, enabling MSPs to implement cybersecurity programs for financial institutions operating within the European Union.• ThreatMate IntegrationMay 29, 2024ControlMap integrates with ThreatMate - an advanced attack surface management tool designed to monitor and secure networks from various cybersecurity threats that identifies security exposures and creates plans for vulnerability remediation.Partners can now connect ControlMap to automatically pull vulnerability & compliance checks required to achieve and maintain compliance.That’s all for May. See you in June!

• Centralized Ticket RulesMay 16, 2024We've streamlined how Backup Radar Partners create and manage ticketing rules by unifying email parsing and PSA ticketing into one, easier-to-use interface. Here's a summary of what's new with Backup Radar's improved ticketing rule creation workflow:Configured email notifications for management escalation reports are now found in the new Escalation Report. Ticket Rules now support selecting either a Status or a No Success value (not both), aiming to reduce support tickets due to unexpected ticket results. For more details, see Understanding Status Filters. The Global Ticket Subject menu interface has been updated to a more intuitive, what-you-see-is-what-you-get interface. For more details, see Working with Global Ticket Subjects. A Migration Wizard guides existing Partners to transfer their existing “Email Notifications” to either a ticket rule or an escalation report upon release. For more details, see Migrating your Email Notifications.That’s all for May. See you in June!

The survey should take about 3-5 minutes to complete, but you don't have to answer every question.  MSPs look to Business Intelligence (BI) tools to make data-informed decisions about their business to drive actionable results.  We at ScalePad are focussing efforts to expand the analytics available to MSPs and looking for Partner feedback to help us determine which analytics will be most useful for MSPs today. We recognize that goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) may differ for each MSP, but we would like to offer meaningful pre-built MSP business analytics which present immediate business insights. Within this survey, we will focus on learning about what’re the most important service delivery Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you as a business owner would like an BI/Analytics tool to answer. Thank you in advance for your time and appreciate your feedback! Share your feedback here: https://forms.gle/kUQhiU82W52zNb4b7

Quoter just released their May Product Update which includes recent product release updates, wins, and Partner impact. Delivered straight from the source – Ash, Quoter’s Senior Product Manager.  Some highlights from this month’s release:Refreshed Quotes List with Faster Quote Lookup: Our new Quotes List takes the same filtering and sorting functionality as before to a new level with a ultra-modern refreshed UI and the ability for Partners to save filtered views for quick at-a-glance access to the Quotes that require higher visibility.  Inventory Check for Autotask PSA: Our latest Quoter + Autotask PSA integration enhancement gives you the ability to look up your stock or inventory when adding items to a Quote. Giving you a faster product lookup from a single pane of glass. Contract Management, HaloPSA Integration Updates: We’ve added a delete function in Contract Management to remove draft and test templates along with improved fixes to the Quoter + HaloPSA integration. More to come on that shortly! Read the full article here: https://www.quoter.com/quoter-product-update-may-2024/

The heart of Lifecycle Manager has always been client engagement: whether you use it for warranty lookups, IT asset monitoring, or QBR preparation, it's about providing the best experience for the people you serve. That's why we're thrilled to announce the launch of the new Lifecycle Manager for Client Engagement. It's everything you love about Lifecycle Manager, with new features and enhancements to help you create, communicate, and deliver strategic client care with the ease of automation.  Updated Features Roadmaps: New filter controls let you customize the level of detail included in Roadmap PDFs, giving you more flexibility to personalize communication with clients.  To help you move quickly to respond to evolving client needs, we've removed multi-quarter scheduling and added the ability to plot out projects on Roadmaps for up to five years in advance. Initiatives: We've added an account-wide view of all Initiatives for all clients to give you a visual overview of projects in your pipeline.  Also, Initiatives are now downloadable as PDFs, so you can create and send proposals in a few clicks. Roadmaps + Initiatives: To save you even more clicks in delivering elevated client care, we've added Initiatives to the Roadmaps tab.  New Client DashboardThe new simplified menu gives you easier access to client engagement features.  We've also reorganized the display of the client page, prioritizing features that focus on client interactions so you have at-a-glance awareness at the client level. New Features Action Items: In the client view of Lifecycle Manager, you can create and manage tasks using Action Items, which integrates with ConnectWise Manage to turn these action items into PSA tickets.  Notes: Alongside Action Items, you can also type and organize meeting notes into a date-tracked note box. Account Team & Key Contacts:  Another addition to the client view is an area to set contact details for the corresponding client, including names, roles, and email addresses. Standardizing your workflows for client engagement encourages more frequent and accessible communication, which builds trust and reinforces your position as a strategic partner. We're thrilled to lead the way for MSP client engagement and look forward to hearing what our Partners think about this exciting new direction.  Want to learn more about Client Engagement? Read more about our newest release here!

