Trending Report: The Essential MSP ToolkitMay 31, 2017

What all must you have as part of your MSP tool kit arsenal? If you have in the Managed Services Provider business and has been serving numerous clients for quite some time then you must be using numerous tools that enable you to provide easier and better management. Having numerous tools is fine are they serving the purpose? Are they easy to use? Are they enabling secure management? Are they providing value?

Toolkit Essentialities

As part of your toolkit you must ensure that you have at least:

1. 1. Remote Monitoring Management solution (RMM tools)
2. 2. Professional services automation solutions (PSA tools) (Service Desk)
3. 3. Patch Management

1. Remote Monitoring Management solution (RMM tools)

RMM tools are the basic, but powerful tool of any MSP. RMM (Remote monitoring and management) tools enable MSPs to monitor and manage endpoints of various types - computers, mobile devices, and networks — all of them remotely from a centralized console. RMM offers MSPs many advantages including improvement in workflow efficiency and better service quality. RMM enables MSPs to simultaneously track multiple clients and endpoints and monitor users' network and device status and health. This tool provides the latest data and activity at any point in time. The more efficient the RMM tool, the easier it would be for you to provide better service.

2. Professional Services Automation solutions (PSA tools)

The Service Desk is an important PSA tool. It is a ticket management system which enables organizations to implement robust and effective workflows for all departments, especially support departments that have to face both internal demands/issues and customer-facing demands/issues.

MSP administrators, as well as IT administrators of organizations/enterprises will find the ticketing management system as an unavoidable tool in their arsenal. This PSA tool enables administrators and help desk personnel to continuously keep track of tickets and attend to the tickets. They are able to assign and reassign them to appropriate department or organizations. This assists in generating reports, and integrating tasks into the tickets for better management. Generally, there are four types of Service Desks available, and you must choose one that best suits the business process. The four types are - local service desk, centralized service desk, virtual service desk, and follow the sun service.

3. Patch Management

In your organization, your IT infrastructure may include servers, desktops, laptops, smartphones and other mobile devices. And these involve operating systems and applications, for which updates (patches) are released by their developers/owners. Patches are released to fix bugs and prevent the exploit of any discovered vulnerabilities. A Patch Management tool helps acquire, test and install multiple patches in the enterprise systems. This tool periodically checks for the availability of any patches and initiates the patching process.

Handling all these without appropriate tools — RMM tools, Service Desk and Patch management tools — would be a very difficult task. As an MSP ensure that you have these tools in your arsenal.