Skip to main content
featured-image

Quoter Product Update: October 2024

Quoter just released their October Product Update which includes recent product release updates, wins, and Partner impact. Delivered straight from the source – Ash, Quoter’s Senior Product Manager.  Our team has been busy in October making the Quoter product better.  Some highlights from this month’s release:Some highlights from this month’s release: Support for Bundles in our single-select Sections: Even more updates to our HaloPSA integration: Streamline ACH payments with Quoter + QuickBooks Online integration: Have your zero-value unit prices recognized in quotes as zero: Send quotes from your Android device with ease: Support for Bundles in our single-select Sections: This update allows you to package up hardware, software, or other services in Bundles and then provide those to the end customer within single-select Section options. It’s convenient for you and gives customers more flexibility to customize the deal. Even more updates to our HaloPSA integration: This month, we released an update that populates our Quote Line Item description on the corresponding Notes field of the line item on the Halo Quote. When there’s a match to an existing product in Halo, we’re following the same logic and using Quoter’s Line Item description as the source of truth for what we’re populating in the notes field of the Halo Quote’s line item. This provides more robust continuity between the Quoter and Halo Quotes. We’re working hard to get complete parity between the two Quotes — stay tuned. We’re now setting the income and expense accounts on new Halo products we create on push when we create a new product based on the Halo product group. We are now attaching the Quote PDF to the Halo Quote and Opportunity so you can access it in both locations to see exactly how it looks on the Quoter side of things. Streamline ACH payments with Quoter + QuickBooks Online integration: For our Partners utilizing the Quoter + QuickBooks Online (QBO) integration, we’re now recognizing ACH (Automated Clearing House) settings in QBO, so when an invoice is generated from Quoter, you won’t have to go in and modify the invoice in QBO to allow ACH payments. Instead, it will be created with ACH as the default setting. Have your zero-value unit prices recognized in quotes as zero:  CSV line item import tool now respects zeros on unit price, which means no more manual edits to those fields after the import is complete. We know this will save some valuable time for our Partners using our CSV Line Item Import tool. Send quotes from your Android device with ease: The mobile experience for our Partners who view and send Quotes from their Android devices wasn’t quite up to par — the responsiveness wasn’t ideal, and the experience could be better. This month’s mobile optimization release solves those minor workflow challenges, so it’s much easier to review and send Quotes while you’re on the go with your Android device.  Read the full article and learn more about October releases: https://www.quoter.com/quoter-product-update-october-2024/

Related products:Quoter
featured-image
featured-image

Connect Axcient and Backup Radar with a new API Integration

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. 

Related products:Backup Radar
featured-image

Cognition360 October 2024 Updated Reports

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. 

Related products:Cognition360
featured-image
featured-image

New Frameworks in ControlMap: NIST SP 800-171 R3, NIST SP 800-161r1, and ISO/IEC 42001

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.

Related products:ControlMap
featured-image
featured-image

Quoter Product Update: August 2024

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/

Related products:Quoter
featured-image
featured-image
featured-image
featured-image

ControlMap Adds New Audit Enhancements

 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. 

Related products:ControlMap
featured-image

Cognition360 July 2024 Updated Reports

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. 

Related products:Cognition360
featured-image
featured-image
featured-image
featured-image
featured-image
featured-image
featured-image

Announcing Client Engagement for Lifecycle Manager

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!

Related products:Lifecycle Manager
featured-image
featured-image
featured-image
featured-image
featured-image