• MSP DashboardApril 26, 2024Within ControlMap, MSPs have an updated and refreshed dashboard within the MSP Portal. The new dashboard provides a comprehensive, single-pane-of-glass view and consolidates important compliance data across clients, enabling MSPs to efficiently manage and monitor clients’ compliance status within a single window. • RACI MatrixApril 26, 2024ControlMap has implemented a RACI matrix within the platform. This simple and effective chart defines project roles and responsibilities, identifying who is responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed for every step of the compliance journey.  

• Last Day of the Month ScheduleApril 5, 2024Partners can now select “Last Day of Month” when setting their job schedule. This intuitive setting executes on the last day of the month regardless of month length. This makes it easier to set month-end jobs without having to make conditional setups for the varying month lengths. Check out Creating Custom Backup Schedules for more on backup job schedules.• Support for all ticket types within HaloPSA & HaloITSM integrationsApril 18, 2024We’ve added support for all ticket types within our HaloPSA and HaloITSM PSA integrations. Check out Integrating with HaloITSM and Integrating with HaloPSA for more on working with these integrations.• Enhanced Mapping of Comet API Job Status CodesApril 29, 2024Improved mapping of Comet API job statuses to Backup Radar’s backup status. Additional Comet details now appear in Backup Radar’s Verify Notes field, enhancing backup verification clarity.

We’re proud to announce that Lifecycle Manager, Lifecycle Insights, and Backup Radar have joined Control Map in achieving SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 compliance, marking a significant milestone in our journey toward uncompromising data security for ScalePad. What does this mean for you? It means that we've undergone rigorous audits and assessments to ensure that our products meet the highest standards for protecting your valuable data. With SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 compliance, your data is safeguarded against threats and vulnerabilities, giving your MSP peace of mind as you focus on what matters most to your business. Visit our update page now to dive into the details and discover how we're raising the bar for data security in the industry or visit scalepad.com/security to download our Security Whitepaper and SOC 3 Report. 

We're excited to launch our latest Backup Radar integration: HaloITSM! This new release deepens our partnership with the Halo Service Solutions suite of products and gives our Partners even more options to streamline their ticket management. Here is our step-by-step guide on getting connected! Not a Backup Radar partner yet? Let us show you how we can make a difference in your backup monitoring operation. Book a demo to take a look at how Backup Radar and streamline your daily backup monitoring. 

Quoter just released their April Product Update which includes recent product release challenges, wins, and Partner impact. Delivered straight from the source – Ash, Quoter’s Senior Product Manager. Includes teasers for next month’s releases! Some highlights from this month’s release:Price Lookup: Quoter + Amazon: Quoter + Amazon allows you to look up products based on your Amazon business account and easily compare pricing to your other distributors. You can also add Amazon products to your quote with all the spec details included.  Quoter + HaloPSA Enhancements: We listened to our partner’s feedback and implemented a simpler way for Quoter partners to set up their HaloPSA integration. We’ve eliminated the need for mapping in HaloPSA for categories to their product groups. Just set it up in Qupter and you’re good to go! New HTML Content Editor Beta: Quoter already does a great job of making it easy to create new quote templates, but we’re obsessed with improving the process even further. That’s why we’ve replaced our HTML editor — CKEditor — with Froala   Read the full article here: https://www.quoter.com/quoter-product-update-april-2024/

ScalePad now supports Microsoft Surface PCs as part of our Workstation Assurance extended warranty service inside Lifecycle Manager. Coverage for Surface devices is in high demand by Partners for their clients, and is initially available in the United States.“The ability to offer Workstation Assurance as a service for Microsoft Surface devices is a huge win for our Partners,” said Dan Wensley, CEO of ScalePad. “The MSP community has asked us to add support for Surfaces — we’ve listened, and our team worked to make it happen. Adding coverage for Surface devices to Workstation Assurance provides our Partners with an additional  multi-million dollar revenue opportunity and increased value to  clients.”As clients transition from traditional desktop workstations to mobile devices like Microsoft Surface PCs and pricier AI laptops, MSPs have sought ways to protect their clients’ investments. Adding protection for Surface PCs to ScalePad’s Workstation Assurance service closes a potential gap for MSPs and their clients.ScalePad’s Workstation Assurance product solves three challenges for MSPs: complete protection and replacement for client devices, streamlined in-app warranty procurement and service requests, and the opportunity to generate revenue beyond device replacement. Workstation Assurance includes accidental damage protection, and with the addition of Microsoft, it now protects devices from over a dozen different OEMs. Support for Surface PCs in Workstation Assurance is only available in the United States at this time. Click here to go to Lifecycle Manager, find a client with Surface PCs, and give it a try!

Special thanks to Matthew Kipp, Engineering Team Lead of Lifecycle Manager for co-authoring this article with me. In December, we released Custom Hardware Reports to Lifecycle Manager, empowering partners with fine-grained options to highlight what matters in their reporting. The reception was overwhelmingly positive! Our most impactful changes often originate from our partners, and this was one of those instances. MSPs took the time to submit the idea via our product idea submission process, so we decided to take it on. Building Custom Hardware ReportsFor us, software development is about building excellent products as a creative team, not executing a set of requirements like a factory. When considering a product idea, our process looks like this:Identify the root problem: What’s the root of the problem, what are MSPs really looking for with this idea? Assess our constraints: How long should we be willing to invest in this? What are must-haves, should-haves, and nice-to-haves? Brainstorm: What solutions could we build that meet these constraints? This is not done by one person, but is rather a dynamic process including Product, Engineering, and Design. By working together we can decide on a path forward that meets the best tradeoffs for each role — the best experience, the lowest complexity, and the highest value for partners. In Custom Hardware Reports, we decided that it’s worth investing the time to include a number of elements that would make the experience powerful for partners — advanced filtering & sorting, column selection, and templates to reuse configurations across clients.Custom report scheduling, including custom parameters, sorting, and configurable columns. We knew how much this mattered to partners, so we decided to accept the cost of building a system that would encompass all of those needs. But to make this happen we didn’t build everything imaginable. For example, in the first version you cannot edit and remove templates — you can only save new ones. As a result, we were able to deliver a useful feature without getting lost in the rabbit holes of attempting to build perfection. That said, if you want us to add more advanced template management, feel free to submit a product idea and we may take it on! The Art of Software DesignIn the design stage, the Product team will tend to focus on the functional requirements, whereas Engineering needs to focus on “non-functional requirements,” or quality attributes of the system being developed. At this point we often do “spikes” — timeboxed tasks where we assess the existing system, design required changes, and prototype to feel out a certain approach. In spiking our solution for Custom Hardware Reports, we saw that our solution would require scalability as a non-functional requirement. With thousands of paying Lifecycle Manager partners, each with many clients, we estimated our solution would need to support at least tens of thousands of reports being sent in a timely manner on the 1st business day of every month. To address this, we decided on a solution that relies on us replicating / caching our asset data to a NoSQL database which is explicitly designed to support quick reads. As a result, we knew we could process the custom filters and sorting each report would require at scale without much trouble. We Code with AI!Once we’ve planned out our work, we’ll have a clearer picture of the solution, ETA, bottlenecks, and tasks. At this point, we are able to divide the work and begin coding. It’s worth highlighting that AI has changed the way we code significantly. As one example, we use GitHub Copilot daily in the process of development, and it has allowed us to code more efficiently and effectively. We can’t yet plug a full task into a GPT and expect a good result, let alone a feature. Due to hallucinations, AI is not yet effective for delicate tasks such as refactoring, which involves carefully restructuring existing code without altering its external behavior. That said, sometimes GPTs can save hours of frustration. To help us create custom scheduled reports, we prompted AI with queries about formatting crons for our scheduling, data modeling suggestions, and admittedly, how to center a <div> HTML element with CSS (you try it!). We’re optimistic about AI because the trendline we see indicates that it will not replace us, but rather it will help us iterate faster and focus more on higher-level concerns that require creative thinking. Let’s make sure it actually works right…It’s great to ship new features, but if they are buggy, incomplete, or break randomly we may have actually created more harm than good. To mitigate this, we have a number of processes in place: Code quality checks — Each code change is batched into a pull request and peer-reviewed. This often catches a majority of bugs and ensures the code meets our standards. Automated regression testing — We write automated tests that check if systems are acting according to expectations before code gets shipped. This includes standard unit/integration tests, simulating a user via an emulated browser, static application security testing, and other techniques. Manual testing — We often run manual checks in intermediary environments prior to a release to production. We also run beta testing in some cases with a subset of partners to ensure new functionality is working as expected. Production monitoring — Finally, in the worst-case scenario, if a bug sneaks into production we have monitoring and alerts set up. That way, we can notice something’s amiss proactively and send out a fix as quickly as possible.Community-based developmentIn the end, we’ve found that the most important part of our internal product development process is not the code, but the very human process of collaboration. Without that, decision-making is imbalanced — the bias of a limited perspective would lead us to invest too much or too little in some area. It’s the same thing with external product ideas. We know that our perspective is limited, and that it’s only in partnership with our community that we can most effectively equip MSPs on their road to success. So, we’d love to hear from you. Whether you're embarking on your journey with ScalePad or have been with us through many milestones, we’re all ears for your ideas. Let’s shape the future together. Submit product ideas here.